On NEWCITY MAGAZINE’s LIT50 list for “Who really books in Chicago, 2025”
Sunday Salon Chicago
Celebrating 22 years, Sunday Salon Chicago is the city’s premier curated literary reading event series. Our monthly readings are always FREE, and we’re glad to be hosting authors from near and far, both in-person at Roscoe Books and on Zoom alternatively. There are no readings in December.
Thank you so much for your support in these hard times!
Yrs,
Ignatius Valentine Aloysius
Host & Curator
Our next reading takes place on March 29, 2026 at Roscoe Books at 7 pm and features
Elise Paschen
Melissa Fraterrigo
Eileen Favorite
Judith Valente
Tim Hillegonds
Elise Paschen,
enrolled member of the Osage Nation, is the author of Blood Wolf Moon, Tallchief, The Nightlife, Bestiary, Infidelities (winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize), and Houses: Coasts. As an undergraduate at Harvard, she received the Garrison Medal for poetry. She holds M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees from Oxford University. Her poems have been published widely, including Poetry Magazine, The New Yorker, A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry and The Best American Poetry. She has edited or co-edited numerous anthologies, including The Eloquent Poem and The New York Times best-seller, Poetry Speaks. A co-founder of Poetry in Motion, Dr. Paschen teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
www.elisepaschen.com
Instagram: @epaschen
Twitter: @ElisePaschen
FB: Elise Paschen
Photo by Beowulf
Melissa Fraterrigo
Melissa is the executive director of the Lafayette Writer’s Studio in Lafayette, Indiana, and teaches at Purdue University. She is also the author of the novel Glory Days (University of Nebraska Press) and the short story collection, The Longest Pregnancy (Livingston Press.) She lives with her husband and two daughters in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Photo: Jenny Modesett
www.melissafraterrigo.com
facebook.com/melissa.fraterrigo
Twitter: @melissafraterrigo
Instagram: @melissafraterrigo
Eileen Favorite
Eileen’s first novel, The Heroines (Scribner), has been translated into five languages. Her essays, poems, and stories have appeared in many publications, including The Manifest-Station, The Toast, Triquarterly, The Chicago Tribune, New City, The Rumpus, Chicago Magazine, Essay Daily, Hypertext, Diagram, and others. Her essay, “On Aerial Views,” was a Notable Essay in the Best American Essays 2020, and it won the 2019 Best Essay award from The Midwest Review. She was named a 2021 Illinois Arts Council Awardee for nonfiction. She teaches writing and literature classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her lectures and opinions on the subject, Love the Art, Hate the Artist have been featured in the Chicago Tribune, TEDx Wrigleyville, The Wall Street Journal, WGN Chicago, WBEZ, and The New Yorker.
www.eileenfavorite.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eileen.favorite
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eileenfavorite/
Judith Valente
Judith is a former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and also worked as an on-air correspondent for national PBS-TV and Chicago Public Radio. She is the author of six non-fiction books, including, most recently, The Italian Soul: How to Savor the Full Joys of Life and two full-length poetry collections, How to Be a Contemplative and Discovering Moons. Her chapbook Inventing An Alphabet was chosen by Mary Oliver for the 2005 Aldrich Poetry Prize. She spent much of her career in Chicago and now splits her time between Normal IL and Abruzzo, Italy. She sees writing poetry as a way of making sense of the world and her place in it.
www.judithvalente.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/judithvalente.10/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/judithvalente_author/
Tim Hillegonds
Tim Hillegonds is the author of And You Will Call It Fate, A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, March 3, 2026) and The Distance Between: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Tim’s work has appeared in The Guardian, the Chicago Tribune, Salon, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. He serves as a contributing editor for Slag Glass City, a digital journal of the urban essay arts. Hillegonds lives, works, and writes in Chicago.
www.timhillegonds.com
“Whether this earth comes to an end or not, we’ll slog over this endless road.”
— Mahmoud Darwish
*** Testimonials ***
Gratitude!
I just wanted to express my deep gratitude for creating space for all of us to share words with each other and with such an engaged audience. To my fellow readers: it was truly a pleasure to hear all of you read, and I look forward to meeting up in real life in the not too distant future.
— Daniel Tam-Claiborne, author
So lovely!
Hi Ignatius, hope you’re well! I just wanted to say a huge thank you to you for the wonderful Sunday gathering. It was so lovely to be in brief community with you and my fellow readers.
Wishing you the best.
— Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo, author
Inspiring!
What an inspiring and reassuring night. Thank you so much for including me.
Yours,
— Rachel DeWoskin, author
Sunday Salon Chicago 