Curated by WMG’s Literary Events Curator Jae Green, “Aftermath” is a yearly literary event that focuses on renewals, farewells, reconsiderations, new beginnings, and psychic housekeeping. Readers include Beatriz Badikian-Gartler, Regina Harris Baiocchi, Tiara Byrd, Phoebe Joan Darling, Judith Cogan Heikes, Jen Karetnick, Lily (Basil) MacLachlan, Madeline McConico & Sarah Peecher of ‘Off The Page’, Courtney Nzeribe, Salli Berg Seeley, and Kee Stein.
Beatriz Badikian-Gartler was born and reared in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has lived in the Chicago area for over forty years. Badikian-Gartler holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has taught at various institutions, including Northwestern University, Loyola University, Roosevelt University, University of Illinois, Columbia College, and others. Her essays, poems, and stories have been published in The New York Times Travel Section, Third Woman, Diàlogo, Blue Lake Review, After Hours, Make Magazine, Hammers, The Winfield Post, The Journal of Modern Poetry, Short Story, and other journals, anthologies, and newspapers. Most recently her work appeared in the anthology Wherever I’m At – an Anthology of Chicago Poetry. She is a popular performer in the Chicago area and lectures often on literature, women’s issues, and art. In 2000 Badikian was selected as one of the One-Hundred Women Who Make a Difference in Chicago by Today’s Woman magazine. She is an Illinois Humanities Council Road Scholar and a frequent Newberry Library instructor. Her second full length collection, Mapmaker Revisited: New and Selected Poems, was published in 1999 from Gladsome Books in Chicago. Her first novel Old Gloves – A 20 th Century Saga was published in 2005 by Fractal Edge Press in Chicago. Her new poetry collection, Unveiling the Mind, was published by Pandora/LoboEstepario Press in 2014.
“Regina Harris Baiocchi steals for a living! She steals our days and nights because we cannot stop reading her books.” (Endorsement by Prof Nikki Giovanni.) Regina writes music, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her work is published by Oxford University Press, Third World Press, in Modern Haiku, Obsidian, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Black Fire This Time, and elsewhere. Her poetry includes urban haiku, blues haiku, Haiku Festival’s 20th Anniversary Anthology and at the gate of the sun. Her fiction includes Indigo Sound, Finding Déjà, and Scuppernong. Regina founded Haiku Festival to celebrate children and promote literacy. Her music has been performed by members of Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, US Army Band, and other acclaimed artists. Regina’s music is recorded on several CDs.
Tiara Byrd – “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why” quote by Mark Twain. I am an Abstract Artist. I love to paint mixed media art using textured paste, egg shells, gold leaf, acrylic paint and sands from various beaches. I’ve been painting abstract art for about 6 years now and I am very passionate about what I do. I started painting because I love art but it was inaccessible to me due to finances. I wanted to purchase some abstract artwork however, the pieces that caught my eye were too expensive. So I started to create my own pieces in order to make abstract art accessible to all socioeconomic classes. I discovered a hidden talent the first day I picked up my paint brush and never wanted to put it down again. Art is my passion and I want to share my love for abstract art with the world. I find peace and joy in creating art for others to enjoy. I hope to share my vision and connect with others from different backgrounds through the language of abstract art.
Judith Cogan-Heikes – I was born at 9:30 p.m. on January 1, 1940 in a small, all-health-needs-met-here clinic- in Algiers, Louisiana, although I just say “Place of Birth – New Orleans”. I am the only child of Everett and Carmelite Cogan; raised in all manner of southern traditions until moving to Chicago in 1954, enrolling in St. Scholastica Academy on Ridge Avenue; continuing on in 1957 to Mount St. Scholastica College, Atchison, Kansas, graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology in 1961. After marrying in the fall of that year to Eugene McArdle, Ph.D. faculty member at St. Mary’s College in Winona, Minnesota, I became a mother in 1962, 1963, 1965, 1968 and 1971. After divorcing in 1975, my life then became a blend of single parenting and a career of organizational leadership and development that included a series of not-for-profit positions in government, religion, university and medical agencies until 2005. A marriage in 2001 ended with the death of my second husband Graham Heikes, a trial attorney, in 2020.
Phoebe Joan Darling is a Chicago based artist, educator, and amateur flȃneur who has been creating work since 2014. In their art making practice they investigate the mundane aspects of life and search for the inherent divinity of the everyday. In both their writing and visual art Darling utilizes repeating patterns to examine both their queer identity and the ecological spaces they inhabit, as well as collecting discarded ephemera to catch glimpses into the lives of others in order to push past dividing characteristics to the core of humanity as society encourages the dehumanization of the ‘other’. Darling graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2022 and currently works at the Oak Park Art League as the Gallery and Studio Manager and has been featured in several of their exhibitions in ‘23 and ‘24 including: Abstracted Abstractions, Social Awareness, New Year/New Work, Inner Orbits: Abstract Exhibition, and Little x Little. They have also exhibited at The Chicago Art Salon and currently have a solo exhibit 8888 at Little Broken Things in Chicago IL. Their writing has been featured in several publications including The Prairie Review as well as The Ground Is Uneven.
Jen Karetnick is a 2024 National Poetry Series finalist and the author of 11 collections of poetry, including Inheritance with a High Error Rate (January 2024), the winner of the 2022 Cider Press Review Book Award. Her work has won the Sweet: Lit Poetry Prize, Tiferet Writing Contest for Poetry, Split Rock Review Chapbook Competition, Hart Crane Memorial Prize, and Anna Davidson Rosenberg Prize, among other honors, and received support from the Vermont Studio Center, Roundhouse Foundation, Wassaic Projects, Write On, Door County, Wildacres Retreat, Mother’s Milk Artist Residency, Centrum, Artists in Residence in the Everglades, and elsewhere. The co-founder and managing editor of SWWIM Every Day, she has recent or forthcoming work in Cimarron Review, NELLE, Pleiades, Plume, Shenandoah, Sixth Finch, South Dakota Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. See jkaretnick.com.
Lily (Basil) MacLachlan – I’m a nonbinary working artist and writer based in the Lakeview Neighborhood in Chicago. I would be honored to read my poem, It’s The End of the World and I’m on Fucking Linkedin, at Woman Made Gallery for the Aftermath series. It describes the hopelessness I feel at our current political situation.
Madeline McConico is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary poet, editor, and curator. She holds a BA in English from Iowa State University and completed her MFA at Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in Allium: A Journal of Prose & Poetry, Opal Literacy, POTLUCK, and more. Her poem “10 Steps to Drowning” was reimagined as a 5-panel video installation at the Unleashed Gala in 2024. She was the recipient of a CSPA award for her free-form poem “A letter from me, your Black sister,” and was a finalist for the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing Fellowship. She currently works as a part-time adjunct, while serving as the Co-Founder, Editor, and Creative Director of the upcoming project and publication Unwoven Literary & Arts Magazine. Madeline is the Co-Curator for Off the Page: Poetry Reimagined. In her free time, Madeline is an impassioned intermediate yogi and a dedicated ramen eater.
Courtney Nzeribe is a Chicago based multi media artist who works primarily with paint, printmaking, fibers and beading. Courtney studied Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design in Paris France. Her illustrations have appeared in Gastronomica University of California Press February 2020, Hastiness of Cooks, a medieval culinary cookbook, and winner of the 2020 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, and Stock Journal Spring 2023. Her paintings have been shown at Artbarn 28th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Bridgeport Art Center, and Woman Made Gallery. She is currently on Woman Made Gallery’s Board of Director
Sarah Peecher is a native of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, now living and writing in Chicago. She was a Nathan Breitling Poetry Fellow and the recipient of an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. She now teaches undergraduate writing at Roosevelt University. Her chapbook manuscript, Keeling, was a semi-finalist for the New Delta Review chapbook contest, which is forthcoming in 2025 from Finishing Line Press. She is a reader for Unwoven Literary Arts Magazine, and occasionally edits other poetry and art zines. Along with writing, editing, and teaching, she curates work for Off the Page: Poetry Reimagined and co-hosted two seasons of Juxtapose, a podcast of art pairings. Much of her work strives to maintain, experiment with, and emphasize connections between the literary arts and other creative modes. Her writing can be found in The Lincoln Review, Agapanthus, Bluestem and more. Her poem “Emerging from a silver foil cocoon after the conflagration” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by +doc. She lives with her husband, Eli, and their two cats, Rumpus and Ruckus.
Salli Berg Seeley teaches Chicago and Multicultural Literature courses at Depaul University. She writes poetry and creative nonfiction and participates in readings and mixed media art and storytelling events throughout the city. She lives in Evanston with her husband and has 3 young adult children and a new daughter-in-law. Salli believes that poetry saves lives.
Kee Stein is a Chicago-based poet and educator whose writing explores themes of race, survivorhood, and the awkwardly funny and often untold stories of girlhood. Stein is the co-founder of Line Break Chicago, a retreat fellow of The Heart of It, and is featured in American Gun: A Poem by 100 Chicagoans. Her performances include Mamby on the Beach, Pitchfork Music Festival, and the Chicago Sinfonietta, where she has shared her work with diverse and dynamic audiences. As an educator, Stein emphasizes the power of storytelling across the Chicagoland area, teaching people that words have the ability to shape worlds.
WMG’s Literary Events Curator
Jae Green – WMG Literary Events Curator Jae Green is connected to Woman Made Gallery since its early days when the organization was located at its first location in Ravenswood Manor on Chicago’s northwest side. Jae is a visual artist, writer and published poet. She serves since 2020 on WMG’s Board of Directors and is also part of WMG’s Program Committee. In celebration of Woman Made Gallery’s 30th Anniversary she co-juried the Generations group exhibition in 2022 together with Gallery Coordinator, Marisa Miles.