Best Day Ever: Eve L. Ewing
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Eve L. Ewing performs onstage at the Lena Horne Prize Event Honoring Solange Knowles in 2020 in New York City. Photo: Jason Mendez/Getty Images for The Town Hall
Author, educator and activist Eve L. Ewing can shift from writing books on public school policy to creating comics for Marvel in what seems like the blink of an eye.
- We expect nothing less from one of Chicago's strongest voices, whose award-winning poems on the 1919 Race Riots were adapted by J. Nicole Brooks for a new show at Steppenwolf Theatre.
What they're saying: "I have problems with the notion of 'genius' as a social construct," Ewing tells Axios. "But if such a thing exists for the sake of argument, I want folks to know that playwright J. Nicole Brooks is a genius."
We think Eve is pretty great, too, and so we asked her to share her ideal day in Chicago.
☕ Breakfast: "First of all, all of my responses assume that I can teleport, or my day is infinitely long and I'm riding the train from place to place while reading a book. The weather is absolutely perfect. My appetite is bottomless. And COVID-19 doesn't exist."
- "Once we've met all those conditions, I'm eating hash browns and pancakes with a cup of black coffee and a side of fruit at the Cozy Corner Restaurant on Milwaukee Avenue."
🐕🦺 Morning activity: "Running in Washington Park followed by taking a long walk with my dog, Charlie Brown Christmas, along the lakefront while listening to a really good podcast and live-texting my friends all the insights I'm learning from said podcast until they're sick of me."
🥪 Lunch: "This is where the teleportation is clutch, because now I have to zap back from the lakefront to Bucktown and get a sandwich at Irazú. Side of plátanos."
- "I've been going there since I was like 7 years old. They catered my wedding."
🖼️ Afternoon activity: "Teleporting again. Taking a class at the Hyde Park Art Center, and seeing whatever is being exhibited there, and riding a Divvy over a few blocks to First Aid Comics to say hi to the staff, pick up the stuff accumulated in my subscription box, and hug whoever I run into between 51st Street and 55th Street."
🍽️ Dinner: "Coin toss between Virtue and Bronzeville Winery, and I'll get whatever the server tells me to get."
🎞️ Evening activity: "Seeing a movie at the Gene Siskel Film Center and pouring some out for Sergio Mims outside on State Street."
- "Afterward, either playing arcade games at Emporium with friends from my former Black Nerd Board Games group, or playing videogames at home, or playing a tabletop RPG over Zoom with friends outside of Chicago."
- "Having a bourbon, neat, regardless of which choice I make."