As many longtime readers of this blog know, I have spent the past four years quietly but steadily working with my good buddy Adam Selzer on a non-fiction book about the history of early film production in Chicago. I am pleased to announce that today we signed a contract with Wallflower Press, the esteemed London-based film studies imprint of Columbia University Press. Titled Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry, this book tells the fascinating but too little known story of how Chicago served as the unlikely capital of film production in America in the decade prior to the rise of Hollywood.
We strove to write an account that we hope is as entertaining as it is informative, and one that will straddle the worlds of academia and popular non-fiction alike. Colorful, larger than life historical figures like Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Oscar Micheaux and Orson Welles are major players in this story — in addition to important but forgotten industry giants like “Colonel” William Selig, George Spoor and Gilbert “Broncho Billy” Anderson. Publication is scheduled for March 2015. More info concerning Flickering Empire will appear on this blog in the near future — so stay tuned!
You can visit Wallflower Press on the web and browse their wonderful catalog of titles here.
You can read pertinent posts on “Chicago movies” on this blog here.
White City Cinema 
July 30th, 2014 at 7:37 pm
Amazing! I am so proud of you and Adam!
July 31st, 2014 at 6:56 am
Thanks! I want you to interview me about it at Exploring Feminisms when the time of publication draws near.
July 30th, 2014 at 8:37 pm
Congrats Smith!!
Will be an EPIC addition to my library that seems to have been growing since I started school :P. Only have one book on Chicago cinema (And that one is pretty crappy) so to have another one will be awesome!
Can’t wait to read it 😀
Jeremy.
July 31st, 2014 at 6:53 am
Thanks, Jeremy!
July 31st, 2014 at 9:23 am
That is awesome! Well done! 😀
July 31st, 2014 at 12:05 pm
Thanks, Anna!
July 31st, 2014 at 11:36 am
Congratulations! Can’t wait to read the book…woohoo!
July 31st, 2014 at 12:08 pm
Thanks, Margaret!
July 31st, 2014 at 7:18 pm
Congrats. I am so looking forward to buying this book when it comes out. I hope your book is a rousing success as well:)
July 31st, 2014 at 7:24 pm
Thanks, John!
July 31st, 2014 at 10:22 pm
This is amazing! Such great things coming your way.
August 1st, 2014 at 8:00 am
Thanks, buddy. I think you’ll really enjoy reading this.
November 3rd, 2014 at 7:18 pm
[…] I first reported here back in July, the book that Adam Selzer and I have written about the rise and fall of the silent film industry […]