Join us for our second annual reading on the Chicago Water Taxi!
Boarding for the event is at Chicago Water Taxi Michigan Avenue stop, located between Trump International Hotel & Tower and the Wrigley Building, at the start of The Magnificent Mile on Michigan Avenue. Audience may board the water taxi from 5:30 – 5:50. Boat departs the Michigan Avenue station promptly at 5:50. Reading will occur on board, from 5:50 – 6:30. Tickets are available at a discounted rate of $2.50 per person. Event will conclude at 6:30pm, upon arrival at the Chinatown Water Taxi stop, located on the South Branch of the Chicago River right in the heart of the beautiful, 12-acre, Ping Tom Memorial Park. (Riders may purchase a round trip water taxi ticket if they would like to return to downtown.)
José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants, the co-auther of the book of poems Home Court, and the co-host of the poetry podcast, The Poetry Gods. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the Marketing Manager at Young Chicago Authors. A recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, Poets House, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and the Conversation Literary Festival, his work has been published in the BreakBeat Poets, the Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, & Hyperallergic, among other places. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, will be released in September 2018 from Haymarket Books. He lives in Chicago.
AJ McClenon has performed and shown work throughout the US, at locations like Steppenwold, The Promontory, Woman Made Gallery, Echo Park Film Center, Chicago Filmmakers, Terrain Exhibitions, Gallery 400, Compliance Divisions, Fine Art Complex 1101 and Longwood Arts Center. AJ is currently the co-director of Beauty Breaks, an intergenerational beauty and wellness workshop series for black people along the spectrum of femininity. AJ is also a co-founder of F4F, a domestic venue that cultivates a femme community, centers blackness, and expands upon understandings of what domestic space can be.
Jennifer Steele is a Chicago poet and educator, and received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago in 2008. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Revolving Door Arts alongside her service to the young people of Chicago through her work at Chicago Public Library. She is a 2015 fellow of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and her work has appeared in Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Callaloo, Columbia Poetry Review, and others.