The Chicago Reader BOOK CLUB

Mikki Kendall Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women That a Movement Forgot

Book Club Month:

October 20

Author Talk: 10/22/2020

Sonali Dev Recipe for Persuasion

November 20 11/19/2020

Riva Lehrer Golem Girl

December 20 12/17/2020

Emil Ferris My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

January 21 1/28/2021

Eve Ewing 1919

February 21 2/25/2021

Nnedi Okorafor Remote Control

March 21 3/25/2021

Presented by:

Natalie Moore The South Side

April 21 4/22/2021

Rebecca Makkai The Great Believers

May 21 5/27/2021

Fatimah Asghar If They Come for Us

June 21 6/24/2021

Kayla Ancrum Darling

July 21 7/22/2021

Jessica Hopper (TBD)

August 21 8/26/2021

Precious BradyDavis I Have Always Been Me: A Memoir

September 21 9/23/2021

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Book Club Month

January 21

Author Talk 1/28/2021

Emil Ferris is a graphic novelist whose first book, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, has been praised by critics since its publication in 2017. Her book—which presents itself as the lined notebook diary of a preteen self-avowed werewolf who questions her sexual identity— is set in Chicago in the 1960s.

The book is autobiographically infused, as Ferris—like her protagonist Karen Reyes—was witness to the highly-charged political and social climate of that time.

The main character’s obsession with B-movies of the Hammer and Universal varieties and EC horror magazines is evident. Journalists have noted how the book parallels themes of monstrosity and “otherness.”

Not only are EC-inspired horror comic covers recreated in ballpoint pen by Ferris’s protagonist, but so are many significant paintings that hang in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Ferris was profoundly shaped by the world-renowned collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. She sites art-making as being critically important to her survival of childhood disability as well as subsequent physical challenges.

Hence, the story of the graphic novel’s production is nearly as interesting as the book itself.

In 2002, at 40 years of age, Ferris was bitten by a mosquito and infected with West Nile virus. She suffered lower body paralysis as well as the substantially diminished use of her dominant drawing hand.

Consequently Ferris enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and during her student years was introduced to such graphic novels as Maus, Jimmy Corrigan, Persepolis, and Fun Home

While studying, Ferris recovered enough of her drawing ability to create her graphic novel. She le SAIC with a bachelors in art, a graduate degree from the writing program, as well as the first 24 pages of what would later become My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

My Favorite Thing is Monsters has now been published in nine languages and has been honored with numerous awards, among them the Lambda Literary Award, multiple Eisners, the Ignatz, and the Fauve d’Or at the Angoulême Festival in France.

Ferris has exhibited her art extensively in the U.S. and Europe and was most recently honored to teach classes at the Louvre.

Coya Paz is a writer, director, and lip gloss connoisseur who was raised in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and the United States. She is the Artistic Director of Free Street Theater, a cofounder of the Proyecto Latina collective, and served as the founding co-Artistic Director of Teatro Luna for nine years. Coya is an Associate Professor in The Theatre School at DePaul University and holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. She is a regular commentator on race, politics, and pop culture for Vocalo.org, and the co-author (with Chloe Johnston) of Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide to Devised Theater. Above all, she believes in the power of poetry and performance to build community towards social change. Visit her on the web at coyapaz.com

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