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Nelson Algren Birthday Party
On Saturday, April 6, come to the 2024 Nelson Algren Birthday Party, a unique event on the Windy City calendar. Sponsored by the Nelson Algren Committee (which will celebrate its 35th anniversary this year), the annual spring bash honors Chicago’s finest novelist and poet laureate, author of such classic works as The Man with the Golden Arm, Never Come Morning, A Walk on the Wild Side, Neon Wilderness and Chicago: City on the Make.
The party takes place at 2418 W. Bloomingdale, where the Bloomingdale Trail crosses Western, a block or two south of the Western Avenue Blue Line station. Street parking is available. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., with festivities beginning at 8. The facility is handicap accessible; if special assistance is required, please request it in advance.
A celebration of Chicago as it was, is and could be, the 2024 Algren Birthday Party features an eclectic mix of literature, music and film – plus our own traditions, including the famous candle-clad birthday cupcakes. Presenters include Mary Wisniewski, veteran local journalist, critic, Algren Committee member and writer of the authoritative biography, Algren: A Life. She will speak on Algren’s wives, who have languished in the shadow of Algren’s most famous love, philosopher and pioneering feminist Simone de Beauvoir. Also on the program are musicians Melodie Magnuson, chanteuse extraordinaire and crowd favorite, and guitarist-singer Mike Fenton, making his b-day party debut. Onscreen, we’ll see a rarely viewed video composition by legendary Chicago filmmaker and photographer Tom Palazzolo, whose recent book Clark Street was solidly in the Algren spirit, as well as Committee member Kurt Jacobsen’s interview with the late Clancy Sigal, Algren’s pal and agent, who had many stories – funny and otherwise – about Algren’s misadventures in Hollywood. There will also be Algren readings and the presentation of the Nelson Algren Committee Award, which this year goes to Ron Grossman for his distinguished career as a newspaper columnist, civic historian and author of the invaluable Guide to Chicago Neighborhoods.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2314165-0
