What we’re about
The American Writers Museum is the first museum of its kind in the nation. Through innovative and dynamic state-of-the-art exhibitions, as well as compelling programming, the American Writers Museum educates, enriches, provokes, and inspires visitors of all ages.
Upcoming events
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•OnlineWinter Writing Institute
Online# Winter Writing Institute (Online)
Join us for an online professional development session co-presented by Teach Tank. This session will support educators in using writing as a healing practice, facilitating complex conversations through writing experiences, and developing culturally responsive writing strategies that can be used across grade levels and content areas. Free, registration required.
Illinois Teachers will earn 4 CPDUs.
For any questions, reach out to the AWM Education Team at education@americanwritersmuseum.org.4 attendees
Religion and Journalism in Chicago with Mary Ann Ahern (IN PERSON)
American Writers Museum, 180 N Michigan Ave, 2nd Floor, Chicago, IL, USJoin us for a conversation with Emmy Award-winning journalist Mary Ann Ahern of Chicago’s NBC 5 about covering religion, writing about Chicago’s Pope, and shaping the public’s perception and practice of faith.
Mary Ann Ahern joined NBC 5 News in March 1989 and was named the station’s Political Reporter in 2006. Most recently, Ahern was front-and-center at the Vatican for NBC 5 Chicago’s extensive on-site coverage of one of the year’s biggest international stories when Chicago native, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, became Pope Leo XIV. For her standout work at the Vatican, Ahern earned a pair 2025 Chicago/Midwest Emmy Awards.
This is an in person program at the American Writers Museum. This program will also be livestreamed, and you can register for the link to the online broadcast here.
This program is presented in conjunction with the AWM’s special exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture, a powerful new exhibit that takes you on the ultimate exploration through spirituality and storytelling. American Prophets is supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative.
The event is free, registration is required.
https://americanwritersmuseum.org/program-calendar/religion-and-journalism-in-chicago-with-mary-ann-ahern/1 attendee
•OnlineReligion and Journalism in Chicago with Mary Ann Ahern (ONLINE)
OnlineJoin us for a conversation with Emmy Award-winning journalist Mary Ann Ahern of Chicago’s NBC 5 about covering religion, writing about Chicago’s Pope, and shaping the public’s perception and practice of faith.
Mary Ann Ahern joined NBC 5 News in March 1989 and was named the station’s Political Reporter in 2006. Most recently, Ahern was front-and-center at the Vatican for NBC 5 Chicago’s extensive on-site coverage of one of the year’s biggest international stories when Chicago native, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, became Pope Leo XIV. For her standout work at the Vatican, Ahern earned a pair 2025 Chicago/Midwest Emmy Awards.
This is the livestream of an in person program at the American Writers Museum. When you register for this event, you will receive access to the livestream link. If you would like to attend the program in person at the AWM, get your tickets here.
This program is presented in conjunction with the AWM’s special exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture, a powerful new exhibit that takes you on the ultimate exploration through spirituality and storytelling. American Prophets is supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative.
More about Mary Ann Ahern:
In her storied career, Ahern has covered political campaigns from the White House to Springfield to Chicago. She witnessed the transitions from Mayor Richard Daley to Mayor Rahm Emanuel to Mayor Lori Lightfoot to Mayor Brandon Johnson and traveled through the primary states for the 2008, 2012, 2016 presidential campaigns, just as she did in 1988 while a reporter in Atlanta.
She has covered presidential election nights from Texas, Boston, New York and Chicago and has covered presidential inaugurations from Washington, D.C.
She’s gained recognition over the years for covering the religion beat and has reported from Rome on the selection of Pope Francis, Pope Benedict’s farewell and the 2014 canonization of pontiffs John XXIII and John Paul II. Over the years she covered Pope John Paul II’s many trips including Cuba and several World Youth Day events. Ahern followed Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s final years, the selection of both Cardinal Blase Cupich and Cardinal Francis George, the beatification of Mother Teresa, and the Pope’s emergency meeting with the American Cardinals on the priest sex abuse crisis.1 attendee
•OnlineThe Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde (ONLINE)
OnlineJoin us online for a discussion with Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad about her new book The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. Black, queer, feminist, Buddhist: The Fire Inside casts a fresh new light on the radical literary legacies of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde.
This is an online-only program with the American Writers Museum.
This program is presented in conjunction with the AWM’s special exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture, a powerful new exhibit that takes you on the ultimate exploration through spirituality and storytelling. American Prophets is supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative.
More about The Fire Inside:
The Fire Inside explores the writings of Audre Lorde and James Baldwin through a Dharmic lens, revealing for the first time how two of America’s greatest literary voices reflect—and expand—Buddhism’s most timeless truths toward justice and liberation.
Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad dives deeply into a dharma of liberation as lived by Baldwin and Lorde, offering timely lessons to help us each meet this moment. She explores the writers’ enduring legacies to show that liberation depends not only on organizing and mass movements, but the generative power of inner well-being, authenticity, art, and embodiment. Each chapter shares how looking inward is the way forward, examining Baldwin and Lorde through key Buddhist principles.
This book offers space for emerging conversations within spiritual communities—ones that don’t shy away from difficult or uncomfortable truths; that center—and celebrate—Black, queer, radical thought; and that embrace the ways our inner lives, creative fire, sensuality, and expressions of love can ignite and sustain revolutionary liberation.
Praise for The Fire Inside:
“I have followed and admired Rima Vesely-Flad’s work for years. She is tapping resources that all of us can access for greater hope and change.” —MICHELLE ALEXANDER, author of The New Jim Crow
“This groundbreaking work is a gift of love reminding us of how Black liberation struggle, like the dharma itself, has always been about everyone getting free.” —LAMA ROD OWENS, author of Love and Rage and The New Saints
“This is a read not to miss… I find my own embers of wellness, justice, and harmony stoked with her joy of expression from the heart and mind on behalf of us all.” —LARRY WARD, Buddhist teacher, author, and cofounder of The Lotus Institute
“This book is a fire that both illuminates and refines, a call to engage with the truth of our times while drawing strength from ancestral wisdom.” —RUTH KING, author of Mindful of Race
About the author:
DR. RIMA VESELY-FLAD is the Visiting Professor of Buddhism and Black Studies at Union Theological Seminary. She is the author of Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation (NYU Press, 2022) and Racial Purity and Dangerous Bodies: Moral Pollution, Black Lives, and the Struggle for Justice (Fortress Press, 2017).3 attendees
Past events
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