Category: Event

  • Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz Reads From Everything is Everything

    Everything Is Everything
    Everything Is Everything

    In a recent interior with lit blog Orange Alert, poet Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz describes her latest book, Everything is Everything, as “an odd, tender, spastic, claustrophobic and bizarre-fact-riddled book that is trying to appreciate the journey instead of obsessing about the destination.” But she was also sure to add that “the book also contains a bizarre amount of poems about giraffes who have been trained to rape humans. But only because they really existed, and not because I’m a crazy sadist.”

    “Sometimes you plod through the day, bumping into people, tripping over your own feet. But then there are those remarkable days when you move through the world as stealthily as ninja. The latter is how the poems move in this book. Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz spits in her hands, grabs the sledgehammer, swings it hard, and rings that bell in poem after poem after poem. Everything is Everything is a winning collection chock full of swift, honest, smart, funny, and even tender poems that go up to 11.” – Jennifer Knox, author of Drunk by Noon

    Everything is Everything is Aptowicz’s first poetry collection to be published after her acclaimed non-fiction book, Words In Your Face: Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam (Soft Skull Press, 2008). Cristin will be joined by several poets from the local Chicago Poetry Slam community, as well as her partner – poet and former surly Quimbys employee – Shappy Seasholtz, who will read from his most recent chapbook, This is All I Can Offer You.

    For more info: http://www.aptowicz.com

  • Oyez Review #37 Launch Reading

    Oyez #37
    Oyez #37

    A new year, a new Oyez Review and the best issue yet. The submissions have been through the editorial gauntlet, fire-proofed, crash-tested, and are now ready for readers’ consumption. Contained between these eighty-eight pages are twenty-two inspired pieces of poetry, four ripping short stories, one moving non-fiction narrative, and ten luminous photos on which to fix your gaze.

    Oyez Review staffers and visiting authors will read from selected works. Authors for Oyez Review Volume 37, Spring 2010 include Ace Boggess, Brad Buchannan John F. Buckley, Meghan Cadwallader, Lydia Cesarz, Joanne Riley Clarkson, Okla Elliott, Robert Haynes, David James, Susan Johnson, Don Peteroy, Linda Scotto, Susan Slaviero, Joseph A. Soldati, John Surowiecki, Richard G. Sweitzer III, Mark Taksa, Suellen Wedmore, Alexander York, and photography by Prin X. Amorapanth.

    Oyez Review is the literary magazine of the Creative Writing Program at Roosevelt University. It is published annually, edited by an all-student staff under the direction of Professor Janet Wondra. Founded in 1965, Oyez Review has featured work from such writers as Charles Bukowski, James McManus, Carla Panciera, Michael Onofrey, Tim Foley, John N. Miller, Gary Fincke, and Barry Silesky, and visual artists Vivian Nunley, C. Taylor, Jennifer Troyer, and Frank Spidale.
    For more info: http://legacy.roosevelt.edu/oyezreview/

  • Tainted Reality presents J-Rock bands GPKISM and Seileen Signing

    Put on your goth-loli duds, pop open your Vivienne Westwood parasol, and meet the Japanese rock (J-Rock) bands GPKISM and Seileen, who will be signing their merch here at Quimby’s. No, they’re not playing any sets here. They’re just signing stuff. Only their stuff you buy here. Later that day, they’ll be J-rockin’ out at the Subterranean, down the street from Quimby’s.

    gpkism

    GPKISM (see above) is the gothic/industrial group consisting of Gothique Prince Ken and Kiwamu (former guitarist of BLOOD). GPKISM is the manifestation of baroque essence fused with electro/industrial sound, creating a unique world both decadent and sublime. GPK’s (Gothique Prince Ken) operatic vocals, and Kiwamu’s gothic guitar come together to create a dramatic sound, which combines baroque and EBM styles. Their current music is themed around the “Bloody Lady of Cachtice”, Countess Elizabeth Báthory. Visit www.myspace.com/gpkism

    Seileen (see below) is the goth/industrial dance group started by Selia and SiSeN in 2005. The group’s sound puts a mystic emphasis on Selia serene, mysterious vocals set to SiSeN’s dark electro DJ styling. Half of the band is DJ SiSeN, a professional model who showcases for Japanese clothing designer, Takuya Angel. His unique fashion sense and blazing DJ style have made him a world-renowned icon of the Japanese cyber goth and club scenes. Visit myspace.com/sisen and myspace.com/seliasisen

    seileen

    Bands play at 7pm down the street at Subterranean, 2011 West North Avenue. Opening band: Buranden, and DJ set before the show by DJ SiSeN.

    Tainted Reality is the premiere source of J-Rock entertainment in the U.S., which hosts an internet radio network dedicated to Japanese musical programming, organizes tours, and produces a variety of media. Visit www.taintedreality.net.

  • Troy Taylor Presents The Murder & Mayhem in Chicago Series

    From the North Side to the South, and from Downtown to the outer edge of the West Side, every Chicago neighborhood has at some point been home to violence, gang influence, and corruption. Local Author Troy Taylor airs all of Chicago’s dirty laundry in this five-part series, chronicling the infamous destruction of the Great Chicago Fire, the most shocking crimes of the 1800s and the rise of the mafia during Prohibition leading to Al Capone’s eventual domination in the Windy City’s underworld. Discover the notorious capers, cons and killings that terrorized a city, and unearth the brutes, bank robbers and burlesque dancers that history could never forget as the Murder & Mayhem in Chicago series exposes the Second City’s darkest sins and dirtiest secrets.

    Troy Taylor is the author of more than sixty books on history, crime, mystery and the supernatural in America. He was born and raised in Illinois and currently resides in Chicago.

    For more info, go to www.historypress.net

  • Quimby's Founder Steven Svymbersky Says Hello!

    family

    In 1991 Steven Svymbersky, the founder of Quimby’s, opened the store’s in Chicago on 1328 N. Damen (at Evergreen) in Wicker Park, in a 1000 sq. ft. space. Since 1985 he had published over 50 zines with his friends, and had published Quimby Magazine for five years in Boston. Steven’s philosophy of the store: “I really want to carry every cool – bizarre – strange – dope – queer – surreal – weird publication ever written and published and in time Qvimby’s will. Because I know you’re out there and you just want something else, something other, something you never even knew could exist.” In 1997 he sold the store to the current owner Eric Kirsammer, and he moved to Amsterdam. Now he’s back to say hello! A limited engagement!

  • Cindy St. John and Julie Strand

    Dancing girl press poets  Cindy St. John (People in Love Will Read this Book Differently) and Julie Strand (The Mae West Defense) will read from their work.

    Cindy St. John lives in Austin, TX.   Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Southern Review, Broadsidedpress.org and The Florida Review.

    Julie Strand lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is the Education Coordinator at Woodland Pattern Book Center. Her poetry has appeared in Wicked Alice, Arsenic Lobster, WOMB Poetry, Rock Heals (A Narrow House Weekly) and others.

    The dancing girl press chapbook series was founded in 2004 to publish and promote the work of women poets and artists through chapbooks, journals, book arts projects, and anthologies. Spawned by the online zine wicked alice, dgp seeks to publish work that bridges the gaps between schools and poetic techniques–work that’s fresh, innovative, and exciting. The press has published over 50 titles by emerging women poets in delectable handmade editions.

    For more info: http://www.dancinggirlpress.com

  • So You Think You Have Nerves of Steel? Series Launch

    The first in what will be a regular monthly lit series from the folks at THE2NDHAND (the2ndhand.com), wherein one featured writer a month riffs on the question in the reading’s title in whatever manner he or she deems appropriate. For this first installment, both THE2NDHAND and Chicago-performance-scene stalwarts Chris Bower and Jill Summers will be riffing with nerves of steel. They’ll be joined by the event’s host janitor Harold Ray (aka ACM fiction editor and THE2NDHAND coeditor Jacob Knabb), Requited Journal managing editor Amanda Marbais and a new issue of broadsheet.

    ABOUT THE FEATURED READERS: Chris Bower has recently seen staging of several of his dramas, including the one-act Notes to Molly at SAIC and Little Boy Needs Ride as part of the Happy Family series at Viaduct Theater. He is one of the founders of the occasional Ray’s Tap reading series and has performed widely in Chicago and elsewhere. About Notes to Molly, part of a program of three one-acts, the Chicago Theater blog had this to say, “Bower deals the most devastating realism of all these pieces. Based on his short story by the same name, the play etches an indelible portrait of a dead-end alcoholic couple and the psychological forces that barely keep them hanging on, to themselves and to life. It is an intensely realized work…” THE2NDHAND repeat performer and writer Jill Summers’ audio fiction has been featured on Chicago Public Radio, via the Third Coast International Audio Festival, and with New Adventures in Sound Art. Her work has appeared in many magazines, and she’s authored three collections of audio shorts She was Chicago’s reigning Opium magazine Literary Death Match Champ from 5/23/09 – 7/31/09, whereupon THE2NDHAND’s entry in the LDM held at the 2009 Chicago Printers Ball, Spencer Dew, took the crown.

    For more info: http://www.the2ndhand.com