Growing Up Chicago

David Schaafsma is a professor of English and director of the Program in English Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The author of several books on teaching and learning in high school and college English classrooms, he is the editor of Jane Addams in the Classroom and coeditor of Literacy and Democracy: Composition Studies and Literacy in Pursuit of Habitable Spaces; Further Conversations from the Students of Jay Robinson.Roxanne Pilat holds a PhD in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA in writing from DePaul University. Previously a secondary school instructor, journalist, and corporate communications consultant, she teaches at North Central College and Dominican University. Her work has been published in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Hummingbird Review, Windows, and in the anthology Italian Women in Chicago: Madonna mia! QUI debbo vivere? She is a founding editor of the literary journal Packingtown Review.Lauren Dejulio Bell teaches in the Honors College at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She previously taught in the UIC English Department and the Chicago Public Schools district. She serves on the associate board of StoryStudio Chicago and leads a local project (We Are All Chicago), where she engages with the people of Chicago to foster civic engagement, community writing, and artistic endeavors. A paper she coauthored, “Turning Schools Inside Out: Connecting Schools and Communities through Public Arts and Literacies,” was published in the Journal of Language and Literacy Education.

• ForewordLuis Alberto UrreaIntroductionRoxanne Pilat, David Schaafsma, Lauren DeJulio Bell1. ChicagoDaiva Markelis2. Between BoysAnne Calcagno3. Running GirlNnedi Okorafor4. VigilStuart Dybek5.All-American BoyDavid Mura6. Excerpt from Love, Hate and Other FiltersSamira Ahmed7. Planet RockDhana-Marie Branton8. White PowerChristian Picciolini9. DillingerJessie Ann Foley10. MothmanEmil Ferris11. Excerpt fromI Am Not Your PerfectMexican DaughterErika SÁnchez12. DetentionJames McManus13. The UntouchablesMaxine Chernoff14. Discovering My Femininity in MenswearM Shelly Conner15. Death of a Right FielderStuart Dybek16. My Mother’s MexicoAna Castillo17. My Father’s PillowtalkCharles Johnson18. The Power and Limitations of Victim-Impact StatementsRebecca Makkai19. Grave NewsSaja Elshareif20. During the Reign of Vytautis the GreatDaiva Markelis21. Children of the Fifty-Sixers: Growing Up in Hungarian ChicagoRebecca Makkai22. Growing Up in ChicagoTony Romano23. The View From the South Side, 1970George SaundersBiographiesAcknowledgmentsCredits

“A literary guide to the soul of this great, burly place.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, from the foreword“An entertaining and touching tumble of sexual awakenings, identity quests, dangerous liaisons, early sorrows, boundary crossings, and 16-inch softball. There’s a different Chicago in each piece—the city serves as witness, backdrop, companion, solace. This ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse collection takes us to a snowy Chicago alley, a suburban living room, Catholic school, playgrounds and fields, buses and subways, the Art Institute, and a gas station in its explorations of the private and dramatic world of childhood and adolescence. This accomplished collection reminds us that childhood is never safe, but it is also wondrous and raw.” —S.L. Wisenberg, author of The Adventures of Cancer Bitch