R. Craig Sautter is author, coauthor, editor of 11 books, including:
The Sound of One Hand Typing (poems), Anaphora Literary Press, 2020. "The poems...are lyrical, mythological, philosophical, political, comical and surreal. Images float in the ether of intelligent language seeking to find the Zen beyond linguistic knowledge. Witness here...the mystical poet alone in the dead of night, listening to The Sound of One Hand Typing";
New York Presidential Conventions: The Pre-TV Era 1839-2004; 217 pg; december press, 2004. A history of the Liberty Party and Free Soil Party presidential nominating conventions, plus the first two Democrat Party conventions held in New York City in 1868 and 1924 and the presidential elections that followed each. (See www.presidentialconventions.com);
26 Martyrs for the Latter Perilous Days, with Curt Johnson; 240 pg; december press, 2004. Short biographies of Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Lincoln, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, The Chicago Anarchists, Zapata, IWW workers, Isaac Babel, Bonhoeffer, Gandhi, Guevara, M.L. King, Allende, Silkwood, Biko, Sadat, and Rabin, all individuals who were killed in defense of ideas and ideals that have advanced humanity;
Philadelphia Presidential Conventions; 344 pg; december press, 2000. A history of one Whig, five Republican, two Democratic, and one Progressive party national presidential nominating conventions held in Philadelphia and the Presidential elections that followed. The book was prominently quoted during the 2000 Republican Convention and led to my receiving credentials to that convention as an historian. That in turn led to my early fall 2000 prediction in my DePaul University “U.S. Presidents” class that, “Gore will win the popular vote; Bush will win the Electoral College.” I also made TV and radio appearances in connection with the book, which was in the window of bookstores and hotels in Philadelphia;
The Wicked City: Chicago from Kenna to Capone, with Curt Johnson; 387 pg; DaCapo Press, 1998. A history of Chicago politics, underworld, and culture 1880-1930;
Inside the Wigwam: Chicago Presidential Conventions 1860-1996, with Chicago Alderman Edward M. Burke; 310 pg; Wild Onion Books/Loyola Press, 1996. A history of 25 national presidential conventions held in Chicago and the elections that followed, and of the development and transformation of the Republican and Democrat parties during that 136-year period. The book received favorable reviews in papers such as The Chicago Tribune and USA Today, and was featured in book store windows in Chicago and across the nation and led to radio and T.V. appearances, including one hour on C-Span. President Clinton wrote that it is, "a great book";
Floyd Dell: Essays from the FRIDAY LITERARY REVIEW, ed;, 232 pg; december press, 1995. Essays from Dell’s five-year tenure as an editor of the FLR in which he wrote scores of book reviews about authors ranging from Jack London and Ezra Pound to Theodore Dreiser and Emma Goldman during the heyday of the Chicago Literary Renaissance. In April 2016 , I gave a presentation about this book at a meeting about Floyd Dell at the Newberry Library.
Smart Schools, Smart Kids with Edward B. Fiske (then New York Times Education editor) and Sally Reed; 303 pg; Simon & Schuster, 1991; also reissued in paperback by Touchstone, 1992. Then Governor Bill Clinton said on the back cover, Smart Schools “sees beyond what’s wrong with our schools to what’s right and what works.” Also on the back cover, former U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell called it, “the most important work on education to be published since A Nation at Risk”. It was reprinted in Chinese.
Expresslanes Through The Inevitable City, 118 pg; december press, 1991. Romantic, imagistic, surrealistic, political, and experimental poems. It was available in bookstores across the country. Poems from the book were featured in a movie called "Wild Blue Moon" by Taggart Siegel and Francesca Fisher which opened at the 1992 Chicago International Film Festival.
Who Got In: College Bound’s National Survey of College Admissions Trends, ed.; College Bound Publications, Inc., editions 1986-2005. The final results of College Bound: Issues & Trends for the College Admissions Advisor’s annual admissions survey. (See www.collegeboundnews.com);
The Power of the Ballot: A Handbook for Black Political Participation, staff project; 126 pg; National Urban League, 1973. A how-to book to train candidates for political office and how to run a successful campaign to get them elected. The book was one of the first systematic attempts to educate and train potential minority candidates for political office in the early 1970s when this political infrastructure was being built in communities across the U.S.
His short stories have appeared in the Chicago Quarterly Review, Evening Street Review, Catamaran, Deep Overstock, Neon Garden.
As a poet-in-residence, Sautter taught poetry workshops with over 20,000 K-12 students for 36 schools in upstate New York and for the Illinois Arts Council.
For more than four decades, he's taught courses in philosophy, politics, history, literature, and creative writing at DePaul University in Chicago. His teaching career began with 39 third grades from Harlem and the Upper West Side housing projects in New York City.
He served two terms on the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Advisory Board.
For Sautter Communications, Political Strategy & Media, he co-wrote and co-produced scores of political ads for candidates running for public offices ranging from mayors to Congress, including Barack Obama's first six political ads for Congress in 2000.
For several years, he traveled across the nation as a "field coordinator" for the National Urban League's voter registration/political education project under Vernon Jordan and Weldon Rougeau.
