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NO. 336 | A JWC MEDIA PUBLICATION
DANDY DEBUT
NEWS
COMMIT TO LIT LAKE FOREST COLLEGE’S ANNUAL LITERARY FESTIVAL FEATURES AWARD-WINNING IRISH AUTHOR RODDY DOYLE, AMONG OTHER POETS AND WRITERS EDITED BY SHERRY THOMAS THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND
St. Patrick’s Day may be over but one of Ireland’s most famous contemporary writers will be in town this week for Lake Forest College’s annual literary festival. Roddy Doyle, award-winning author of The Commitments and The Snapper (both made into popular films in the early 1990s), is one of several writers, artists, and filmmakers to participate in the free event, which runs from March 25 through March 29. E’mon Lauren, Chicago’s first Youth Poet Laureate, kicks off the evening at 4 p.m. with a reading in the Lillard Science Center. A 2016 finalist for The Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, her first chapbook, Commando, was published by Haymarket Books in fall 2017. Doyle—author of 11 novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories—is scheduled to read at 7 p.m. in Lillard’s McCormick Auditorium. A play based on his 2012 book, Two Pints, is currently running at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Continued on PG 14
HPHS FRESHMAN ILYA MONDROWSKI STRIKES GOLD AT HIS FIRST ICE DANCE NATIONALS BY BILL MCLEAN THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND
Ilya Mondrowski had to pick a famous person and sketch him or her. That was the assignment last year for his art class at Edgewood Middle School in Highland Park. Mondrowski, an eighth-grader then, did not need much time to come up with a famous person. He and his family had recently visited the Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis. Last name unnecessary. Mondrowski chose Elvis. A pencil-wielding Mondrowski sketched Elvis, using a photo of the late, iconic singer as a guide. He turned it in late. A week late, to be exact. “I didn’t want to turn it in when it was due,” Mondrowski, now a Highland Park High School freshman, explains. “The sweater Elvis was wearing in the photo was hard to draw. It had a lot of details. “I needed more time to get it right.” The perfectionist in Mondrowski refused to settle for something very good. Perfectionists never, ever accept “very good” when “excellent” is attainable. Mondrowski received an A-minus for his artwork—the minus added due to its tardiness, and only its tardiness. Mondrowski, 14, pays attention to details on ice, too. He and his 12-year-old pairs partner, Bolingbrook resident Kiana Pan, showed up on time on January 20 and aced the major test—the free dance segment in the Juvenile Ice Dance division—at the United States Figure Skating (USFS) National Championships in Detroit. In fifth place against 11 other pairs after the first segment (waltz) and in second place after topping the field in the second segment (tango), Mondrowski-Pan put on quite a show in the free dance, wowing and bedazzling the judges and the spectators and the NBC Sports webcast viewers back home. The pair captured gold—by two points. A two-point margin in ice dancing? That’s a wide one, a 28-point victory in football, an 80-60 triumph in basketball.
Ilya Mondrowski PHOTOGRAPHY BY MONICA KASS ROGERS
“That was the cleanest I’d ever seen them skate,” Ilya’s father, Steve Mondrowski, says of the youngsters’ free-dance routine to a song from the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory soundtrack. “It was stunning, beautiful.”
About the pair’s choice of music… “We picked it because Kiana and I,” Ilya says,” both like candy.” Continued on PG 12
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