Thursday, November 7

6:30-8:30 PM

509 Knox Hall, 606 W. 122nd St.

In the gripping first-person accounts of High Rise Stories, former residents of Chicago’s iconic public housing projects describe life in the now-demolished high rises. These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity. In this workshop, Petty will discuss the process of collecting, curating, and editing this collection of narratives, as well as challenging the conventional narrative of public housing residents to create a people's history of public housing in Chicago.

Audrey Petty is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A Ford Foundation grantee, her work has been featured in Colorlines, StoryQuarterly, and Saveur, among many others.