Friday 10/8 – Thursday 10/14
Authors Ana Castillo and Dorothy Allison team up tonight to kick off this weekend’s Women Writers Conference, called “A Place in Mind: Women Redefining Voice and Vision.” But the real draw may be tomorrow at 3, when “participants will learn how to wield their menstrual cycle as an implement of creative self-empowerment” at Sharon Powell’s workshop “Women’s Bodies Politic: Periods, Poetry, and Power.” The reading with Castillo and Allison is at 7 at Curtiss Hall in the Fine Arts Building, 410 S. Michigan. Admission is $10, $7 for students and seniors. The conference continues tomorrow and Sunday at Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan. Admission to the whole thing is $50, $40 for students and seniors; the cost to attend individual workshops and panels ranges from $5 to $20. Call 773-296-1108, ext. 18, to register.
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A few blocks away at 57th Street Books, father and daughter writers Patrick and Franny Billingsly will present their very different books. Dad’s Convergence of Probability Measures (second edition) is about probability limit theory in metric spaces. The newest tome by Franny, a former 57th Street book buyer, is a fanciful teen novel called The Folk Keeper. The pair will talk today at 3 at the bookstore, 1301 E. 57th (773-684-1300). It’s free.
13 WEDNESDAY In 1924 the first gay-rights organization in the country was founded here, says activist Marie Kuda, who will speak on Chicago’s Gay and Lesbian History: From the Fire to the Flood tonight as part of National Lesbian and Gay History Month. She’ll point out how Chicago’s ground-breaking status in the area of gay rights continues today in many forms, one of which is the annual Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame ceremony honoring those who have added to the stature and prestige of the city. Kuda will begin her talk at 7 at the Oak Park Public Library, 834 W. Lake, Oak Park (708-383-8200). It’s free.
