Deep Dish is a reading series of Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction and Fantasy! It is a crazy good event, with some incredible authors working in and out of this genre. This event was held on November 14, 2024 at Volumes Bookcafe in Chicago, IL.
Featured Readers
Jay Bonansinga is the New York Times bestselling author of the WALKING DEAD novels, in collaboration with the show’s creator, Robert Kirkman. Jay also collaborated with the late Stan Lee, founder of Marvel Comics, on his final superhero concept, The Devil’s Quintet. Jay has authored over fifty short stories and fifteen original novels, including the Bram Stoker finalist THE BLACK MARIAH (1994), the International Thriller Writers Award finalist SHATTERED (2007), and the acclaimed action novel THE KILLER’S GAME (1997), now a major motion picture, starring Dave Bautista, Terry Crews, Sofia Boutella, and Ben Kingsley. Jay has been called “one of the most imaginative writers of thrillers” by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Jay’s non-fiction work, THE SINKING OF THE EASTLAND (2004), received national acclaim and was turned into the hit musical, EASTLAND, staged by the Tony-award winning theater company, Lookingglass. Jay has won Best-Of-Festival awards at the Houston, Queens, Iowa City, and Chicago International film festivals. Jay also teaches creative writing for DePaul University’s graduate English department. You can find Jay online at www.jaybonansinga.com
Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion, Writer’s Digest, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV. Fire, forthcoming in 2024 from The Center for Humans and Nature. She received a 2023 Whiting Award in Creative Nonfiction, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. Her books include her memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary (Row House Publishing, 2024) and her novel All the Water in the World (St. Martin’s Press, 2025).
Rapid Fire Readers
Tina L. Jens is an award-winning novelist, with more than a hundred short stories, poems, short plays, and comic books. She received the 2017 Rubin Family Fellowship artist residency at Ragdale Foundation, taught fantasy writing at Columbia College Chicago, and ran the Twilight Tales small press. Disabled and neurodivergent, she’s run reading series around town for 30 years. Gumbo Fiction Salon is her current show which meets monthly.
Eliza Sullivan (she/her) is a fiction writer specializing in various haunts and big and small apocalypses. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute Chicago’s MFAW program. Her work can be found in the New Ohio Review, The Normal School, Grim and Gilded, and is forthcoming in Boulevard (Natural Bridge).
Angeli Primlani is a Chicago-based playwright, director, producer and actor. She was culture and features writer and online editor for The Prague Post in the Czech Republic. She was the founding Artistic Director of Accidental Shakespeare Theatre Company. Her play “The Black Knight” premiered with Lifeboat Productions in spring of 2022. She’s written essays, articles, scripts, and plays for so long she really can’t remember them all. Her first novel The Marlen of Prague, Christopher Marlowe and the City of Gold was published by Guardbridge UK in 2022.
Rory Leahy lives in the Chicago area and writes plays and prose fiction. He thinks he’s pretty funny. Look at that smug, entitled face, you can tell he’s a legend in his own mind. He radiates arrogance but in kind of an attractive way. There’s something about those eyes… it is the look of a man who thought we didn’t have his bio on file.
Sullivan Peterson-Quinn (they/them) is a political campaign manager, consultant, artist, writer, and performer. Sully recently returned to the liminal corn fields of central Illinois after 6 years working on national campaigns. Before moving to Chicago, Sully wrote and directed for the stage and screen, including “The Captain is Dead,” by Nick Lannan, and Impulse 24/7 for the Armory Free Theater. Other writing credits include “The Beethoven Paradox,” “ловит рыбу,” and “Pain,” all for Titan Films at Illinois Wesleyan University. Sully has performed in “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” by Sarah Ruhl (Gordon), “Harvey,” by Mary Chase (Elwood P. Dowd) and performed in The Hermitage Museum’s immersive theatre experience, “POSSES$ION” in Norfolk, Virginia. Sully is currently working on their debut novel.
Connor Nevitt (he/him) earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a Creative Writing concentration from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Born in Santa Clarita, CA, he seeks to make a name for himself in the speculative fiction world. He is an avid creative writer with a love for all things fantastical. Through his time as a stage electrician, screenwriter, and filmmaker, he has experience bringing his own work to life. As the Managing Director of the SLF, Connor is excited to immerse himself fully in the industry and help other writers thrive within it.
Benjamin K Herrington (bkh) / wears many masks & speaks in many voices / looks for hidden messages _ v e r _ w h e r _ / feels incredibly grateful to have had his poetry, prose & multimedia projects published by Apocalypse Confidential / B O D Y Literature / Drunk Monkeys / Granfalloon / La Piccioletta Barca / Slippery Elm (as part of Irreducibly Collective Pluralities) & The Prairie Review / was recently awarded a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship (Spring 2024) / sculpts stories / paginates poems / runs Lake Michigan shorelines / is working on a novel & seeking gn0s1s.
