Join us for a multi-genre Printers Row offsite event featuring performances from Casts, Norman W. Long, and Akjai, and readings from local small press authors, including Kathleen Rooney, Téa Jones Yelvington, and Robert Kloss (Always Crashing), Aug Stone, Scott Laudati, and Benjamin Niespodziany (Maudlin House), and Jessica Anne, Emily Capers, and Timothy Moore (Long Day Press).

FREE ADMISSION (Donations Accepted)

About the Artist’s and Presenters:

Always Crashing is a magazine of fiction, poetry, and nameless things around and in-between. They publish one print issue per year and feature online content year-round. They are headquartered in Chicago and Durham, NC.

Maudlin House is a bridge between new form fiction and experimental lit that takes on mainstream pop culture through the lens of 21st-century indie art. Over the past 12 years, the Chicago-based small press has gained a devoted readership from all over the world for its weird lit, passion, and personality with regards to its publication of groundbreaking novels, short story collections, and online publications. It’s a voice for known and upcoming writers alike to boost lit in every way possible.

Long Day Press is a Chicago-based novella and chapbook publisher. Since 2015, they have published boundary-pushing work with an emphasis on emerging Midwestern writers.

 
Casts is a music project developed by Joshua Bohnsack. When Bohnsack began an experimental psychedelic therapy for treatment-resistant depression, he began making music to guide his sessions. Through months of testing, Bohnsack explored what was most effective in the moment and helped in recovery the following days. This music became the concept album Desire Path, named for the rewiring of the brain. The resulting music is meant for both introspection and ego death acceptance.

Norman W. Long is a Black artist based on Chicago’s Southeast Side whose multidisciplinary practice blends sound, ecology, and community. He leads soundwalks in public parks—often former grayfield or historic sites—while also teaching, field recording, composing, and creating sound installations. Long holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Master’s in Landscape Architecture from Cornell. He has exhibited and performed at venues including the Renaissance Society, Yale’s Center for Collaborative Arts & Media, and the Chicago Architecture Biennial. A board member of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, he is also active in the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. He was an artist-in-residence at Hyde Park Art Center in 2025.. He has attended international residencies such as the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and the Elektronmusikstudion, EMS in Stockholm, Sweden. Long has collaborated with artists such as Angel Bat Dawid, Tatsuya Nakatani, and Damon Locks, releasing work on labels including LINE, Hausu Mountain, and Room40. His latest releases—Lines of Flight, Strinning/Long/Heinemann Trio, and his solo album Scenes of Contestation—are available on Bandcamp.

Akjai is an improvising quartet incorporating two vocalists and a string trio. The group’s unique instrumentation lends itself to exploration of strange timbres, textures, and musical worlds ranging from 20th century classical music, to art song, to free jazz, with text by Brianna Tong, Octavia Butler, and RA Washington. The groups are new collaborations, made up of musicians from the Chicago area. The assemblies include musicians from a wide array of musical backgrounds, ranging from classical to jazz to country to experimental to punk. Included in the fray are Ishmael Ali, Allen Moore, Bill Harris, N.W. Long, Wills McKenna, Brianna Tong, Johanna Brock, and Andrew Scott Young.

Kathleen Rooney

Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand. She is the author, most recently, of the novels Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, and From Dust to Stardust. Her latest poetry collection Where Are the Snows, winner of the XJ Kennedy Prize, was released in Fall of 2022 by Texas Review Press. Her fifth novel, Man Overboard! was published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, on July 7, 2026. She lives in Chicago and teaches at DePaul.

Robert Kloss

Robert Kloss is the author of five novels, including The Genocide House, A Light No More, and The Woman Who Lived Amongst the Cannibals. He lives in Chicago with his wife, the writer and musician Meghan Lamb, and their cat, Daniel Day-Lewis.

Téa Jones-Yelvington

Téa Jones-Yelvington is a Chicago-based trans woman writer and social justice worker. She’s the author of three books, most recently the story collection Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret (Texas Review Press, 2022), and two prize-winning poetry chapbooks. She is involved in movements for police and prison abolition, disability justice, and caregiver issues. With her partner Brandon Will and his mother Janice, she contributes to Our Will Power, a writing and advocacy project, and co-hosts a caregiving, disability, illness and aging-focused reading series called Collective Will.

Aug Stone

Aug Stone is a writer and musician. His novel The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass was one of Vulture’s Best Comedy Books Of 2023. His other books are Off-License To Kill, Nick Cave's Bar, Sporting Moustaches, and Family Vacations. Aug's a Sagittarius Rising at 12 degrees, with Neptune sitting at 13 degrees Sag. That explains a lot.

Scott Laudati

Scott Laudati runs the chapbook press Bone Machine from his apartment in NYC with his grey parrot, Garrett. He is the author of a novel called Play The Devil and his newest poetry collection, Rainbow Road, was published back in June. Visit him anywhere @ScottLaudati. 

Ben Niespodziany

Benjamin Niespodziany is a Chicago-based writer with work in Fence, Bennington Review, Wigleaf, Fractured Lit, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. The author of two books (one with Okay Donkey and one with X-R-A-Y), his chapbook was recently awarded the 2025 Poetry Prize with Gasher Press and will be out in October. Along with hosting the Neon Night Mic reading series, he runs the poetry publication Piżama Press. You can find more at neonpajamas.com.

Jessica Anne

Jessica Anne is the author of the books A Manual For Nothing (Noemi Press), Sex With My Family (Long Day Press), and Finite Jess (forthcoming, B-Side Editions). She was an active member of the Chicago Neo-Futurist ensemble from 2006-2012 where she wrote, performed, and directed over 300 hundred 2-minute plays for the late-night smash, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. She currently directs the MFA Creative Writing program at Roosevelt University.

Emily Capers

Emily Capers is a Midwestern mixed girl, who writes to begin conversations around identity by experimenting with form and genre. Capers's writing has appeared in Genre: Urban Arts, Into the Void, midnight and indigo, Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora, and High Shelf Press. In Between My Bodies (Long Day Press) is her first chapbook. She currently lives in Chicago with her beautiful partner and dog, Millie.

Timothy Moore

Timothy Moore is a Korean American author and instructor based in the Chicago area. He holds an MFA from Roosevelt University and is the author of the speculative short story collection I Will Teach You Retribution (Long Day Press).