In the Frunchroom: Natalie Y. Moore

Over the next week, we’ll be posting bios of the readers who will join us on April 16th at O’Rourke’s Office. First up is Natalie Y. Moore, the South Side Bureau Reporter for WBEZ-FM.

Natalie’s work has been published in Essence, Black Enterprise, the Chicago Reporter, Bitch, In These Times, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. She is co-author of the book Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation. She is also co-author of The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang. She’s currently working on a book about segregation on the South Side. It will be out next year.

For the April 16th event, Natalie will be reading some in-progress work from her new book. She’ll cover the topics of food deserts, corner stores and the differences in shopping on the North vs. South sides.

Residents of Beverly/Morgan Park will likely already be familiar with Moore’s work at WBEZ, specifically her report on the history of integration here, which later became a Q&A event at the Beverly Arts Center. You can read more of her South Side reporting here or watch the video below to learn more about WBEZ’s South Side bureau.

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Poster, press and pomp

theFrunchroom_032015Have you seen the poster yet? It’s on the Twitter and Facebook pages but I realized I hadn’t posted it here. The image is from Dmitry Samarov, one of the readers for our event on April 16th, and type treatment is by Chris Wilczak.

Speaking of Facebook, there’s an event page posted there. Sixty-two people say they’re going! Even if we assume 30% of those people are lying, that’s still a great turnout for our debut.

We’ve also picked up some press from DNA Info and Beverly Review. A couple of quotes:

Smith expects this casual style of storytelling to resonate with residents of Morgan Park, Beverly and Mount Greenwood. These neighborhoods on the Far Southwest Side often boast of their Irish heritage, which carries a strong narrative tradition, he said.

Smith also envisions The Frunchroom series evolving into a destination event, drawing curious attendees from throughout the city to share in the regional storytelling experience. – DNA Info

O’Rourke’s Office, Smith said, provides the type of setting he desires.

“We wanted that place to have that kind of spirited feeling,” Smith said, “that it didn’t feel like we’re coming to a sort of formal event.”

That laid-back environment is what the BAAA is all about, Wilczak said. It has an easy-going attitude and is always open to new ideas.

“We’re fluid,” Wilczak said. “We don’t have any sort of bureaucracy. If it’s something we are excited about and we can do it, we’re going to do it and make sure it’s done really well.” – Beverly Review

Finally…look, I didn’t really have a third p-word to use here so I just added pomp to the title. Let’s pretend this paragraph refers to that in some way.

Coming soon: bios on our readers!

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The first readers at the first Frunchroom event are…

We’re excited to reveal the very first Frunchroom lineup of readers. Joining us for our April 16th event at O’Rourke’s will be:

Adrienne Samuels Gibbs; arts and entertainment writer
Natalie Y. Moore; reporter, WBEZ, and author
Jen Sabella; director of social media and engagement, DNAInfo Chicago
Dmitry Samarov; painter and writer
Chuck Sudo; writer/editor

Our host will be Scott Smith, the producer of The Frunchroom reading series and a five-year Morgan Park resident.

All of our speakers for this first event were either born on or are living on the South Side of Chicago. We aim to present a variety of opinions and experiences at The Frunchroom but still have something interesting to say about the South Side at each event.

The Frunchroom is a quarterly event brought to you in partnership with The Beverly Area Arts Alliance. It’s where readers, writers, artists and performers share their stories in the same way your friends and family sat around in their own frunchr…er, front rooms and did the same. Those stories might be fiction, non-fiction, funny, emotional, personal, reported or somewhere in-between. Some nights might have a theme. Others might end up combining words with music.

We’ll have more to say about our readers and organizers in the coming days. For now, mark April 16th at 7:30pm down on your calendar and we’ll see you in The Frunchroom. (Questions can be left in the comments or sent to Scott via email: ourmaninchicago at gmail.com.)

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The Frunchroom, a new South Side reading series

Coming April 16th to O’Rourke’s Office (11064 S. Western, Chicago), a reading series from The Beverly Arts Alliance.

More details coming soon.

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