I already published a post earlier this week letting you know that to help celebrate the return of Printers Row Lit Fest this year Seeing Eye dog Luna and I will be sitting in front of Sandmeyer’s, our favorite local bookstore at 1:00 p.m. today (Saturday) signing books alongside Regan Burke, author of In That Number, (Tortoise Books, 2020). So my plan for this morning was to write and publish an ode to the return of our beloved book festival.
The view on Friday night in 2018, with everything ready to go.
But then Brian Hieggelke, editor of New City Chicago, published a love letter to Printers Row Lit Fest a few days ago that reflected my own sentiments about the annual festival so beautifully that I thought, well, why Bother?
Some back story: Newcity Today is such a well-written and well -organized daily reminder of all cool things going on in Chicago that I subscribe and donate to the newsletter. If you have any interest in Chicago arts, artists, architecture, theater, culture, museums, dining, drinking, film, media, television, music, literature, or festivals I encourage you to subscribe and/or make a donation to Newcity Chicago publications too.
But back to Brian Hieggelke. I enjoyed his love letter to the annual book fair so much that I contacted him to ask if he’d allow me to share that letter here. lucky for you loyal Safe & Sound blog readers, he said yes! Thank you Brian, and here’s that Newcity Today letter from the edition he published earlier this week:
Every day we report on the return of another cultural event, to the point where it starts becoming normal rather than news. But I am personally excited by the return of Printers Row Lit Fest this weekend (see Cultural News below for details), as we’ve grown up together—both Newcity and the book fair started within a year of each other in the South Loop. Over the years we’ve been involved with the event in too many ways to list here, and have become friends, not only with many of the writers who will be speaking, but with just about everyone connected to it.
We live and work right above it, so we have a relationship with the fair that is quite tangible. We awaken in the morning to the bustle of booksellers setting up their booths, listen all day long to the din of the crowd blended with the music of children’s or other cultural programming and finish our weekend listening to the clanking of the crews breaking down the booths into the night as they pack them away for next year. See you (and hear you) Saturday!
Brian Hieggelke
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