The 82 is the Creative Writing minor's reading series, featuring distinguished Chicago writers of all genres, Northeastern faculty members and Northeastern student writers. The series hosts four to six events per academic year, and is named after the CTA's Kimball bus line, which gets many Chicagoans to our Main Campus and El Centro locations. 

Upcoming Events

The 82: Student Edition for Fall 2023 is coming! Contact Olivia Cronk at o-cronk@neiu.edu if you are interested in performing/reading your work at this event.


Past Events

The 82, the English Department, World Languages and Cultures, and Pedroso Center welcome Lit & Luz visiting writer Maricela Guerrero, a bilingual poetry reading with WLC graduate student Jackie Sanchez interpreting.

The event was well attended, with faculty, students and staff from several departments representing, and Creative Writing Minor Coordinator Olivia Cronk and The 82 coordinator hosting.

NEIU Faculty  

The 82: Student Edition

Nov. 10, 2022

Hosted by Olivia Cronk (o-cronk@neiu.edu) and the Creative Writing Minor/English Department.

The 82 for Fall 2022 is on its way! The time and place have been set, and the student writers and poets are being assembled. Watch this space for when the lineup of performers will be finalized. See you there!

The 82: mega

April 1, 2022
Hosted by Olivia Cronk (o-cronk@neiu.edu) and the Creative Writing Minor/English Department.

Get excited for the Creative Writing Minor's MEGA version of The 82! More than two dozen students and Creative Writing faculty will be reading at this stellar event. Come celebrate spring with your peers and colleagues!

THE 82: MEGA

The 82: Writers Reading

April 6, 2021

Guest Writers/Speakers

Tara Betts

Tara Betts

Tara Betts is the author of "Break the Habit," "Arc & Hue," and the forthcoming "Refuse to Disappear." In addition to her work as a teaching artist and mentor for young poets, she has taught at several universities, including Rutgers University and University of Illinois-Chicago. Recently, she taught poetry workshops for three years at Stateville Prison via Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project. Tara is Poetry Editor at The Langston Hughes Review, and is also in the process of establishing the nonprofit organization The Whirlwind Learning Center on Chicago’s South Side.

Audrey Petty

Audrey Petty

Audrey Petty writes fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. Her stories have been published in such journals as African American Review, StoryQuarterly, Callaloo, and The Massachusetts Review. She is the editor of "High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing" (Voice of Witness/McSweeney's) and co-editor of "The Long Term" (Haymarket Press). She has taught extensively in the fields of African American literature and creative writing. Formerly on faculty in the Creative Writing Programs at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Knox College, she currently directs the Odyssey Project at Illinois Humanities.

Michael Zapata

Michael Zapata

Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel "The Lost Book of Adana Moreau," winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction and the City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Award. He is on the core faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University.

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