CHF Welcomes MacArthur Fellow & Author Karen Russell Tonight

The Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF) hosts award-winning author Karen Russell tonight, February 13, at 6 p.m. at First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple (77 W Washington St). The author of St. Lucy's Home for Girls and the Pulitzer Prize Award finalist Swamplandia!, Russell comes to Chicago to discuss her latest work, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, with Time Out Chicago's Laura Pearson. Tickets are on sale now for $10-15 and can be purchased online at chicagohumanities.org or at 312-494-9509.

A 2013 MacArthur Award recipient and one of New Yorker Magazine's "20 under 40" best fiction writers, Karen Russell is described by The New York Times as "...a tough, enveloping, exhilarating voice that cannot be equaled." Russell's latest work, Vampires in the Lemon Grove,was released this January in paperback and is a collection of eight short stories, ranging from young girls leading a revolution inside a silk factory, to the ironic tale of vampires living in a sunny lemon grove. Vampires in the Lemon Grove was named a Best Book of the Year by The Boston Globe, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Huffington Post, and The A.V. Club. Russell received a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University and graduated from the MFA program at Columbia University.

Joining Russell is Time Out Chicago's arts and culture editor Laura Pearson. Pearson has contributed articles and criticism to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Gapers Block and many other publications. Active in many aspects of the city's literary scene, she helped plan the first Chicago Book Expo; edited Chicago Artists Resource, launching the website's literary section in 2010; and worked to grow the publishing arm of local record label, Drag City.

"Karen Russell is a writer of prodigious talents--one of the most exciting and inventive storytellers working today," said Pearson. "Her believable characters and fantastical, richly imagined worlds render the familiar strange and make the strange affectingly familiar."

For more information about the Karen Russell program, visit chicagohumanities.org. Tickets are on sale now online or through the CHF Box Office at 312-494-9509, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tickets range from $10-15, with a limited number of reduced-price tickets available for students and teachers (with valid ID). A $6 per order processing fee is applied to all pre-event sales. Tickets are $5 more per ticket at the door.

CHF Winter 2014 Schedule:

G=General Admission, M=CHF Member, ST=Students