Bringing History to Life
with Jonathan Eig
Tuesday, January 13th at 7PM
Jonathan Eig is the bestselling author of six books, including his most recent, Pulitzer Prize-winning King: A Life. Vividly written and exhaustively researched, it is the first major biography in decades of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.―and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, Eig gives us an intimate view of King, who masterfully employed peaceful protest in the streets but was rarely at peace with himself. From the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father―as well as the nation’s most mourned martyr.
Eig began his writing career at age 16, working for his hometown newspaper, The Rockland County Journal News (N.Y.). He studied journalism at Northwestern University, and went on to work as a reporter for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, The Dallas Morning News, Chicago Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.
According to his parents, his greatest claim to fame is that his name once appeared in a Jeopardy! question. Eig lives in Chicago with his wife and children and shares office space with the laundry machines.
Mark Bazer will join Jonathan in conversation. The host of The Interview Show, Bazer also frequently moderates events for Chicago Humanities and is a contributing writer for Chicago magazine.
Register for this virtual event at:
https://bit.ly/ILPJonathanEig
Still Afraid of the Dark:
An Evening with R.L. Stine
Tuesday, February 24th at 7PM
Witty, creepy, and compulsively readable, bestselling author R.L. Stine defined horror for a generation of young readers. The generation that grew up with the Goosebumps franchise may be grown, but Stine keeps finding ways to keep us afraid of the dark! Join us with The Guinness Book of World Records’ “most prolific author of children’s horror novels,” R.L. Stine, to discuss his illustrious and still-expanding body of work.
Best known for the Goosebumps and Fear Street series (and their respective TV and movie adaptations), R.L. Stine has sold over 400 million books worldwide in 35 languages. His recent and upcoming works include The Last Sleepover, which is the fifth installment in the Goosebumps: House of Shivers series; The Graveyard Club, a YA graphic novel illustrated by Carola Borelli; multiple Fear Street movies, including Fear Street: Prom Queen; and Goosebumps: The Vanishing, the second season of the Goosebumps reboot TV series.
Becky Spratford, acclaimed horror maven and editor of Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature, will join R.L. Stine in conversation.
Register for this virtual event at:
Beyond the Page
with Percival Everett
Thursday, March 19th @ 7PM
Industrious, irreverent, humble–though he may deny the accusation–Percival Everett, like his fiction, defies categorization. His most recent novel, James, earned both the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the National Book Award, and his 2001 novel Erasure inspired the film American Fiction, which received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2024.
Register for this virtual event at:
https://bit.ly/ILPPercivalEverett
Everett’s other titles include Dr. No, The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. Despite these accomplishments, he remains devoted to reviewing his own work critically, and indeed his writing process involves intensive research and revision. Tune in for our conversation with Percival Everett to get a glimpse beyond the page.
Brandis Friedman will moderate the event. Friedman is a writer and anchor for WTTW’s Chicago Tonight and Chicago Tonight: Black Voices, and also serves as a champion for libraries.
This event is intended for adults.
A collaborative effort featuring virtual events with bestselling and award-winning authors and esteemed speakers.
This event is made possible by Illinois Libraries Present (ILP), a statewide collaboration among public libraries offering premier events. ILP is funded in part by a grant awarded by the Illinois State Library, a department of the Office of Secretary of State, using funds provided by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).
ILP is committed to inclusion and accessibility. American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and Closed Captioning are provided for all events by default—no special request needed.
If a patron needs accommodations not listed, the member library should email illinoislibrariespresent@ila.org.
