Critically acclaimed Chicago-based writer Fern Schumer Chapman has written several award-winning books. Viking/Penguin released her most recent book, Brothers, Sisters, Strangers: Sibling Estrangement and the Road to Reconciliation, in 2021. She writes a blog on psychologytoday.com blog, called "Brothers, Sisters, Strangers," and she co-hosts a podcast by the same name. Some of her blog posts are compiled in her most recent work, The Sibling Estrangement Journal: A Guided Exploration of Your Experience through Writing.

Her memoir, Motherland - a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and a BookSense76 pick - is a popular choice for book clubs. Two of her other books, Is It Night or Day? and Middle School Sleuths, are used in middle school classrooms. In 2004, the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (IATE) named Chapman the "Illinois Author of the Year." Twice, Oprah Winfrey shows have featured her books.

The Junior Library Guild named two of her books, Facing the Past and Three Stars in the Night Sky, as August 2017 and August 2018 selections. Recently, she published two picture books, Happy Harper Thursdaysand The Return of Happy Harper Thursdays. She gives dozens of presentations each year at schools and events.

As a journalist and reporter, her work has appeared in many publications including the Chicago Tribune, Forbes,  The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Fortune, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, she has taught magazine writing and other seminars at both Northwestern and Lake Forest College.

For more information about Fern Schumer Chapman some of these books, please visit:

fernschumerchapman.com

gussierosepress.com

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/fern-schumer-chapman

Social Practice Artist

Ashley Krieger is an interdisciplinary artist making work about familial estrangement. Krieger communicates rising tension within her own family by using materiality to create form, texture and drippage. Houses are used to serve as theatrical stages for unresolved family conflicts, while the creatures represent a cast of characters who encroach on and surround the home. The tension between the abstract and the representational mirrors the tenuous relationship between idealized and actual families. Chromatic abstraction and multi-planar perspectives are used to convey the relationship between the external and internal worlds. 

“As a young teenager, my eldest brother, my mentor and friend became estranged from our family. We have not had any contact for roughly a decade. I have felt guilt, stigma and shame as a result of the division. Through my sense of shame, I stayed silent. The stigmatization behind familial estrangement creates a silent epidemic. Estrangement affects both the way I approach family and the way I experience the societal sphere. I use color and form to articulate the division of family members. I represent the complicated and cyclical nature of these emotions through bold, monochromatic works in shades of red, blue, and green. Amorphous forms are haunting the depicted homes and becoming consumed by the weight of their own materiality.”

“I draw upon my own experience along with a multiplicity of experiences, creating interpretative and emotive research-driven art. The lack of conversation prevents the opportunity to alter the overall perception surrounding familial estrangement. I aim to raise questions with viewers to work towards a better understanding of the commonality of this experience.”