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Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Printers Row Lit Fest recently announced that it is bringing together six Pulitzer Prize winners – Maureen Dowd, Kathleen Duvall, Jonathan Eig, Dr. Edda T. Fields-Black, Mary Schmich, and Bill Healy – for engaging conversations and storytelling. The free two-day Printers Row Lit Fest, presented by the Near South Planning Board (NSPB), takes place on Saturday, Sept. 6, and Sunday, Sept. 7, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Chicago’s Printers Row Historic District.
“We are proud and extremely excited that the 40th annual Printers Row Lit Fest will feature perhaps the largest number of Pulitzer Prize winners to ever attend the festival,” said Bonnie Sanchez-Carlson, Executive Director, NSPB. “It’s a fitting way to celebrate this landmark anniversary, and I’m sure it will be an engaging and memorable experience for everyone.”
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize winners, Sandra Cisneros, the world-renowned author of “The House on Mango Street” and native Chicagoan, is the Printers Row Lit Fest’s headliner and will deliver the keynote address to kick off the festival at 10 a.m. on Saturday, September 6. Cisneros will also receive the 2025 Harold Washington Literary Award (HWLA) on Thursday, September 4.
Printers Row Lit Fest is the largest literary festival in the Midwest and one of the longest-running ones in the country. The complete program listing, including the time and day of each Pulitzer Prize winner’s appearance, along with details about the more than 70 literary programs featuring over 200 authors and presenters, including children’s storytellers, poets, NY Times best-selling authors, and more than 150 book sellers and exhibitors, will be announced later this month. Admission is free. For up-to-date information and schedules, visit the Printers Row Lit Fest (www.printersrowlitfest.org). For information about the HWLA dinner honoring Sandra Cisneros, visit HWLA (www.thenspb.org).
The six Pulitzer Prize winners featured at the festival are:
- Maureen Dowd: Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist for The New York Times and author of the new best-seller Notorious: Portraits of Stars from Hollywood, Culture, Fashion, and Tech. During the 1970s and early 1980s, she worked for the Washington Star and Time, writing news, sports and feature articles. Dowd joined the NY Times in 1983 as a metropolitan reporter and became op-ed writer in 1995.
- Kathleen Duval: A professor of history at the University of North Carolina, she won a 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book “Native Nations: A Millennium in North ” Called the “essential American history” by the Wall Street Journal, the book traces a thousand years of Native history, showing how tribes have adapted to many challenges, including the arrival of Europeans and climate change.
- Jonathan Eig: A journalist and biographer living in Chicago, he is a best-selling author of six books, the most recent being King; A Life, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Reverand Martin Luther King His book Ali: A Life is widely recognized as one of the best sports books ever written, and Luckiest Man, the Lou Gehrig biography, one of the best baseball books of all time.
- Edda T. Fields-Black: A Carnegie Mellon University historian and author, she was awarded a 2025 Pulitzer Prize for her book “COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid and Black Freedom during the Civil War.” The Combahee River was the largest and most successful slave rebellion in U.S. history. In addition to the African diaspora, she is also known for her research on West African rice agriculture and societies.
- Bill Healy: Award-winning investigative journalist and podcast producer with the Invisible Institute in His production of “You Didn’t See Nothin” won the Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting in 2024. His photojournalism has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and many magazines and books. Previously, he taught fifth grade in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens community and at a high school in the Pilsen neighborhood, and regularly teaches documentary audio storytelling at Northwestern.
- Mary Schmich: Journalist and nationally syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune from 1992 to 2012. She wrote the comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter for 28 years and the column Wear Sunscreen known for the line: “Do one thing every day that scares you.”