On September 6, 2025, I went to day one of the Printer’s Row Lit Fest: a pop-up market and festival of sorts for book enthusiasts of all types. It’s been put on annually by the Near South Planning Board for forty years now and stretches along about four blocks in the South Loop. The event takes place on Saturday and Sunday, though I only attended Saturday. The whole event is free for all ages.
I think there were somewhere around 150 vendors (though the program and map are unnecessarily confusing, so it’s hard to be certain.) This was a bit of a theme from an organizational perspective, if I’m being totally honest. An indie author I’m a fan of was supposed to have a table where she would be signing books, which was admittedly most of my impulse for going. I walked around the event twice before I found her stand. I ended up matching up Google Maps street view to the building facade visible in the background of the picture she posted from the event, because after walking through there twice, I still hadn’t found one of the two information tents where they were handing out maps. (I did eventually find one.)
Is there a charm to getting lost in a used bookstore? Yes. Absolutely. There is a reason I refuse to let myself go to Myopic Books anymore. Every time I enter, I don’t want to leave. It’s dangerous. Is it a good model for a festival with different speakers, poetry readings, panels, and other events at certain times and locations? Not really.
I attended a couple of these events, though, but other than a poetry reading at the center stage that the speaker was trying to get a concert vibe at (and I’ll give her credit, she was did surprisingly well at it), I couldn’t really hear what was being said, even when sitting up front. Which is honestly kind of disappointing – I could’ve probably made a whole day popping around to different talks and discussions based on what was running when and I was interested in. They had up to six stages going at once, and the topics ran the gambit from appreciating coming-of-age stories when you’re not living through that age, to how to effectively teach children about social issues, to the role independent writing plays in effective community organizing, to authors presenting the short versions of a new biography they had written.
The vendors themselves were… interesting, to say the least. I’m not entirely sure who the target audience was? And I don’t mean that in the sense of “they were appealing to a wide variety of ages and subject matter” or something. Based on what I saw the largest type of vendor (by volume) were used bookstores who do have permanent physical locations but also got a tent here for the weekend, and the second largest was about a tie between publishing houses and writer’s associations (and other groups for writers, such as workshops or something). The rest was split between local academic centers (at least two Chicago universities had tables, as well as places like the Chicago Architecture Center), indie authors, and a frankly surprising number of places that didn’t seem to be advertising books at all? Some of these weren’t even focused on things you use with books, like maybe homemade bookmarks or something. I’m not going to judge anywhere that is selling vintage posters, newspapers, or other similar types of prints (I have a growing collection of vintage concert posters from early punk music on my wall, I’m very much part of their audience here). I am a little confused why this was at a book fair.
I will give the lit fair credit. In terms of the actual content of the books, they had stuff for everyone. There seemed to be a preference towards young adult and adult fiction and fantasy, but that wasn’t the only thing. There were biographies and histories, all types of political and social theory, books in at least a few different languages (I saw English, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, and Arabic, though there might’ve been more I missed), picture books, coloring books, comics and graphic novels for all ages, horror books, religious books, erotic books, books about specific cultural experiences, self-help books, books from the 1700’s. I even saw places expanding the definition of literature to include stuff like ‘zines (a form of short, self-published magazines that have included everything from raunchy slash fics to on the ground local political reporting). If you were hoping to find a specific type of book, you could probably find it here. (Brief side note: as far as the erotica goes, I think the vendors actually handled it really well. They had visual design cues that made it clear to anyone familiar that this was erotica, but all outward covers, graphics, etc. were fully non-explicit and would be appropriate for anyone to see. I also have no issues with it being available at this type of fair. However, at least at one pair of tables facing each other, there was about a 5-foot walk space between hardcore erotica and a picture book teaching young Black girls about curly hair. That wasn’t appropriate. If erotic is going to be available somewhere like this, which is fine, the organizers need to plan for it better.)
My other major thing is that, at a local book fest, I want to meet local authors. I want to chat with them about their books. I want to get their autographs. I want to hear what they were thinking about when they wrote this. One of my favorite moments was when I saw a patch that I liked and went up to the table. The symbol on the patch is from the book series the dual authors are currently working on. I made an offhand comment about how I wanted to put it on my battle jacket (a type of DIY jacket popular in alternative communities, particularly the subcultures related to punk and metal music, and sometimes goth and emo). They picked up on that. Turns out, we actually have similar tastes in music, and their book included a list of the songs, albums, and bands that inspired much of it. I’m already familiar with a large selection of it, but now I’m going to try some of the stuff I don’t recognize to branch out more. That is the sort of interaction that I want to have at a local lit fair. I have never heard of or seen this book or these authors before. But that was my favorite moment of this fair (and that includes eventually finding the author I had wanted to see and getting her to sign my book).
Was the audio for the various presentations good? No, but maybe there were technical issues, or they were hiring a new company, or they just underestimated how noisy the South Loop is. There were a lot of good presentations, so clearly there was thought there. Was the layout particularly easy to follow? Not really, and I do think they should’ve done more to call out the information tents. But there is some fun wandering around a market and sometimes you’ll stumble across something unexpected you love.
Fundamentally, I was just disappointed that there weren’t more authors there to share what they’re passionate about. There is a growing number of indie authors – not just people who work with indie houses, but who truly do it from the ground up themselves. It might’ve once been hard to get a lot of authors there. You had to go through the publishing house, and then an agent, and then, if you’re lucky, you maybe get to an author. But that’s not really the world we live in anymore. We are entering an era where TikTok and Instagram allow an author to promote a new book, and Kickstarter and Backerkit let them fund it to have a good book release (not just some print on demand paperback). I know this, because that is the exact strategy that the authors I share a music taste with are using. It’s also the same strategy the author I was already a fan of uses. This was doable. This is doable. And it’s something that I really hope the lit fair organizers explore further in the future.
(That said, regardless of how many authors were or were not there, if you are like me and have to make rules for yourself about entering bookstores, I highly recommend you walk the fair at least once before making any purchases, so you can see what is there. Your back and the straps on your tote bags will thank you.)
