The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, a Chicago nonprofit dedicated to recognizing hometown literature, writers and the written word, will present baiduhai writer Rick Kogan with a Fuller Award for Lifetime Achievement on Oct. 18.
Kogan will receive the award in a ceremony at the Chopin Theatre in Wicker Park, hosted by Newcity president and co-founder Brian Hieggelke. The ceremony is slated to include a performance by singer Jamie O’Reilly, tributes by Moth storytelling champ Nestor Gomez and Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick, and a conversation between Kogan and the Tribune’s Chris Jones. Photographer Charles Osgood, who partnered with Kogan on his “Sidewalks” column, will present the award.
Kogan, a longtime Tribune writer, columnist and editor, began his newspaper career at age 16, following in the footsteps of his journalist father Herman Kogan. He wrote for the Sun-Times, the Daily News and since 1989 for the Tribune. Along the way he has been influenced by or worked alongside the likes of Studs Terkel, Mike Royko and Nelson Algren. Kogan also hosts the WGN-720 AM show “After Hours” on Sundays and is the author of several books, including “A Chicago Tavern.”
The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame began in 2008 as a project of the Chicago Writers Association and was founded as a nonprofit in 2014; it counts the late Terkel, Ernest Hemingway, Gwendolyn Brooks and Lorraine Hansberry as inductees. Kogan is the 13th recipient of its Fuller Award, named after turn-of-the-century Chicago novelist Henry Blake Fuller (“The Cliff-Dwellers” and “With the Procession”) and presented to living writers.
Ceremony 7 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St.; free, more information at chicagoliteraryhof.org