Can Miss

Randy Richardson: Author & Essayist

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By Donald G. Evans

When I started the Lovable Losers Literary Revue, I didn’t know where it would go, how it would turn out, or whether, honestly, it would ever materialize. It was a concept. My first move was to contact a few friends and allies I thought would be interested in the concept, and who might band together to make the thing a reality. Randy was at the top of that list.

“It definitely surpassed my expectations,” Randy says. “It’s just so hard to do a reading series, I didn’t think we’d get anywhere near the level of talent we were getting, and then build on it every month. That sort of carried on to the book. It started out as a small idea…”

Randy was at the top of the list in part because I’d admired his Wrigleyville murder mystery Lost in the Ivy, and in part because I was impressed with his efforts to lead, as president, the Chicago Writers Association. I knew him as somebody who would silently dedicate himself to a cause he believed in, and I thought he might come to believe in this cause. His countless duties included designing and maintaining the Web site, helping plan each event, recruiting guests, promoting the series to local media, and editing blog essays.

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The Not So Golden Age of Cubs Baseball

Robert Goldsborough: Author

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By Donald G. Evans

Robert Goldsborough remembers as a youth looking west from Wrigley Field’s upper deck and seeing Riverview’s famed parachutes.

“I was ten years old, or just about to turn ten, and at the height of my impressionability as a youngster,” Bob says, “To me, in 1947 Wrigley field was about the most wonderful place in the world, it ran a close race with Riverview.”

Bob spends a lot of time mulling over the past. His literary career has been built on two mystery franchises, both firmly set decades ago. His literary debut, Murder in E-Minor (1986) continued the serial adventures of corpulent detective Nero Wolfe and his sidekick Archie Goodwin. Written for his mother, who had lamented the end of the series after creator Rex Stout’s death, Bob went on to write six more Wolfe novels, the last The Missing Chapter (1994). Those novels, set in the 1970s, hark back to the Golden Age of mysteries.

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How It Sounds

Bill Hillmann: Writer & Storyteller

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By Donald G. Evans

As founder and maestro of the Windy City Story Slam, Bill Hillmann spends a lot of time listening. He hears first-timers croaking and squealing and fighting to find rhythm. He hears veterans pittering and pattering an expert pacing that hooks the audience. He hears criminals and cops, the rich and poor, White Sox and Cubs fans, the old and young. He hears sighs and moans and clucks that humor, intrigue, and enthrall.

Or not.

“It’s interesting to see how people do these different things naturally, and how the audience responds to them naturally,” says Bill. “When you’re up there, you have to grab the audience. It’s almost a little bit of conflict with the audience: you have to engage them.”

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Atta Girl

Mary Beth Hoerner: Writer

By Donald G. Evans

It was much later in life, not when she was growing up in Elmwood Park the youngest of five daughters, that Mary Beth Hoerner realized her father had perhaps been hoping for a boy. But on a subconscious level, little Mary Beth’s emotional attachment to the Chicago Cubs probably related, at least in part, to her desire to connect with her father Jack and fanatical older sister Katie. “As a kid, you don’t realize how deep the family connection is,” says Mary Beth,“—that you don’t have to manipulate it.”

Jack Riley died 16 years ago, but Mary Beth resurrects memories of him in her essay, “Night Games.” Swirling amid the essay’s eddy of charming humor and oddity is a deeper, almost spiritual, aspect. This spirituality, though, is not religious. It’s the type of bumper cars spirituality that occurs in a family trying, out of love, to find ways to run into each other with just the right velocity to jolt but not hurt.

“Usually in my head I think it’s going to be about one thing, but it turns out to be about several other things as well,” says Mary Beth. “I wrote this essay as a light memory, but I think there’s a sadness to it, and that surprised me. [The narrator] is trying to relate to the sister and to the father. It’s kind of that desperate need to have a deep connection to the people around you. How do you go about getting that?”

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Old Curses Die Hard

James Finn Garner: Author and Poet

By Donald G. Evans

James Finn Garner turned up at the Lovable Loser’s Literary Revue on a Wednesday evening in early June, when the Chicago Cubs were starting to look like a team of destiny. Jim had heard about the Revue from friend Jonathan Eig, who was a featured guest that night, as well as Sid Yiddish, a regular contributor to the series. I asked Jim to be a guest at a future event, and since he would be away much of the summer he agreed to September. That month the theme was “Curses”.

“When I sat down to write, I thought of different curses that hadn’t been explored yet,” Jim says. “The Cubs have voodoo, witchcraft, black cats, the billy goat, and the ghost of Bonehead Merkle. What other areas of hoodoo could I explore?”

Jim wrote three pieces for the event, two of which are included in Cubbie Blues. He wrote a poem, a humorous short story, and delivered the closing prayer. That September night was a microcosm of Jim’s incredible literary career, showcasing an impressive range of literary forms and styles, as well as performance polish.

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