Chicago’s been pretty good to Todd Dills. Since he moved here from South Carolina eight years ago, he’s earned an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia College, founded a successful literary broadsheet, The2ndHand, gotten married, and written his first novel, Sons of the Rapture, published by local Featherproof Books in mid-September. Yet just at the point where he could sit back and savor his status as a respected player in the local literary scene, he’s leaving to move back down south. Last Thursday he started his drive down to Birmingham, Alabama, where he’s taken a job as senior editor in charge of several trucking trade magazines.
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“One thing about Chicago that is occasionally frustrating to me is that it’s really easy to surround yourself with people who are exactly like you,” he says. “Where we’re moving, to Birmingham, by the nature of the place you’re going to have to get out and make friends with people that you may not have ever been friends with otherwise.” His new job will no doubt ensure that he’ll run into some new characters. But Chicago has definitely left its mark.
