Chicago's Printers Row Lit Fest 2009

Live in Chicago? Love books? Great news! Next weekend, June 6-7, Chicago will be holding its 2009 Printers Row Lit Fest in the Printers Row neighborhood. This year's festival is particularly star-studded, featuring writers such as Neil Gaiman, Dave Eggers, Charles Baxter, Joe Meno, and Aleksandar Hemon. Unfortunately, and predictably, the tickets (which are free) for the events featuring both Neil Gaiman and Dave Eggers are all sold out as of the writing of this post. If I were a more studious person, I'd be able to tell you that I had had booked the tickets for both of those writers a long time ago, but that's sadly not the case. So while I will be attending the event, I unfortunately won't be seeing either of those authors. At any rate, if you live in Chicago or anywhere near Chicago, be sure to mark these dates in your calendar. It's in a beautiful part of downtown (although to be honest, all of downtown is beautiful), and the actual outdoor book fair portion of the festival -- wall to wall stands of every imaginable type of book and book-related product -- is simply stunning.