Free author Event February 7 at 7pm

C.P. Chang, Kim Morris and Andrew Reilly will be at After-Words books on February 7, 2013 at 7 pm doing free readings and signing copies of their anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck Stories from 2nd Story (paperback, 9780984670062, $20.00). Reception following the readings.

Since early man carved bison and spears on cave walls, humankind has been telling stories. Today, short personal essays are a mainstay on the airways, the web, and in theaters and bars across the country. This anthology brings the vibrant oral tradition to the page through the work of 2nd Story, a Chicago-based collective of story-makers and story-lovers working to build community through storytelling. We culled through
ten years of archived performances to select the twenty-three essays presented in this collection. Each was adapted from the stage to the page.

The twenty-three authors in this anthology cover a wide range of topics and emotions: we've got race relations in Roger's Park, teaching kids about Dr. King, a gay man falling in love with a high school girl in Godspell, sex clubs in Amsterdam, murder in Rockford, death at Sea World Ohio, shower dances with drag queens, Xena Warrior princess, kiss-off letter to major universities, Sam Weller getting propositioned by a porn star two weeks after his wedding, fairies appearing in backyards, a guy trying to replicate Thoreau's Walden cabin in his backyard, chaos at The United Skates of America, slaying the great dragon of addiction, a Korean girl realizing her identity as she puts on eye shadow for the first time, and the life and death nature of teaching creative writing.

C.P. Chang, a company member of 2nd Story, is a writer and software consultant. He received his M.F.A in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago and was formerly an Associate Producer for Elephant Rock Productions. He is blessed to be married to Jessica Young, a teacher, performer, and writer.

Kim Morris is a writer, performer, storyteller, and editor. Check out Power Love for more: www.power-love.blogspot.com.

Andrew Reilly is 2nd Story’s Director of Publishing. His journalism, essays, photography, and fiction have appeared in a number of fine publications including ALARM, The A.V. Club, and Norman Einstein’s SPorts & Rocket Science Quarterly, among others. Visit him online at andrewreilly.org or in person in Chicago.

After-Words Books is located at 23 East Illinois Street in Chicago, IL.
For more information, please contact: Beverly Dvorkin, After-Words Books 312-464-1110

Lore at the Music Box from The Dark Room by Rachel Sieffert

Music Box Films release of LORE, a powerful examination of the legacy of World War II on ordinary Germans--both survivors of the war and the generations that succeeded them. Left to fend for herself when her SS officer father and mother, a staunch Nazi believer, are captured by the victorious Allies at the end of World War II, Lore, a fourteen-year-old German girl (striking newcomer Saskia Rosendahl,) must lead her four siblings on a harrowing journey across a devastated country. When she meets the charismatic and mysterious young refugee Thomas, (Kai Malina, The White Ribbon,) Lore soon finds her world shattered by feelings of hatred and desire as she must put her trust in the very person she was always taught to hate in order to survive.

LORE was adapted from award-winning author Rachel Seiffert’s novel THE DARK ROOM (Booker Prize finalist), that is based on her mother's experiences as a young girl raised in a Nazi household.

The film will be in opening at The Music Box Theatre in Chicago on February 15th.

LORE is the second film from Australian writer/director Cate Shortland (Somersault), and is Australia's official selection for the 2012 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

For more details you can visit The Music Box:

Suspension Notice

PLEASE REMEMBER WE WILL NOT BUY BOOKS FOR CASH OR CREDIT THE MONTH OF JANUARY

Cash book buys will be SUSPENDED after December 20. We will be buying books for credit through December 31. (Yes, you can buy books from us, but we cannot buy them from you.) We will be CLOSED for INVENTORY on Sunday, February 10, 2013 We will resume buying books for CREDIT on February 11 and for CASH on February 14.

Holiday Hours and Suspension Notice

Our Holiday Hours this year are:

Christmas Eve: 10:30 am to 8 pm
Christmas Day: CLOSED
New Year's Eve: 10:30 am to 10 pm
New Year's Day: CLOSED

PLEASE REMEMBER WE WILL NOT BUY BOOKS FOR CASH OR CREDIT THE MONTH OF JANUARY

Cash book buys will be SUSPENDED after December 20. We will be buying books for credit through December 31. (Yes, you can buy books from us, but we cannot buy them from you.) We will be CLOSED for INVENTORY on Sunday, February 10, 2013 We will resume buying books for CREDIT on February 11 and for CASH on February 14.

Apply to be a World Book Night book giver!

Apply now so you can be part of this great campaign to give free books to light or non-readers on April 23, 2013, Shakespeare’s birthday. Please apply now at www.worldbooknight.org. We at after-words will be a World Book Night participating bookstore, so we hope you’ll apply to be a giver soon.

2012 Blues Before Sunrise Film Festival

Sunday December 2, 2012 - Free Admission

Steve Cushing, Blues Before Sunris, WDCB, Jazz Record Mart & Delmark Records invite you to Steve's Pre-Christmas film party. The screening will be held here, at after-words bookstore. Films start at noon. Jazz Record Mart will be open special extended Sunday Hours for BBS fans, 11:30 am to 6:30 pm.

See early jazz short films from the 30s, 40s and 50s. Includes work by Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Helen Humes, Ethel Waters, Mahalia Jackson, Lena Horne, Bessie Smith and many, many more.

Signing for Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows November 29, 6:30 p.m.

Richard Cahan and Michael Williams will be at After-Words books on November 29, 2012, starting at 6:30 p.m., talking about and signing copies of their book, Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows (Cityfiles Press, $60, Hardback). Wine and nibbles provided. Vivian Maier, known as “the nanny photographer,” became an internet sensation after her work was put online soon after her death in 2009. Since then, Maier’s work has been shown throughout Europe and in major cities across the United States. Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows is the first book that tells her life store in pictures and words. To better understand Maier, authors Richard Cahan and Michael Williams studied census records, ship manifests and interviewed every person they could find who knew Maier, from her childhood days in the French Alps to the families whose children she cared for. They combined this biographical information, much of it unreported, with more than 300 photographs that she took starting in 1949 to create the first comprehensive record of her life story—in words and pictures. This book is based on the largely unseen collection of about 18,000 Maier negatives, owned by Jeffrey Goldstein of Chicago. This is the first time Maier’s life story has been paired with her photographs so that readers can understand the woman and the work that went viral soon after her pictures went online. This book presents her in a new light by showing more personal photographs. The book Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows is the eighth by the award-winning team of Richard Cahan and Michael Williams. They are the coauthors of Richard Nickel’s Chicago and Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home. Other titles can be found cityfilespress.com.