Vending at @wreathlc ‘s spring fling was an enormous success. Check out this lovely little magazine because she packs a punch! And if you know more about any local markets in need of booksellers, please let this man know! He’s bearded but harmless, and the collective market model has been a resounding success

We got a little Indie Bookstore Day this year. As a treat. Most excited to get to @heavenlygrandpa ‘s newspaper tho! Wowee!

Buy busy days. But before I get another 24 hours to forget, I had better post a sincere thank you to @theunderstudychi and @subtle.s.tori.es for having me out in March to help out at a writer’s workshop on writing and memory. Thank you all for attending and keep an eye out for the next one. Tori Rego always hosts the richest and most fulfilling classrooms

L’Esprit, After Hours Th. 4/30 6:30 Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave, Chicago L’Esprit [ @lesprit_literary_review ] was founded in February 2022, the centenary month of the publication of Ulysses. The journal was thus born in celebration of the literary revolution of consciousness represented by High Modernism, and seeks to publish work in that spirit. For After Hours L’Esprit has curated a stacked roster of Chicago writers: Joyce Goldenstern is the author of the novel IN THEIR RUIN (Black Heron Press 2024) Allison Elizabeth [ @allicakes608 ] is a Chicago based writer, actress, and caffeine addict. You can check out her work in Milwaukee Avenue Messenger’s Winter 2026 issue, and JELLizine vol. 3: Articulate. Allison is a prose reader for L’Esprit Literary Review, and a blog writer for the JELLiblog. Devyn Andrews [ @slugrug_ ] is a graduate of the University of Illinois-Chicago Program for Writers. Her work has been published in Chicago Review of Books, Cutthroat, Memezine, and elsewhere. Previously, she lived in Boston and Sacramento. Rachel León [ @rachellayown ] is a writer, editor, and social worker, who serves as Managing Director for Chicago Review of Books. Her debut novel, How We See the Gray, is forthcoming in May from Curbstone Books. After Hours is a production of Taylor Thornburg [ @midwesttaylor ] in partnership with Quimby’s! –.- ..- .. — -… -.– .—-. … Pay what you can afford in person or via Venmo. Suggested: $10 / split with the readers Venmo: @quimbysbookstore Please include “After Hours” in the note! –.- ..- .. — -… -.– .—-. … Quimby’s Bookstore Books Zines Comics ~ ~ Since 1991 ~ ~ 1854 W. North Ch-IL Open everyday 12-6 /////////////////////////////////////

Genre: Contemporary Romance (contemporary relationships) Agathe, 6:00 p.m. to 7:27 is Taylor N. Thornburg‘s first novel. He is an author and essayist based in Chicago, Illinois. His fiction explores strange yet humane ways of being. His fiction can be found in The Garfield Lake Review, L’Esprit Literary Review, Thirteenth Floor Magazine, Valley Voices, The Heartwood Literary Review, Disco Kitchen, and elsewhere. “A woman comes home to an empty house and a letter on the kitchen table. Her partner is gone. He isn’t coming back. Reeling, she regresses memory by memory to the day they met and progresses memory by memory to the present day looking for fault, deceit, and the truth, if the truth is to be found at all, between the jagged edges of love and heartache. From here to there and back again, she resurrects car crashes, bar fights, torrid affairs, phantoms from the past, and visions of the future. All of it Agathe. All of it 6:00 p.m. to 7:27.” Ebooks available from Kobo and the publisher. Physical books available at: www.losttelegrampress.ca #taylorthornburg #losttelegrampress #agathe6pmto727 #alicemunro #canadiansmallpress

See if you can spot Taylor in this reel. Author of Agathe, 6:00 p.m. to 7:27, Taylor Thornburg is based in Chicago and his contemporary romance is available in softcover from www.losttelegrampress.ca Ebooks are also available from Kobo and the publisher. #taylorthornburg #losttelegrampress #contemporaryromance #agathe6pmto727 #indiepublishing

Genre: Contemporary Romance (contemporary relationships) Agathe, 6:00 p.m. to 7:27 is Taylor N. Thornburg‘s first novel. He is an author and essayist based in Chicago, Illinois. His fiction explores strange yet humane ways of being. His fiction can be found in The Garfield Lake Review, L’Esprit Literary Review, Thirteenth Floor Magazine, Valley Voices, The Heartwood Literary Review, Disco Kitchen, and elsewhere. “A woman comes home to an empty house and a letter on the kitchen table. Her partner is gone. He isn’t coming back. Reeling, she regresses memory by memory to the day they met and progresses memory by memory to the present day looking for fault, deceit, and the truth, if the truth is to be found at all, between the jagged edges of love and heartache. From here to there and back again, she resurrects car crashes, bar fights, torrid affairs, phantoms from the past, and visions of the future. All of it Agathe. All of it 6:00 p.m. to 7:27.” Ebooks available from Kobo and the publisher. Physical books available at: www.losttelegrampress.ca #taylorthornburg #losttelegrampress #agathe6pmto727 #alicemunro #canadiansmallpress

After Hours with Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine Th. 3/26 6:30 RSVP at our link in bio Sabr Tooth Tiger seeks to unearth the fierce beauty of patience (sabr), the pulse of the body (tooth) and the courage of the spirit (tiger). We are searching for the bridge between the animal and the divine. Save the Night Chicago will require and provide KN95/N95 masks and Clean Air Clubs will provide HEPA air filtration and livestreaming equipment to make this event more accessible to all. Reading for Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine: Phoebe Nerem is a creative writer and visual artist torn between beauty and terror. Their work explores queerness, feeling crazy, and having a romantic fascination with fire. Their artistic and written work has been featured in numerous publications, including Get Back To Print’s “Luminous Beings Are We” and Emotional Alchemy’s “Sex, Love, and Other Magic.” kieran fu (they/them) is an east coaster turned chicagoan who thrives outside boxes. a certified nostalgic and double cancer sign, they write about the murky waters surrounding love and belonging. they are the author of the poetry collection tidal breaths, as well as work published or forthcoming in Y2K Quarterly, Vagabond City Literary Journal, Oyster River Pages, Snowflake Magazine, and others. gray lindsey (they/them) is a poet and lifelong learner from florida who moved to chicago because, well, florida. they study social work and write about community, fatigue, horror, and lust. you can find their work among TEA Literary Magazine, WREATH, Transfix Magazine, and The Deadlands. Z.D. Jones is a writer and poet studying at the University of Chicago. They are originally from Des Plaines, Illinois. Their work has appeared in Cult. Magazine and is forthcoming in Michigan City Review of Books. Madeline Blair is a poet, editor, and award-winning filmmaker from Chicago, IL. She is the founder/editor-in-chief of Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Okay Donkey, BULLSHIT LIT, Burial Magazine, Michigan City Review of Books, Luna Luna Magazine, Milwaukee Avenue Messenger, and Ekphrasis Magazine. After Hours is a production of Taylor Thornburg and Quimby’s Bookstore

Agathe, 6:00 p.m. to 7:27 (contemporary romance) is Taylor N. Thornburg‘s first novel. He is an author and essayist based in Chicago, Illinois. His fiction explores strange yet humane ways of being. “A woman comes home to an empty house and a letter on the kitchen table. Her partner is gone. He isn’t coming back. Reeling, she regresses memory by memory to the day they met and progresses memory by memory to the present day looking for fault, deceit, and the truth, if the truth is to be found at all, between the jagged edges of love and heartache. From here to there and back again, she resurrects car crashes, bar fights, torrid affairs, phantoms from the past, and visions of the future. All of it Agathe. All of it 6:00 p.m. to 7:27.” WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING: “In punchy prose, spiked with clipped fluidity, Thornburg delivers a tender and nuanced ballad (in the sad café of the mind), and tenuous meditation on memory. After coming home to a “Dear Jane” letter left by her partner, Michael, a heartbroken Agathe is compelled to sort and sift through the archival contents of their life together, via inward journeying, in her fevered search for deeper understanding. Time, and its emissaries, becomes both capsuled bewitchment and elastic conundrum, as Agathe plays psychic detective to her own trauma and fallout. With “inferiority complex” fully subsuming Agathe, and the narrative, which architects itself from cinematic shards, Thornburg gives haunting and exorcism its existential due in a twilight zone all its own.” – John Biscello, author of The Last Furies, Raking The Dust, Arclight, and No Man’s Brooklyn. WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING: Agathe “spins grief out like a thread… The work is thick and unapologetic, opaque in a singular focus that gains complexity as memories are prodded and ripped open at the seams…” —Beyond The Last Estate Ebooks available through Lost Telegram Press and Kobo. www.losttelegrampress.ca #losttelegrampress #taylorthornburg #agathe6pmto727 #canadiansmallpress #eternalsunshineofthespotlessmind

I saw the face of G-d in Baltimore, and all I got were these stupid photos

Our next guest at The Writing Room is Taylor Thornburg author and essayist in Chicago, IL where he hosts the Factory Setting prose workshop and After Hours reading series at Quimby’s bookstore. His debut novel, Agathe, 6:00 pm to 7:27, can be found at Lost Telegram Press. His other fiction can be found in Terrazzo Magazine, Reverie, The Garfield Lake Review, L’Esprit Literary Review, The Heartwood Literary Review, and elsewhere. For more infomation on the book check out The Lost Telegram website and bookshop.org or message Taylor directly on instagram @midwesttaylor See you soon!

To all the bad girls around the world, but most importantly those homegrown here in Chicago: thank you! Sorry for so few pictures. You all were the raddest and the baddest, and I was so busy building up the naughty and bringing down the nice that I forgot all about the internet for an itty bitty minute. Thank you fellow readers for your beautiful words. Thank you audience for your precious time and attention. The pleasure was mine, oh mine, all mine