Quimby's Bookstore

Quimby's Bookstore The world’s leading purveyor of zines and author and artist produced publications! Open every day 12-7! 1854 North Ave, Chicago! We print books, zines & comics!
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Purveyor of independently-published and small press zines, comics, books and other bizarre periodicals. https://linktr.ee/QuimbysBookstore

06/08/2026

It’s official: we’re open ‘til 7pm everyday in case you missed the exciting cutting ceremony today. Thanks to the thousands of people who came out to celebrate with us!

Story Studio Memoir in a Year ReadingFeaturing Megan Kirby, Madison Loew, Ro White, Stephanie Young, Zoe Tian, and more!...
06/07/2026

Story Studio Memoir in a Year Reading
Featuring Megan Kirby, Madison Loew, Ro White, Stephanie Young, Zoe Tian, and more!
Friday 6/12, 6:30-9:00 pm
Quimby’s Bookstore

Join us for the Story Studio Memoir in a Year reading, hosted by award-winning author Rachel DeWoskin [ ], Nine students will read excerpts from their memoirs, which span true life stories about immigration, menstruation, thespianism, lesbianism, dead mom jokes, divorced folks, and how you should sit when someone asks you to watch them take a shower.

Megan Kirby [ ] liked to write about things like pop music, theme restaurants, the renaissance faire, and her life in Chicago. She’s been making zines for over 20 years, and she shows no sign of stopping.

Madison Loew [ ] has worked in many industries with many titles; at the end of the day, she is a student of people, trying to design a friendlier and more dignified world for all. She is writing a memoir about love, loss, and the myth making of marriage.

Ro White [ ] is a Chicago-based writer whose journalism has been featured in Teen Vogue, Prism, Them, and more. Ro has performed original work at the Neo-Futurist Theater, the Paper Machete, Lit Crawl, and the Moth, which featured one of Ro’s stories on NPR’s Moth Radio Hour. Last year, Ro was a finalist for North American Review’s Terry Tempest Williams Creative Nonfiction Prize.

Stephanie Young [ ] is a writer, academic, and psychologist.You can find her creative work in Breakfast...?, Twenty Bellows, JAKE, BULL, Complete Sentence, and other fine literary outlets. She has published two community-focused lit zines, Invisible Friends and Uninvited. Stephanie was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where lengthy bios are frowned upon.

Zoe Tian got her name Zoe from an anime character Hange Zoe from the anime Attack on Titan in the summer of 2013; after missing the CPS high school entrance exam due to her family’s odd time of immigration, they moved to the suburbs, predominantly white, far from the world she’d known.. Growing up in both worlds of inside and outside, real and unreal, future and the past…

Midwestern Death Tour Featuring Meaghan GarveyThursday 6/11, 6:30-8:30 pmQuimby’s Bookstore1854 W. North Ave, ChicagoJoi...
06/06/2026

Midwestern Death Tour
Featuring Meaghan Garvey
Thursday 6/11, 6:30-8:30 pm
Quimby’s Bookstore
1854 W. North Ave, Chicago

Join Quimby’s and Panamerica Books [ ] in welcoming hometown hero Meaghan Garvey [ ] for the Chicago leg of her Midwestern Death Tour for her new book Midwestern Death Trip.

Midwestern Death Trip is part memoir, part reportage, which combines the great American road trip genre with a heart-breaking coming-of-age story. Following the death of her mother, Garvey embarks on a road trip through the Midwest on a quest to understand this haunted region of the country where she grew up.

Meaghan Garvey made her bones as one of America’s funniest and most astute music critics in her profiles and essays for The New York Times, Billboard, New York Magazine, County Highway, Pitchfork, and GQ. Meanwhile, her dark, unsparing, and wildly popular Gonzo Substack Scary Cool Sad Goodbye chronicles an itinerant personal life.

Meaghan is a hilarious and entertaining reader worth celebrating in the way only her hometown can!
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Pay what you can afford in person or via Venmo.
Suggested: $10
Venmo:
Please include “Death Trip” in the note!

We have an announcement 🥁💥 Starting Monday, June 8th, Quimby's will be extending our store hours from 6pm 'til 7pm, seve...
06/04/2026

We have an announcement 🥁💥 Starting Monday, June 8th, Quimby's will be extending our store hours from 6pm 'til 7pm, seven days a week!

Read about our extended hours, new faces in the store, and the stacked lineup of literary events we have planned this month in our June newsletter, out now! Link to read and subscribe in our bio 🔗

Hey! What are you doing today? We're open from 12-6 and we got the AC cranking, the tunes flowing, and all the alternati...
05/25/2026

Hey! What are you doing today? We're open from 12-6 and we got the AC cranking, the tunes flowing, and all the alternative literature to crack your skulls open. Bring a date, your mom, your granddad, or just yourself. See you soon :)

After Hours with The Ground Is UnevenTh. 5/28, 6:30-8 pmQuimby’s Bookstore1854 W. North Ave, ChicagoThe Ground Is Uneven...
05/24/2026

After Hours with The Ground Is Uneven
Th. 5/28, 6:30-8 pm
Quimby’s Bookstore
1854 W. North Ave, Chicago

The Ground Is Uneven [ ] is run by Editor and Creative Writer Adam Kaz [ ] in collaboration with Art Director Grimm Shapfel [ .dead.drawing ] Justin Wilde served as the art director for the first issue.

Sporting a highly visual format, The Ground is Uneven presents evocative short stories paired with striking illustrations. Adam developed much of the early content, manages the magazine’s web presence, and edits all submissions.

After Hours will feature this stacked roster of readers from the pages of The Ground is Uneven, an open mic, and a live interview with the editor on their process!

Adam Kaz (he/him) is a Chicago-based writer, critic, marketing professional, and editor-in-chief of The Ground Is Uneven, an arts and literary journal. His fiction has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Milwaukee Avenue Messenger, Fabula Argentea, literally stories, The Ground Is Uneven, MoonPark Review, Poetries in English Magazine, and Maudlin House.

Amrit Sooch (she/her) [ ] is a Chicago-based poet whose work brings awareness to women’s health. Her poetry collection Pain & Paper was published in 2024, and her work is forthcoming in The Ground Is Uneven.

Jon Murphy (he/him) [ ] is a Chicago-based writer of copy by day and fiction by night/lunch break. He’s a proud contributor to The Ground is Uneven.

Maranda Raskin (she/her) [ ] is a writer and food systems policy professional based in Chicago. She runs a neighborhood writing group that self-publishes an annual zine just for fun. Ask her about it!

After Hours is a production of Taylor Thornburg [ ] in partnership with Quimby’s!

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Pay what you can afford in person or via Venmo.
Suggested: $10
Venmo:
Please include “After Hours” in the note!

A friendly reminder that reading is sexy. Stop by and browse all the new stuff we're putting out. Zines, books, s**t, co...
05/19/2026

A friendly reminder that reading is sexy. Stop by and browse all the new stuff we're putting out. Zines, books, s**t, comics, and more!

05/13/2026

Happy Wednesday!

Come celebrate Stevie Wonder’s 76th birthday today with classic Motown, funk and socially conscious soul on vinyl and peruse the stacks and stacks and stacks of zines, comics, alt an indie publications!

THIS FRIDAY 5/15 join us for the zine release of Chicago Signs and Symbols volume 3 by Lisa Glenn Armstrong and Atlan Arceo-Witzl and peep the opening of their super cool instillation and very affordable poster art!

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Quimby’s Bookstore
Books Zines Comics

~ ~ Since 1991 ~ ~

1854 W. North Ch-IL
Open everyday 12-6

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Peep our overflowing consignment shelf. We receive zines, books, comics, and ephemera from our 10,000+ consigners everyd...
05/12/2026

Peep our overflowing consignment shelf. We receive zines, books, comics, and ephemera from our 10,000+ consigners everyday of the week.

Now peep our May newsletter because it just went live! Link in bio 🔗

This Friday! 5/15 🙌🏽Chicago Sign & Symbols Issue 3 release party: Fri. 5/15, 6:30-8 pmChicago Sign & Symbols Exhibition:...
05/12/2026

This Friday! 5/15 🙌🏽

Chicago Sign & Symbols Issue 3 release party: Fri. 5/15, 6:30-8 pm

Chicago Sign & Symbols Exhibition: Featuring the work of Lisa Glenn Armstrong and Atlan Arceo-Witzl

Exhibition runs through June 26, daily 12-6
Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave, Chicago

In this exhibition Lisa Glenn Armstrong and Atlan Arceo-Witzl of the zine Chicago Signs and Symbols bring together protest posters, publications, signage reference books, and community workshop outcomes from an event held at Hoofprint back in December.

Chicago Signs and Symbols [ ] is a collaborative zine project made under the model of DIT (do-it-together) that uses Chicago’s unique signs to explore the cultural indicators of our social realities and what can be understood about Chicago’s past, present, and future through semiotics.

Chicago Signs and Symbols Volume 3 features an interview with Quimby’s alumni Echo [ ] and works submitted by Nick Marzullo, Lya Finston, Maddie Vaccaro, Scott McGaughey and printing by Raeann Van Zee [ ] of Bovine Press.

Lisa Glenn Armstrong [ ] is a Chicago-based designer, musician, and educator whose work explores the shifting boundaries between emergent technologies and traditional print processes, treating both as living systems rather than fixed tools. Collaboration is central to her approach, building frameworks that prioritize collective authorship, shared inquiry, and community engagement. Her work often unfolds as an open-ended process, where outcomes are shaped through participation.

Atlan Arceo-Witzl [ ] is a Mexican-American visual artist, creator, and educator based in Chicago. He is driven by a foundational urge to draw, working to redefine midwestern identity and place as a hybrid ancient-contemporary-nowness. Being a second generation printmaker and a third generation educator influences his use of graphic forms in the relief print tradition while also instigating a curiosity in print process and ephemera. He is intrigued by everyday rituals, icons, symbols, totemic objects, communication, and translation

Address

1854 W North Avenue
Chicago, IL
60622

Opening Hours

Monday 12pm - 6pm
Thursday 12pm - 6pm
Friday 12:30pm - 6pm
Saturday 12pm - 6pm
Sunday 12pm - 6pm

Telephone

+17733420910

Website

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