https://www.semicolonchi.org/events daily 0.75 2025-09-29 https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/everythings-good-toni-chapman-cookbook-and-cocktails-event monthly 0.5 2025-11-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/5fab10e6-092c-4bfa-9b45-947e14f36152/9780593800782.jpeg Events - 'Everything's Good' Toni Chapman Cookbook and Cocktails Event - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/8ed80de8-1582-4c91-bc6e-f3f28ef8eac2/1-2.jpg Events - 'Everything's Good' Toni Chapman Cookbook and Cocktails Event - Toni Chapman is a passionate home cook, recipe developer, and the creator of Toni’s Recipes and The Moody Foody, where she shares bold, comforting dishes made for real life. Her flavor-packed, approachable cooking has landed her on Good Morning America, Live with Kelly and Mark, and CBS Mornings. Inspired by childhood favorites, takeout classics, and family traditions, her recipes are designed to impress, without the stress. Based in Miami, she loves cooking, entertaining, and traveling. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/abby-phillip-live-in-chicago monthly 0.5 2025-09-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/9ace65b6-af97-4468-9f42-469b14d09f35/HTA+Abby+Phillip+IG+Collab+Post+Image.png Events - Abby Phillip Live in Chicago - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/successful-failure monthly 0.5 2025-09-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/8b52510d-ea56-4d81-9194-399936ba842a/9780593735671_p0_v1_s1200x630.jpg Events - 'Successful Failure' Event with KevOnStage - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/victoria-monet-everywhere-you-are-event monthly 0.5 2025-06-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/d893bece-9e35-4c54-8e87-5f7e9981c799/91jcdDl4o7L._SL1500_.jpg Events - Victoria Monet 'Everywhere You Are Event' - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/clear-the-shelves monthly 0.5 2025-04-18 https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/painting-the-cosmos monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/ec63c5ae-d16d-49ca-b229-82b765c5f8ac/painting-the-cosmos-9781637742716_lg.jpg Events - Painting the Cosmos https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/we-the-pizza-by-muhammad-abdul-hadi monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/db1bd70c-a971-4a49-ba3e-6d432b18d0ef/9780593796405.jpeg Events - We The Pizza by Muhammad Abdul-Hadi - ABOUT THE BOOK Created and launched by Philly born-and-bred entrepreneur Muhammad Abdul-Hadi, the mission of Down North Pizza is to reduce recidivism rates in North Philly and serve up the most insanely delicious food while doing it. We the Pizza tells the Down North story about how the restaurant fulfills its mission to educate and support the formerly incarcerated while serving dope food. A testament to survival and second chances, this cookbook offers recipes for the tender, crispy-edged, square-cut, sauce-on-top pies that are Down North’s signature dish; a whole chapter is devoted to vegetarian and vegan pizzas like No Better Love made with four cheeses and the arrabbiata-inspired Norf Sauce, while the meat and seafood pizza chapter features their most popular Roc the Mic pepperoni pie as well as the smoky berbere-brisket Tales of a Hustler and Say Yes, topped with jerk turkey sausage, roasted butternut squash, kale, ricotta, and lemon-honey drizzle. The 65 recipes for pizzas along with classic and creative wings, fries, lemonades, and shakes are paired with cinematic photography of the pizzas in their natural setting and out in the wilds of Philadelphia, with lots of journalistic-style photography of the Down North crew making dough and slinging pies. At the same time, We the Pizza provides detailed historical information about incarceration in the United States along with empowering stories from Down North’s formerly incarcerated staff. And with exclusive pizza recipes from renowned chef-supporters like Marc Vetri and Marcus Samuelsson, We the Pizza celebrates ingeniously delicious pizza, as well as the power people have to rise above their circumstances—if simply given the chance. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/ao3c69myo3cnuk17hqzn16uiswxwjy monthly 0.5 2025-02-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/4fb3ec27-787b-4413-a9c6-ddc4cfb980ba/image000000-2.jpg Events - We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance - ABOUT THE BOOK Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary, between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.” In We Refuse, historian Kellie Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women. The dismissal of “Black violence” as an illegitimate form of resistance is itself a manifestation of white supremacy, a distraction from the insidious, unrelenting violence of structural racism. Force—from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt—has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. But violence is only one tool among many. Carter Jackson examines other, no less vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away. Clear-eyed, impassioned, and ultimately hopeful, We Refuse offers a fundamental corrective to the historical record, a love letter to Black resilience, and a path toward liberation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/b0deff49-579a-4bf3-b15b-ff8b9adf6a6f/142830437_10105682410106392_1561339045714113416_n+%282%29.jpg Events - We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance - Author: Kellie Carter Jackson Kellie Carter Jackson is the Michael and Denise Kellen 68’ Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. She is the author of the award-winning book, Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence. Her most recent, critically acclaimed work, We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (Seal Press), examines a radical reframing of the past and present of Black resistance—both nonviolent and violent—to white supremacy. We Refuse was listed as one of the best books of 2024 by eight different publications and organizations. Dr. Carter-Jackson’s essays have been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, and other outlets. She has also been interviewed for her expertise on Netflix, Apple TV, Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, MSNBC, PBS, Vox, CNN, the BBC, and a host of documentaries. Carter Jackson served as Historian-in-Residence for the Museum of African American History in Boston from 2021 - 2024. She also serves as a commissioner for the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Lastly, Carter Jackson loves a good podcast! She is the co-host of the podcast, “This Day in Esoteric Political History” with Jody Avirgan and Niki Hemmer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/f5fe99b8-515c-4ca8-8ba4-29205ebb2925/unnamed+%285%29.jpg Events - We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance - Interlocutor: Tikia K. Hamilton Tikia K. Hamilton is an Assistant Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago. Her research and courses focus on African American History. Dr. Hamilton holds a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University and a masters in African American Studies from Columbia University. She attended Dartmouth College for her undergraduate work, where she majored in History under a Mellon Fellowship. She has lengthy experience teaching at the secondary and undergraduate levels and working as an educational consultant. Her first book, entitled Before Brown: The Battle for Educational Equality in the Nation’s Capital, chronicles the various campaigns African Americans waged to obtain equal resources under segregation in the federal city and their ongoing fight against segregation. The book is under contract with the University of Chicago Press. Dr. Hamilton is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Spencer Fellowship from National Academy of Education. She currently serves as a member of the Urban History Association Executive Board and the University Advisory Group for the DC History Center. Hamilton is also a native of Chicago and attended the Chicago Public Schools. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/people-of-means monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/36c2ec43-6f49-40f6-94ac-9e96bf9c5942/9780063157514_HC.jpg Events - People of Means by Nancy Johnson - About the book It’s 1959, and Freda Gilroy has just arrived at Nashville’s Fisk University, eager to begin her studies and uphold the tradition of Black Excellence instilled in her by her parents back home in Chicago. Coming from an upper-middle-class lifestyle where Black and white people lived together in relative harmony, Freda is surprised to discover the menace of racism down South. When a chance encounter with an intriguing young man draws her into the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Freda finds herself caught between two worlds, and two loves, and must decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice in the name of justice, equality, and the advancement of her people. In 1992 Chicago, Freda’s daughter Tulip is an ambitious PR professional on track for a big promotion, if workplace politics and racial microaggressions don’t get in her way. With the ruling in the Rodney King trial weighing heavily on her, Tulip feels increasingly agitated and decides she can no longer stay quiet. Called to action by a series of glaring injustices, Tulip makes an irreversible professional misstep as she seeks to uplift her community. Will she find the courage to veer off the “safe” path and follow her heart, just as her mother had three decades prior? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/df72f049-8b6d-4fbd-bc05-f756774c429c/JohnsonNancy+ap1+c.jpg Events - People of Means by Nancy Johnson - About the author A native of Chicago’s South Side, Nancy Johnson worked for more than a decade as an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalist at CBS and ABC affiliates in markets nationwide. Her debut novel, The Kindest Lie, has been reviewed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and is featured on Entertainment Weekly’s Must List. It was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection and has been named one of the most anticipated books of 2021 by Newsweek, O, the Oprah Magazine, Shondaland, NBC News, Marie Claire, ELLE, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Refinery29, and more. Booksellers nationwide selected her novel as an Indie Next pick and librarians chose it for LibraryReads. Nancy’s work has been published in Real Simple and O, The Oprah Magazine, and has received support from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, Tin House, and Kimbilio Fiction. A graduate of Northwestern University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Nancy lives in downtown Chicago and leads corporate and internal communications for a large health care nonprofit. The Kindest Lie is her first novel. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/death-of-the-author monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/99055616-6260-40d3-befd-f5a43eef38af/Screen+Shot+2024-11-04+at+3.35.39+PM.png Events - Death of the Author - About the book The future of storytelling is here. Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots. When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/808def59-82f7-4753-9a68-5d67d05b7c8c/Nnedi-Okorafor_2018_400x600.jpg Events - Death of the Author - About the author Nnedi Okorafor is the author of multiple award-winning and New York Times bestsellers, including the Binti trilogy, Who Fears Death, and Lagoon, currently in development at Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. She has won every major prize in speculative fiction, including the World Fantasy, Nebula, and Eisner Awards; multiple Hugo Awards; and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. Born in Cincinnati to Igbo Nigerian immigrant parents, she now resides in Phoenix, Arizona, with her daughter, Anyaugo. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/reclaiming-venus-the-many-lives-of-alvenia-bridges monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/b2fd3ff5-c91f-415e-b6a1-a5a8ecb92b44/9781998076703.jpg Events - Reclaiming Venus: The Many Lives of Alvenia Bridges - About the book Growing up in the 1950s in segregated Kansas, Alvenia Bridges dreamed of leaving home and seeing the world. Despite her destructive home life and the racially oppressive environment of her childhood, Alvenia graduated high school, left for L.A., and successfully navigated the predominantly white and male-run worlds of fashion and 70s and 80s Rock and Roll. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/6e71c7e7-655b-4c89-b11c-a8b89ae062e1/Maya_headshot2.JPG Events - Reclaiming Venus: The Many Lives of Alvenia Bridges - About the author Maya Angela Smith is a sociolinguist, a professor in the Department of French and Italian Studies, and the Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Inclusion in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. She began her career primarily focused on the intersection of race, language, and identity among members of the Francophone African diaspora, such as in her book, Senegal Abroad (Wisconsin, 2019), winner of the Modern Language Association’s French and Francophone Studies book prize. Recent writing continues exploring this intersection but through the lens of music. Her upcoming book, Ne me quitte pas (Duke, 2025), analyzes how “Ne me quitte pas”—a text, a piece of cultural production written in a specific context, and a work of mass/popular art—travels across languages, geographies, genres, and generations by using Nina Simone’s single as a point of departure. Meanwhile, Reclaiming Venus: The Many Lives of Alvenia Bridges (Rising Action Press, 2024), addresses the systemic silencing of Black women’s voices in musical history by telling the story of Bridges’s personal journey when crossing paths with a wide variety of people in the entertainment industry, from long-term working relationships with the Rolling Stones and Roberta Flack to momentary yet extraordinary encounters with Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, and Tina Turner. Smith is also a visual artist and an avid hiker. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/brown-girl-brown-girl monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/e4b1439a-ea3f-4739-bdd5-2f6e7c5a523e/9780316314039_RetailCover_CatalogOnly.Jpg Events - Brown Girl, Brown Girl w/ Leslé Honoré. - About the book “This powerful and hopeful picture book—inspired by the historic election of Vice President Kamala Harris—celebrates brown and Black girls and is magnificently illustrated by a Caldecott Honor-winning artist. The message of empowerment at the heart of this book will speak to brown and Black girls and those who support them for years to come.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/da197971-178b-4d4a-851f-6d0d5d3d22aa/Honor%C3%A9_Lesl%C3%A9_Lesl%C3%A9+Honor%C3%A9.jpg Events - Brown Girl, Brown Girl w/ Leslé Honoré. - About the Author Leslé Honoré is a Blaxican poet, activist, and author. She hopes that through her work she can help give voice to people of all ages and backgrounds who are often silenced and unheard and feel invisible. Born and raised in Gardena, California, she remains deeply rooted in the heritage and culture of her father, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and her mother, who was born in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. Leslé lives in Chicago with her three phenomenal children: Sage, Solomon, and Scarlett. She believes that HBCUs, tacos, and gumbo can save the world. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/what-if-we-get-it-right monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/62886aaa-6f62-4b76-b081-7871473e3d8a/9780593229361.jpeg Events - What If We Get It Right? - What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures About the book: Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This is a provocative and joyous collection of clear-eyed essays, 20 vibrant interviews, data, poetry, and art that map an inspiring landscape of solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice. The book conjures a transformed, replenished, and loving world—and shows us that it is worth the effort, the overhaul, to get there, together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/ac332424-f508-46c1-a628-b81220359437/Screen+Shot+2024-10-18+at+5.41.20+PM.png Events - What If We Get It Right? Author Bio: Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and teacher working to help create the best possible climate future. She co-founded and leads Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and is the Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College. Ayana authored the book What If We Get it Right?: Visions of Climate Futures, co-edited the bestselling climate anthology All We Can Save, co-created and co-hosted the Spotify/Gimlet podcast How to Save a Planet, and co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean in climate policy. She earned a BA in environmental science and public policy from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She serves on the board of directors for Patagonia and GreenWave and on the advisory board of Environmental Voter Project. Above all: Ayana is in love with climate solutions. For more on Ayana: www.ayanaelizabeth.com ayanaelizabeth.substack.com @ayanaeliza (Instagram, Twitter) www.getitright.earth https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/triciahersey monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/983cd429-8780-4309-91ba-1ffe8589494f/We+Will+Rest%21_HC.Jpg Events - An Evening with The Nap Bishop: Conversation and Collective Daydreaming Activation - WE WILL REST! The Art of Escape teaches us how to escape from grind culture and dehumanizing systems with this visionary guide from the author of the New York Times INSTANT bestseller Rest Is Resistance . WE WILL REST! asks and answers the question: How do you find rest in a Capitalist, White Supremacist, Patriarchal, Abeleist System? And, this book – really, a piece of art – invites us all to develop, discover and experiment with our own liberation as we answer this question. Rest is a spiritual practice – as well as a racial justice and a social justice issue – to combat capitalism and white supremacy. This is one of the first books to provide readers with healing meditations, poetry, and stories on this important topic. Tricia is the founder of The Nap Ministry and is known as The Nap Bishop. She conceived and executed the first of more than 100 Collective Napping Experiences in May 2017 and there are now immersive workshops, a Resurrect Rest School, public art and museum installations, lectures, and a combined social media following of over 400,000 engaged followers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/104fd4d7-72a4-458a-8c59-983ffd6b73fa/TriciaHerseyHeadshot.jpg Events - An Evening with The Nap Bishop: Conversation and Collective Daydreaming Activation - Tricia Hersey is a multidisciplinary artist, theologian, escape artist and founder of The Nap Ministry. She is the global pioneer and originator of the “rest as resistance” and “rest as reparations” frameworks, and collaborates with communities all over the world to create sacred spaces where the liberatory, restorative, and disruptive power of rest can take hold. Tricia’s work is seeded within the soils of Black radical thought, somatics, Afrofuturism, womanism, and liberation theology. She is a Chicago native who believes in daydreaming, porch sitting, and poetry. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/a-day-in-the-life-of-abed-salama-by-nathan-thrall monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/7597094c-fe50-4038-a8f0-5ce900ded37a/A+Day+in+the+Life+of+Abed+Salama+PB+cover.jpg Events - A Day in the Life of Abed Salama By Nathan Thrall - About this book: Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed’s quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge. In A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Nathan Thrall—hailed for his “severe allergy to conventional wisdom” (Time)—offers an indelibly human portrait of the struggle over Israel/Palestine and a new understanding of the tragic history and reality of one of the most contested places on earth. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/deae1598-e9ac-4461-a779-a4907be47114/Nathan+Thrall+-+credit+Judy+Heiblum+1.jpeg Events - A Day in the Life of Abed Salama By Nathan Thrall - About the Author Nathan Thrall received the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. He is also the author of The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Guardian, London Review of Books, and the New York Review of Books and been translated into more than two dozen languages. He spent a decade at the International Crisis Group, where he was director of the Arab-Israeli Project, and has taught at Bard College. He lives in Jerusalem. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/ae049706-aa24-4740-84d8-848a2e6a02db/Screen+Shot+2024-10-07+at+2.28.53+PM.png Events - A Day in the Life of Abed Salama By Nathan Thrall - Omar Shakir Israel and Palestine Director, Middle East and North Africa Division Omar Shakir serves as the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, where he investigates human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza and has authored several major reports, including a 2021 report comprehensively documenting how Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians. As a result of his advocacy, the Israeli government deported Omar in November 2019. Prior to his current role, he was a Bertha Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he focused on US counterterrorism policies, including legal representation of Guantanamo detainees. As the 2013-14 Arthur R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellow at Human Rights Watch, he investigated human rights violations in Egypt, including the Rab’a massacre, one of the largest killings of protesters in a single day. A former Fulbright Scholar in Syria, Omar holds a JD from Stanford Law School, where he co-authored a report on the civilian consequences of US drone strikes in Pakistan as a part of the International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic, an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Affairs, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/7ovqs2gs3av78spjfsjdgi2te3cw5w monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/84915225-fd4f-4dc9-922d-55920e9ebea6/9780593821893_1120.jpg Events - Semicolon Book Club! - The book of the month will be “ There’s Always This Year” by Hanif Abdurraqib on October 10th at 4pm to 6pm Join us for an engaging and open discussion of the material at hand. Take the opportunity to mingle with fellow community members and share your insights. Together, let us celebrate literacy as a powerful and revolutionary act that can transform lives and empower individuals! https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/blackcrossword monthly 0.5 2025-10-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/136e2fc7-45cb-4488-9b10-4024b252c939/07-crossword-answer-1.jpg Events - Black Crossword x Semicolon Event - This event will include a Q&A and live puzzling and games where guest can win prizes! Save the date for Oct 16th @ 6pm-8pm https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/0af1s3iwovvrxg8f3kcmz6rl3t836q monthly 0.5 2024-09-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/f35c4819-1663-411d-959f-9c227f8c0477/Jax+Freeman+and+The+Phantom+Shriek+cover+%281%29.jpg Events - Kwame Mbalia book signing event! - About the book What do you get when you combine Kwame Mbalia's incredible imagination and world-building talent with trains, history, and ghosts? A secret world where kids can wield magic by summoning the power of their ancestors. In other words, nothing less than middle-grade magic. On his twelfth birthday, Jackson "Jax" Freeman arrives at Chicago's Union Station alone, carrying nothing but the baggage of a scandal back in Raleigh. He's been sent away from home to live with relatives he barely knows. But even worse are the strangers who accost him at the train station, including a food vendor who throws dust in his face and a conductor who tries to steal his skin. At his new school, Jax is assigned to a special class for "summoners," even though he has no idea what those are . . . until he accidentally unleashes an angry spirit on school grounds. Soon Jax is embroiled in all kinds of trouble, from the disappearance of a new friend to full-out war between summoning families. When Jax learns that he isn't the first Freeman to be blamed for a tragedy he didn't create, he resolves to clear his own name and that of his great-grandfather, who was a porter back in the 1920's. By following clues, Jax and his schoolmates unlock the secrets of a powerful Praise House, evade vengeful ghosts, and discover that Jax may just be the most talented summoner of all. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/72277d25-f4b6-4153-a83b-ae84a3135d82/Kwame+Mbalia+credit+Bryan+Jones.jpg Events - Kwame Mbalia book signing event! - About the author Kwame Mbalia, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Black Boy Joy and the Tristan Strong books, and the publisher of Freedom Fire, an imprint of Disney Hyperion is going on tour to promote his new series: Jax Freeman and the Phantom Shriek (on sale 10/1). Please let me know if you'd like to host him. We will assist with getting the word out by alerting the press. Kwame will also spread the news via his social networks and to local friends. A different kind of magic school populated by a diverse group of students with unique talents, Jax freeman and the Phantom Shriek brings Black History to life in an entertaining and memorable way. Kwame is a husband, father, writer, a New York Times bestselling author, a publisher, and a former pharmaceutical metrologist (in that order). He is the author of the bestselling Tristan Strong series, the first of which was awarded a Coretta Scott King Author Honor. Kwame is the co-author of Last Gate of The Emperor with Prince Joel Makonnen, from Scholastic Books, and the editor of the #1 New York Times bestselling anthology Black Boy Joy, published by Delacorte Press. And if you weren’t tired of listening to Kwame’s bio, there’s more, because Kwame is also a Publisher with his imprint Freedom Fire, a collaboration with Disney Books! His newest middle grade adventure, Jax Freeman and the Phantom Shriek, is a Freedom Fire title and launches October 2024. A Howard University graduate and a Midwesterner now in North Carolina, he survives on Dad jokes and Cheez-Its. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/wallo267 monthly 0.5 2024-09-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/0bef3800-912a-49dd-a978-7049a9e149fb/armed-with-good-intentions-9781668036259_lg.jpg Events - Wallo267 Book Signing - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/7d765517-d044-4036-8b73-f28e1e91f8a8/208752390_th.jpg Events - Wallo267 Book Signing Wallace Peeples, better known online as “Wallo267,” is a multi-hyphenated entrepreneur, a social influencer and activist, and a three-time Ted X speaker that reaches millions of people globally. He cohosts his Barstool Sports podcast Million Dollaz Worth of Game with his cousin and rapper Gillie Da Kid. Not only is Wallo a top-rated podcaster and revered cultural advisor on YouTube, but he is also the chief marketing officer of REFORM Alliance, an organization dedicated to transforming probation and parole systems. He is a highly sought-after thought leader who has captivated the hearts and minds of a diverse spectrum of people utilizing his unwavering, humanitarian gift to humor, provoke, and incite prosperous mindset shifts and awe-inspiring change. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/chainbreakers monthly 0.5 2024-08-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/3292e93c-b69d-44ef-82da-8a001049279f/9781250882035.jpg Events - Launch event w/ Julian Randall for The Chainbreakers In this action-packed fantasy, thirteen-year-old Violet Moon must rescue her father and save her enchanted underwater world—perfect for fans of The Marvellers and Tristan Strong series. All Violet Moon has ever wanted is to be a Reaper captain like her father. Born on the Tides of the Lost, a magical world beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, Violet has spent her life at her father’s side rescuing souls lost in the water. But when a rescue mission turns to disaster after the arrival of the dreaded Children of the Shark, weaponized ghost-sharks who steal the souls for themselves, her father is seized and pulled down into the darkness of the Depths. With no choice for Violet but to inherit the captain's powers and helm the ship as the next in line, it'll be up to her to save her father—if he even still lives—and stop the Children of the Shark before they devour the world. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/678ed769-9d72-463e-9032-efff4cea6896/200083428.jpg Events - Launch event w/ Julian Randall for The Chainbreakers Julian Randall is a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago. His poetry and essays are published in the New York Times Magazine, POETRY, The Atlantic, and Vibe. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. Julian holds an MFA in Poetry from Ole Miss. His first book, Refuse, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He was also a contributor to the #1 New York Times-bestseller Black Boy Joy. Julian has previously worked as a youth mentor, teaching writing workshops to children on house arrest. Pilar Ramirez and the Escape from Zafa is his debut children's novel. Follow him on Twitter! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/c4ebe21b-7e1c-4022-91bb-30466f4b8afd/Rena_Barron-166-Edit_NoCrop_Web.jpg Events - Launch event w/ Julian Randall for The Chainbreakers Rena Barron grew up in small-town Alabama, where stories of magic and adventure sparked her imagination. After penning her first awful poem in middle school, she graduated to writing short stories and novels by high school. Rena loves all things science fiction and fantasy, ghosts, and superheroes. Rena is the author of the young adult fantasy series Kingdom of Souls, which the School Library Journal called a ‘masterful tale,’ in a starred review. Rena is also the author of the superhero middle grade contemporary fantasy series set in Chicago, Maya and the Rising Dark, a 2021 Ignyte Award Finalist. Visit her online at www.renabarron.com. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/interrupting monthly 0.5 2024-08-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/1722524449059-CBUITLWIUCU1F3SN16P5/81%2BENB3vPHL._AC_UF1000%2C1000_QL80_.jpg Events - ‘Interrupting Violence’ Book Talk and Signing https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/betweenfriends monthly 0.5 2024-08-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/0a409b23-4188-4f26-9065-ef4adf7f702f/Cover_Between+Friends+%26+Lovers.jpg Events - Between Friends and Lovers - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/058d29dd-e44a-4365-8362-f1604406cbba/Obuobi+headshot_body.jpg Events - Between Friends and Lovers - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/supremes monthly 0.5 2024-08-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/1971157e-7dae-4303-be21-f79ea4abf074/9780307950437.jpeg Events - The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/df8997d1-3788-4519-9ef5-1d7b96d743f1/158166.jpeg Events - The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/plantas monthly 0.5 2024-08-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/b989648c-dbc6-417b-be08-93ced7f9ab9a/8105ao3Kg2L._AC_UF1000%2C1000_QL80_.jpg Events - ‘Plantas’ by Alexa Soto Book Signing! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/1ed4693b-9282-4cab-ad42-cdd0c7e6d654/tempImageE1Ha4V.jpg Events - ‘Plantas’ by Alexa Soto Book Signing! - Join Alexa Soto as she highlights the beauty of traditional Mexican cuisine with a plant-based twist for simple, affordable, and healthful vegan meals from breakfast to postre. https://www.semicolonchi.org/events/kileyreid monthly 0.5 2024-05-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/467f050a-f385-4c29-b0a8-58e3887ad54b/9780593328200.jpeg Events - Kiley Reid 'Come and Get It' Event - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/108d9fde-1c8d-444e-816c-b4e44a39b34f/2194829.jpeg Events - Kiley Reid 'Come and Get It' Event - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65f7772bf4508b1df636bf56/06c6f93b-c04c-4974-940f-5dee4a60fad2/Greta+Johnsen+headshot+credit+Jaime+Davis.jpg Events - Kiley Reid 'Come and Get It' Event Greta Johnsen has hosted Nerdette, an interview podcast that's a joyful break from the news, since 2013. She also curates Nerdette's Book Club and co-hosts the official Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon podcast for HBO. Previously, she worked at NPR stations WBEZ in Chicago and KUAC in Alaska. 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