how long will i cry
voices of youth violence
In 2011 and 2012, while more than 900 people were being murdered on the streets of Chicago, creative-writing students from DePaul University fanned out all over the city to interview people whose lives have been changed by the bloodshed. The result is How Long Will I Cry?: Voices of Youth Violence, an extraordinary and eye-opening work of oral history.
Told by real people in their own words, the stories in How Long Will I Cry? are at turns harrowing, heartbreaking and full of hope.
Join our experiment in publishing and community
The editors ask that you donate money—or your time—to organizations fighting youth violence in Chicago and across the country. Please let us know how you're making a difference. Then pass the book along to someone else (for free, of course), so that he or she can give. It adds up.
» Order a copy (ships free)
» Read stories at Medium.com
» Resource Guide
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Reviews of How Long Will I Cry
“Outstanding. …An incredibly rich and compelling examination.”
— Dawn Turner Trice, Chicago Tribune
“A stunning, stay-with-you-forever new book [that will] alter the ways in which you think. I guarantee that after you read this book, the next murder that screams across the headlines and television news will affect you more deeply than ever before. …How Long Will I Cry?: Voices of Youth Violence now joins my Best Books I’ve Ever REad List.”
— Rick Kogan, noted journalist, author and WGN radio personality
“A stunning array of stories. The book exudes raw honesty. …It doesn’t deliver easy answers, but it humanizes rage and violence. …This is where hope starts.”
— Robert Koehler, syndicated columnist
“Standing out among the buzz of new fall books … is one very significant project: How Long Will I Cry?”
— Naomi Huffman, New City
“A new type of publishing.”
— Caitlin Tyler Richards and Troy Reeves, Oral History Review
“A very powerful book about the realities of crime on the streets of Chicago. …[The Stories] went a whole lot deeper than the headlines and what we were able to do on the news.”
— Darlene Hill, Fox 32 TV Chicago
“Transforms the shattering statistics of youth violence into intimately human experiences. …This is a book everyone should read.”
— Donna Seaman, Booklist Online
“How Long Will I Cry? is a huge success for Big Shoulders Books.”
— Aimee Levitt, Chicago Reader Online
“Requests have been coming in from all over the country from inner-city after-school programs, libraries, high schools and even police departments.”
— Paul Biasco, DNAinfo Chicago
“Your entry point into lives twisted by-and-yes-transformed by violence. … Eye-opening, unsettling, and perhaps galvanizing to action.”
— Sally Parsons, Windy City Times
“It’s the power of what follows here, the frank and often profound reflections of those who have been there, of those who have lost. In their words, often philosophical and poetic, they move us to see what they see and to hear what they hear. They make us all feel less alone.”
— Alex Kotlowitz, bestselling author of There Are No Children Here and co-producer of the award-winning film The Interrupters
What people are saying about the theatrical Version of How Long Will I Cry? produced at the Steppenwolf Theatre in 2013.
“Intense…Aims to raise the consciousness of chicagoans of all stripes.”
—The Chicago Tribune
“Thought-provoking and powerful”
—The Daily Herald
“True stories that put sharply drawn faces to the catastrophe that’s overtaken whole city neighborhoods.”
—The Chicago Reader
“Powerful”
—The Windy City Times
“Tales of heartbreak, irony and tragedy”
—The Detroit Free Press
“Puts the audience in the heat of chicago’s youth violence”
—DNAinfo.com
“Honest and affecting.”
—Time Out Chicago
“May be the most important play of the year.”
—The Chicagoist
