Julia Keller

Over the river and through the woods and across cyberspace they came, the many e-mails responding to my request for suggestions about great family novels. With Thanksgiving just around the...

A family is a world. When you're a child, it is the only world you know; like it or not, you're trapped in there. From the outside, every kid resembles...

Some might vote for Christmas, but for me, the holiday most closely associated with the idea of family is Thanksgiving. It has a distinctly ecumenical flavor -- or maybe that's...

With a copy of "Weird Illinois" (2005) at his elbow, Greg Stolze sat at his dining room table, opened his laptop and proceeded to write the best Chicago ghost story...

Long have I suffered for my love of ghost stories. Much ridicule have I bravely endured. As a child, I fell under the dark, demon-ridden spell of Edgar Allan Poe....

For a clean-cut guy, David Ellis sure hangs out in some scummy places. He's the man who made the legal case for removing former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office....

After a group of workers laid off from Republic Windows & Doors last December refused to leave the factory, and their actions were praised by President-elect Barack Obama, that act...

If you've ever availed yourself of public transportation, you know that sometimes the train or bus can be rolling along smoothly, sleekly, with nary a bump or a jostle. And...

I had it all wrong. The Great Chicago Novel, I had always assumed, would be big and grubby. The protagonist would be a sweaty guy given to wearing T-shirts with...

From Ovid to Oprah, the first issue of The Point (thepointmag.com) covers the waterfront -- and in this case, that means Lake Michigan. The new cultural journal, the brainchild of...