Elise Zelechowski is executive director of the ReBuilding Exchange (RX), a Chicago-based organization that diverts used building materials – the source of 40% of America’s solid waste stream – away from landfills by promoting sustainable “deconstruction” practices which allow it to reclaim lumber and other raw materials from demolition and remodeling sites and make them available … Continued
So, I guess I am a business reporter now? I’ve been talking to Gene Pellegrene and the crew at Artist Painters for the last few months — and the result is my first story for Chicago Grid, the online business publication from the people who bring you the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Reader, and, well, … Continued
So, I’ve been reviewing books semiregularly for the Tribune for a few months now, and it’s nice to be back in a deadline-making, word-count-hitting groove. Thus far I’ve stuck mostly to the food beat, but with this latest I got to branch out into ecology — and I liked it. JB Mackinnon is a former … Continued
I’m on vacation but by the time a friend texted me this morning to see if I’d seen the news, I was already all over the latest devolution of the Charlie Trotter Story. You know the one I mean. The one in which he reportedly ordered some high school photography students to clean the toilets, … Continued
I just got back from a week on Washington Island, the remote Wisconsin island about which — once upon a time, in 2008 — I entertained fantasies of writing a book. I spent a long, solitary summer on the island that year only to return home after Labor Day with no book, no money, and … Continued
[I am neither an actor nor a playwright, and yet somehow I have wound up in a theater company full of actors and playwrights. I wrote and performed this for Theater Oobleck‘s 25th anniversary bash June 19, staged at Uptown’s beautiful National Pastime Theater as part of the Pivot Arts Festival.] I come before you … Continued
[In 2008 Jason Bitner asked me to contribute something to a project he was working on called Cassette From My Ex. A website and MP3 archive, and later a book, it was exactly what it sounds like: a multimedia celebration and documentation of 80s and 90s mix tapes and the stories behind them. I sent … Continued
I’ve started reviewing books for the Tribune‘s (relatively) new lit supplement, Printers Row Journal. As a pretty package, Printer’s Row is only available to subscribers, but the reviews can be accessed through individual links – or at least that’s the impression I have. In any case! The first one, on Lucy Knisley‘s Relish, a sweet … Continued
So, remember that Rumpus essay from September? In the long wake of the attention it generated, my friend Zoe Zolbrod and I sat down this month to talk about the perils of personal writing, privacy, publicity, and what happens when Terry Gross comes calling. Our questions, and some answers, went up April 21 at the … Continued
[I wrote and performed this for the Ray’s Tap Reading Series at Chicago’s Prop Thtr on March 16, 2013, and at Story Sessions at City Winery on May 21, 2014.] You know what this means right? The coaster over your drink? It’s a marker. Visual shorthand for: I’ve stepped out for a smoke. I’m taking … Continued