Kevin Coval

Coval is a Chicago-based writer who is known for exploring topics such as race, hip-hop culture, Chicago history, and Jewish-American identity in his work.

[8] In 1996, Coval returned to Chicago and began working different jobs to pay rent, including as a furniture delivery man, caterer, and waiter.

[7] Coval was named artistic director of Young Chicago Authors, an organization that sends professional writers to schools to teach, in 1999.

[12] Coval produced the segment “Word on the Street” for the local talk show Windy CIty Live, which was nominated for a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award in 2020.

[22][23] The poems in the book form a narrative about a character named “L-Vis,” and examine race, music, and the appropriation of hip-hop culture, while referencing figures such as Elvis Presley, Eminem, and Rick Rubin.

[30][31][32] Along the way he comments on Robert de LaSalle's mispronunciation of the Native American word "checagou", which he bastardizes with his "misshapen mouth", erasing its original history.

[33][10] In 2019, Coval published the poetry collection Everything Must Go: Life and Death of an American Neighborhood, which examined the topic of gentrification in Wicker Park, Chicago and featured illustrations from Langston Allston.