On December 9, 2021, we celebrated the 2021 CHIRBy Awards, co-presented by StoryStudio Chicago. Now in its sixth year, the CHIRBy Awards is a celebration of the Chicago literary community that honors the best Chicago-focused fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and short essays.
Congratulations to this year’s winners and to our incredible finalists!
(You can read the shortlist here)
Poetry:
Wolf Lamb Bomb
By Aviya Kushner
Orison Books
Nonfiction:
Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood
By Dawn Turner
Simon & Schuster
Essay/Short Story:
“The climate crisis haunts Chicago’s Future. A Battle Between a Great City and a Great Lake”
By Dan Egan
The New York Times
Fiction:
The Upstairs House
By Julia Fine
Harper
The Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award:
This year the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award went to Kathleen Rooney for her work with Poems While You Wait and Rose Metal Press.
A huge thank you to this year’s judges, which included many of the Chicago Review of Books‘s editorial staff and representatives from Chicago’s independent bookstores:
Chair
Michael Welch, CHIRBy Awards Director
- Rebecca George, Volumes Bookcafe
- Jeff Deutsch, Seminary Co-op and 57th Street Books
- Wayne Giacalone, Madison Street Books
- DL Mullen, Semicolon Bookstore & Gallery
- Stephanie Kitchen, City Lit Books
- Suzy Takacs, The Book Cellar
- Sarah Hollenbeck, Women & Children First
- Sara Batkie, Editor-in-Chief
- Adam Morgan, CHIRB Founding Editor
- Amy Brady, CHIRB Contributing Editor & Publishing Consultant
- Jen St. Jude, CHIRB Managing Director
- Todd Van Luling, CHIRB Senior Director
- Sarah Blakley-Cartwright, CHIRB Publishing Director
- Sara Cutaia, Editor-in-Chief at Arcturus Magazine and CHIRB Editor-at-Large
- Clancey D’Isa, CHIRB Project Editor
- Dana Dunham, CHIRB Senior Editor
- Mandana Chaffa, CHIRB Editor & Senior Strategist
- Christina Drill – CHIRB Social Media Editor
- Cait Stout, CHIRB Daily Editor
- Greer Macallister, CHIRB Editor-at-Large, Historical Fiction & Lit on Screen
- Rachel León, CHIRB Contributing Editor
