Adult

the overturning anthology | erratics press

Before and after the pivotal Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022, Christine Maul Rice, founder and editor of Hypertext Magazine, saw an influx of submissions expressing literary outrage. Fiction and nonfiction writers, and poets, were clamoring to be heard above the din of attempts to overturn progressive movements in US America and return us to a time of normalized hate, misogyny, and injustice. Chris realized the time was ripe for a collective literary response in the form of an anthology: The Overturning. Chris then invited Ignatius Valentine Aloysius, host of Sunday Salon Chicago, and Virginia Bell, Editor of RHINO Poetry, to help recruit submissions from disparate communities and across genres. All of our organizations are based in the greater Chicago area.

We were excited and charged by the possibility of this ambitious and unique collection, and began to move forward with our combined energies, talents, and connections. Bringing this idea to fruition—what you now hold in your hands—means that we refuse the alarming U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe vs Wade, but also so much more.

The Dobbs decision has returned us to the past, and lines of decency, tolerance, and understanding have been broken—no, erased! Women are fighting for bodily autonomy again, when much more is also being (or has been) overturned in recent years, from the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and DEIB initiatives to the abandoning of ecological care. The Overturning 7 is a direct literary response to this intersectional crisis. As writers and editors, we cannot sit back and do nothing while the spirit of America bleeds out.

Our hope is that, as you read this anthology, you’ll find yourself stimulated by the moral currency of truth, heartache, and courage visible in this creative endeavor, but also one of understanding. Determination propels these authors’ words and experiences, awakening us to the spirit of 8 agency—that women have a right to decide what’s right for their bodies and that any governmental intervention for such a primary human concern is a lit matchstick which sets the house of fire. Through these narratives, we hope you’ll be transported along with us to a place of wellness. We are all inspired!

growing up chicago | northwestern university press

A collection of coming-of-age stories that reflects the diversity of the city and its metropolitan area. Primarily memoir, the book collects work by writers who spent their formative years in the region to ask: What characterizes a Chicago author? Is it a certain feel to the writer's language? A narrative sensibility? The mention of certain neighborhoods or locales? While the authors represented here write from distinct local experiences, some universals emerge, including the abiding influence of family and friends and the self-realizations earned against the background of a place sparkling with promise and riven by inequality, a place in constant flux.

The stories evoke childhood trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, nighttime games of ringolevio, and the giant neon Magikist lips that once perched over the expressway, sharing perspectives that range from a young man who dreams of becoming an artist to a single mother revisiting her Mexican roots, from a woman's experience with sexual assault to a child's foray into white supremacy. This book memorably explores culture, social identity, and personal growth through the eyes of Chicagoans, affirming that we each hold the ability to shape the places in which we live and write and read as much as those places shape us.

“A literary guide to the soul of this great, burly place.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, from the foreword
“An entertaining and touching tumble of sexual awakenings, identity quests, dangerous liaisons, early sorrows, boundary crossings, and 16-inch softball. There’s a different Chicago in each piece—the city serves as witness, backdrop, companion, solace. This ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse collection takes us to a snowy Chicago alley, a suburban living room, Catholic school, playgrounds and fields, buses and subways, the Art Institute, and a gas station in its explorations of the private and dramatic world of childhood and adolescence. This accomplished collection reminds us that childhood is never safe, but it is also wondrous and raw.” —S.L. Wisenberg, author of The Adventures of Cancer Bitch