Printers Row Lit Fest is 'like a family reunion' for authors and book fans

Thousands of book lovers converged at the 39th annual Printers Row Lit Fest on Saturday, buying books and engaging with their favorite writers while authors exchanged ideas and reconnected.

Friends and poets Natalie Staples and Kira Tucker already had several books in hand coming into the festival.

They had come to meet their “Britney Spears,” former National Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith.

Staples, who teaches at the Chicago Academy for the Arts in West Town, uses Smith’s “Wade In the Water” for some of her classes — and now has a signed copy to do so.

“I felt like I was meeting a president or Britney Spears,” Staples said moments after meeting Smith. “That was amazing, I’m still kind of processing it all. … She’s the poet I want to be.”

Tucker said the festival also served as a meeting ground for writers of all levels, and in turn, a place to bounce ideas off each other and take inspiration from each other’s work.

“Hearing what new artistic projects other artists and authors are up to brings me inspiration and fuels my own brainstorm for my own work,” Tucker said. “It’s almost like a family reunion in a way because I get to see so many writers I know or people whose work I admire and catch up with those I haven’t seen in a while.”

Some said they would be returning Sunday to attend a panel featuring author Faylita Hicks.

Staples said the fest inspires hope for those who have seen the literary arts get defunded in some educational institutions.

“Especially when it feels like funding is flying out the doors in a lot of places, we need community and places to gather,” Staples said.

Corey Hall, a veteran of the Near South Planning Board's festival, has attended the event every year since 2009.

He’s also an English professor at Kennedy-King College and the creator of “Expressions from Englewood” — a collection of personal essays, poems and other written work from his students about their experiences in the neighborhood.

Hall spoke about the nine books on his table with encyclopedic knowledge, remembering which stories were written by students who have gone on to become nurses and pursue other professions, though he said he’s always excited to help them add “published author” to their resumés.

“You got the grade, how about getting published?” he said he tells his students who are surprised at his offer to get them published.

Hall said he funds the project through the book series’ sales — and his credit card — to ensure that budget cuts for extracurricular activities aren’t a barrier for his authors.

He has a background in journalism, and he said he wanted to help uplift the voices of those in the neighborhood that usually get drowned out by crime coverage.

“Ninety-nine times out of 100, if Englewood comes up, you know what they’re going to say,” Hall said. “And there are stories about violence, it happens everywhere. … It’s just to give a different view of Englewood, not to put blinders on anything. There are a lot of good people and good stories from this community.”

Hall said the "Expressions from Englewood" series’ 10th book will be published by the end of January. A website is also in the works.

Near Hall’s table, Jenine Snyder and partner John Pollard strolled through the festival with Snyder’s sister and nephews.

Pollard, a first-time attendee, said he was looking forward to attending the “Defending Free Inquiry on Campus” panel Sunday night, as well as some others that relate to the history doctoral dissertation he’s writing at Northwestern. Another event features local author Rebecca Makkai, who has written about Chicago during the AIDS epidemic. She is slated to discuss Crystal Hana Kim's novel "The Stone Home."

Snyder said she attends most years, usually gravitating toward romance novels, and had already picked up a book for her dad by midday Saturday. She said it’s easy to find what she's looking for when surrounded by literature and the people who create it.

“I feel like you find books you wouldn’t otherwise just by chatting with the authors,” Snyder said. “We’re gonna have to walk back around without the [kids] to look at the boring grown-up books.”

Printers Row Lit Fest continues Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on South Dearborn Street between Ida B. Wells Drive and Polk Street.