We’re finally recovered from an Independent Bookstore Day that saw—we’d guess—500+ people come through our tiny store! Our shelves are (somewhat) restocked, and we’re still (always?) working through piles of new books, so please come by and see what’s new.

Speaking of new: We’ve been threatening to hold creative writing classes for almost the entire time we’ve been open, and we’re finally ready to start!

Writing Workout is a generative class designed to help you postpone other responsibilities, put down your phone, and get some words on the page. Each week, we’ll do an hour of 10-minute, prompt-based “sprints,” followed by discussion and reading of the drafts we produce.

The class is open to writers at all levels and in all genres, but prompts will primarily be oriented toward narrative. If you’re a poet who can make that work—or would be content to ignore prompts and do your own thing—we’d love to have you. (Poetry-specific programming is coming soonish, probably in the fall!)

This summer, we’re running two 6-week series on Monday nights, 6/1-7/13 (no class on 6/8) and 7/27-8/31. It’s a drop-in situation, so please come to as many or as few sessions as you like. (Prompts won’t repeat during the first six weeks, but they might during the second.)

Oh, and your host for all this is our own Kate Harding.

Writing Workout is $25 per class, $18 for those on a limited budget, or $30 if you want to contribute a bit extra toward our educational programming costs. Sign up for the first session here, or any of the others on our events page.

Please note the date change! Kate will be out of town on the originally scheduled date of June 9.

Ha Jin’s Looking for Tank Man follows a Chinese Harvard graduate student who realizes for the first time that she’s been lied to all her life about the Tiananmen Square massacre. As she begins to research the real story behind the 1989 protests, she discovers surprising truths about her own family, as well as her motherland. We can’t wait to talk about this one with you on Tuesday, June 16, at 6:30 p.m.

Rogers Park author Lucido-Johnson launched this book late last year (you might recall her fun postcard event at the library), and we absolutely love its message about expanding “family” to include more than blood relations. The book is full of compassionate wisdom and Sophie’s lovely illustrations, and we’re really excited to talk about it on Wednesday, July 1, at 6:30 p.m.

Okay, that’s enough out of us! We hope you’re doing as well as possible, and that you’ll come in soon.

-Kate & Michael