Category: Event

  • Deb Olin Unferth Reads Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War With Adam Levin 3/7

    Deb Olin Unferth offers a new twist on the coming-of-age memoir in this utterly unique and captivating story of the year she ran away from college with her Christian boyfriend and followed him to Nicaragua to join the Sandinistas.

    Unferth is the author of the story collection Minor Robberies and the novel Vacation, winner of the 2009 Cabell First Novelist Award and a New York Times Book Review Critics’ Choice. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, McSweeney’s, The Believer, and the Boston Review. She has received two Pushcart Prizes and a 2009 Creative Capital grant for Innovative Literature.

    “This is a very funny, excoriating honest story of being young, semi-idealistic, stupid and in love. If you have ever been any of these things, you’ll devour it.”—Dave Eggers

    Also joining the bill is Chicago author Adam Levin, author of the novel THE INSTRUCTIONS.  His collection of short stories, HOT PINK, will be published next Fall by McSweeney’s.  He lives in Chicago, where he teaches Creative Writing at the School of the Art Institute.

    For more info: us.macmillan.com/revolution-1

    http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books/aboutinstructions.html

    Monday, March 7th, 7pm

  • Modern-Day Griot Arthur Flowers Shares His Graphic Novel on Dr. MLK Jr. 2/12

    In celebration of Black History Month, Arthur Flowers celebrates I See the Promised Land: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., a singular take on the graphic novel genre, an extraordinary jam session between two very distinct storytelling traditions. Flowers tells a masterful story in musical prose. Artist Manu Chitrakar, a scroll-painter from Bengal, India, carries the tale confidently into the vivid idiom of Patua art, turning King’s journey into a truly universal legacy. replete with destiny, fate and the human condition, I See the Promised Land traverses the milestones of King’s short life, his ministry and journey, in a dramatic collaboration.

    “Both evocative and factually rich…a standout both as a distinctive graphic narrative that combines two world storytelling traditions and as an examination of King’s life and its enduring legacy across the globe.” – Booklist Starred Review

    Arthur Flowers, a remarkable performance artist and oral historian, originally hails from Memphis. He is an associate professor of English at Syracuse University. Arthur is a captivating presence, memorizing his text, singing from the story in a free-form jive style and accompanying himself with a small African drum. He performs with select pieces of the original Patua scroll artwork. Arthur is also the author of Another Good Loving Blues and De Mojo Blues.

    Saturday, February 12, 7pm

  • Connor Coyne Reads From Midwestern-Noir Novel Hungry Rats 2/5

    In Hungry Rats, the Rat Man, a serial killer, is on the loose in Flint, Michigan.  Meredith Malady, a high-school girl with a dysfunctional family and a terror of rats sees some common threads between her own life and the killer’s MO.  She runs away from home to unearth a trail of clues, determined to catch a killer, but unsure what she’ll do when she meets the Rat Man face-to-face.

    Connor Coyne has been published in Santa Clara Review, Moria Poetry Zine, Dick Pig Review, The Saturnine Detractor, and the Flint Broadside. He has a website at connorcoyne.com and a blog devoted to the apotheosis of the Gothic. Connor grew up in the East Village of Flint, Michigan, and has lived in Chicago and New York City.  This year he published his first novel, Hungry Rats, but he is even more excited by the birth of his daughter, Mary Adelina.

    “Hungry Rats is an emotional and aesthetic tour de force about deep matters of the human heart. Author Connor Coyne shows why the novel is still the most important medium to write about what matters in a manner that matters.”  — Jeffery Renard Allen, author of the Heartland award-winning novel Rails Under My Back

    For more info: http://hungryrats.com

  • Sanya Glisic Presents Her New Version of Struwwelpeter Here Feb 10th!

    Struwwelpeter, first published in Germany in 1844, contains ten cautionary tales for children, each one with a clear moral and overly exaggerated consequences for misbehavior. In one parable, a mother warns her son not to suck his thumbs. The son continues his habit. A tailor with giant scissors joins the scene, and the story heads in a dreadful direction. Artist and Illustrator Sanya Glisic, while a Resident Artist at Spudnik Press Cooperative, has created a new version with whimsical and playful illustrations that capture the dark, often morbid sensibilities of the tales. Glisic’s book is a handbound piece of art containing 36 pages of full color screen prints utilizing an astonishing array of overlays and halftones.

    Sanya Glisic is best known for her silkscreens illustrations and poster design, including the Zodiac-Sideshow Collection based on the 12 Astrological signs. She is originally from  Banja Luka, Bosnia. In 2007, she received her BFA in Illustration from the University of Arizona in Tucson. She currently lives in Chicago, printing, volunteering and occasionally teaching at Spudnik Press Cooperative, while working on art and illustration projects.

    For more info: www.spudnikpress.com/struwwelpeter

    Thursday February 10th, 7 pm

  • Quimby's December Events and News

    To see the newsletter, click here or on the teaser image below.

    Want to receive our monthly e-mails about events and new stuff (and whatever else)? Go to quimbys.com and submit your address.

  • Off-site Event: Indie Lit Roadshow: The Last Annual Midwest Pop-Up Bookshop

    At The Green Lantern Gallery/The Paper Cave, 2542 W. Chicago Ave., Storefront

    This is not at Quimby’s, but Quimby’s will be tabling at this curatorial pop-up bookshop at the Green Lantern Gallery. Besides book shopping, this event will feature sporadic performances, some of which will be in Artifice Magazine’s papier-mâché cave, you can crawl into to hear some of the best in Chicago readings. Lots of different types of book stores, presses and magazines will be present besides Quimby’s, including Featherproof Books, Knee-Jerk Magazine, The Book Cellar, Another Chicago Magazine, Rose Metal Press, THE2NDHAND, Dzanc, Make Magazine, The Show ‘n Tell Show, Other Voices Books, The Encyclopedia Show, Sara Ranchouse Publishing, Vouched Books, Switchback Books, PANK Magazine, Golden Age, Stop Smiling Books and more!

    The weekend of December 10-12 is the The Indie Lit Roadshow, a cross-country celebration of the best in independent literature. It represents a coming-together of independent bookstores, presses, journals, magazines, reading series and pop-up bookshops, all rooted in the home-grown literary scenes blossoming in the following places besides Chicago including Austin, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn, Portland, Seattle and more!

    For more info:

    http://roadshow.ampcommunity.com

    http://thegreenlantern.org

    http://www.thepapercave.com

  • Steven Blush Celebrates American Hardcore: A Tribal History Second Edition at Quimby's!

    AMERICAN HARDCORE: A TRIBAL HISTORY was released in 2001 to great success.  The book is now in five languages, and led the way to the creation of the acclaimed documentary AMERICAN HARDCORE: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986.  With the resurgence of punk rock, and continued interest in the significant American DIY movement, Blush has expanded the book and into a second edition.

    Author Steven Blush promoted hardcore shows in Washington D.C. in the early 80s. He moved to New York in 1986, and founded SECONDS Magazine, publishing 52 issues through the year 2000.  Blush has written three books on the subject of rock: AMERICAN HARDCORE: A Tribal History (2001, Feral House); AMERICAN HAIR METAL (2006, Feral House); and .45 DANGEROUS MINDS: The Most Intense Interviews From Seconds Magazine (2005, Creation Books).  His writing has appeared in publications including SPIN, Details, PAPER, Interview, Village Voice and The Times of London.  For twenty years he worked as a New York City club DJ and promoter, noted for his “Rock Candy” parties at Don Hill’s and sound designs for fashion pioneer Stephen Sprouse.

    For more info: americanhardcorebook.com

    Fri, Dec 3rd, 7pm

  • Edie Fake Celebrates the Release of Gaylord Phoenix

    Eight years in the making ,  Gaylord Phoenix collects  all of Edie Fake’s  raunchy queer comics serial in one volume. Perverse and surreal , Gaylord Phoenix follows  the  danger-fraught journeys of the Gaylord Phoenix, a creature willing to sacrifice anything for lost love and hidden memories. In an ever-shifting landscape full of ever-shifting genders,  Gaylord Phoenix plunges head-first into a realm full of murderous psychedelic smut and  intense magical beauty.

    Shenanigans are planned for one fun and epic release night at Quimby’s. Fake will be on hand to crack bad jokes and sign books, along with homemade penis-shaped cookies and special limited-edition mix tapes and objets-de-arte available for free with each Gaylord book and comic purchase.

    Edie Fake was born in Chicagoland in 1980. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 2002 and has since clocked time in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Baltimore. He’s received a Critical Fierceness Grant for queer art and was one of the first recipients of Printed Matter’s Awards for Artists. His drawings have been included in Hot and Cold, Creative Time Comics, and LTTR.  Gaylord is his first full-length book. Currently, he lives in Chicago where he works as a minicomics sommelier for Quimby’s Books.

    For more info: www.ediefake.com

    Thurs, December 9th, 2010    7pm

  • Canada’s Illegal Ad Vigilante Rami Tabello With Anne Elizabeth Moore at Quimby's 11/12

    “We fight illegal advertising using the rule of law,” Rami Tabello says when asked to describe the Toronto organization he founded to fight criminal billboards, Illegal Signs. It’s funded through donations and Tabello’s gambling take—a crazy support system for a group that spends a lot of time scrutinizing city bylaws and calling in complaints to the proper authorities. Tabello’s been called both “a fearless advocate for public space” and “annoying” by Toronto city residents and elected officials. He’ll present his work fighting—and beating—corporate criminals at Quimby’s in Chicago, a city with a massive illegal advertising problem of its own.

    Tabello is presented by Chicago author Anne Elizabeth Moore on the occasion of the re-release of the underground hit The Manifesti of Radical Literature (MRL). Out of print for over a year, MRL is an anarchist style guide for cultural producers, with chapters on such foundational political acts as throwing away one’s dictionary, creating one’s own system of punctuation, and refusing to abide by the language imposed upon us by corporate entities. Also, it is funny and of a pleasing form and light heft, perfect for spiriting away in one’s back pocket for an evening of street stenciling or shopdropping. The expanded second edition, features a new Introduction and Afterword­ and improved jokes. Moore’s Unmarketable received favorable reviews in Forbes, the LA Times, Advertising Age, and the Guardian, and was called “an anti-corporate manifesto with a difference” by Mother Jones and “sharp and valuable muckraking” by Time Out New York.

    Come hear about the work of Illegal Signs, pick up a copy of MRL, and meet Tabello and Moore at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 12.

    For more info:

    Truthout

    Pressing Concern

    Previous edition of Manifesti

  • Jay Ryan at Quimby's on 12/10!

    Quimby’s is proud to  welcome Chicago-based poster artist Jay Ryan, celebrating the release of AN UPDATED AND REVISED GREATEST-HITS COLLECTION of Jay Ryan’s first decade of compelling posters, 100 Posters/134 Squirrels. Known for his hand-drawn type, humorous animal subjects, and muted color selections, Jay Ryan has been making screen-printed concert posters in Chicago since 1995. He’s worked for thousands of rock bands, as well as clients like Patagonia clothing, Converse shoes, Burton Snowboards, and the BBC.

    The work in 100 Posters/134 Squirrels is framed by essays from luminaries in the music, design, and poster worlds–including Steve Albini, Art Chantry, Greg Kot, and Debra Parr. This 2005 debut collection of Jay’s was praised by Chicago media and publications across the globe, including:

    “Not only a gorgeous catalog of the artist’s many memorable posters,  but a history of sorts of the Chicago underground rock scene in the  last 15 years.”                                     –Chicago Sun-Times

    “Jay Ryan takes the germ of an idea and makes it uniquely great. His genius is in knowing what matters and what doesn’t . . . His genius is in having the image matter.”                        –Steve Albini

    Since the release of that book, he has honed his craft continuing without the use of computers, and screen-printing the work in his shop called the Bird Machine for bands such as the Melvins, the Shins, Modest Mouse, Andrew Bird, Shellac, My Morning Jacket, and hundreds of others. His book, Animals and Objects In and Out of Water, features 120 of Jay Ryan’s favorite pieces of art from the last three years, including text about each of the prints, detail photos (shot at the  MCA in Chicago), and original drawings.

    For more info: thebirdmachine.com

    akashicbooks.com/100posters_reissue.htm