This spring, Midwest Perzine Fest is celebrating perzines — and the friendships they help forge — with a virtual event featuring some amazing zinemakers! The Midwest Perzine Fest Online Perzine Reading will be streamed live on Friday, April 8 at 7:30 p.m. Central Time on the MWPZF YouTube channel: tiny.cc/mwpzfyoutube
This event is free! PayPal donations to support MWPZF (which is planning its first in-person Exhibition Day here in Chicago!) are greatly appreciated: midwestperzinefest@gmail.com
This event is sponsored by Quimby’s Bookstore. Poster designed by our Cartoonist-in-Residence Caroline Cash.
Anne Elizabeth Moore’s new book Gentrifier: A Memoir (Catapult Books) is ostensibly about a free house the author was awarded in Detroit in 2016. But after she moves in, pets some cats, and gets to know her delightful neighbors, the murky history of her supposedly free house—more costly than expected—comes to light, illuminating the contemporary American housing crisis. Moore writes about gender, policy, and the downside of capitalism (all of it), plus she includes many jokes, so her books are pretty good. She has been self-publishing since she was 11 and will talk about using zines in a writing practice, and memoir in a self-publishing practice.
Don’t miss Anne on the Quimby’s Instagram, livestreaming on Fri, Nov 5th at 7:30pm CT at instagram.com/quimbysbookstore where she’ll talk with Quimby’s employees and fellow veteran zinesters Liz Mason and Cynthia E. Hanifin, in what promises to be a lively discussion. Because this is a livestreaming workshop event, viewers are encouraged to come prepared with questions to ask about the differences between perzines (as in personal zines) and memoir, moving from one to the other, and incorporating zines into a writing practice and/or memoir writing into a self-publishing practice. Part workshop, part craft talk, part book discussion, part interactive discussion with the audience, this event promises to be fully unpredictable and most definitely fun.
For a limited time! While supplies last, with the purchase of this book, you will get a signed bookplate by Anne Elizabeth Moore, in celebration of this November 5th event! Get Gentrifier at Quimby’s Bookstore here.
“I don’t know how Anne managed to write the funniest book I’ve read in years and the most honest one about the scramble of American life, but she did.” —Jace Clayton, Uproot: Travels in 21st-Century Music and Digital Culture
Anne Elizabeth Moore was born in Winner, SD, and currently lives in the Catskills with her ineffective feline personal assistant, Captain America. In 2019, her book Sweet Little Cunt won an Eisner Award. Body Horror was nominated for a 2017 Lambda Literary Award and a Chicago Review of Books Award, was listed as a 100 Best Books Of All Time on the Political Economy by BookAuthority and named Best Book by the Chicago Public Library. Threadbare made the 2016 Tits & Sass list “Best Investigative Reporting on Sex Work.” Cambodian Grrrl received a 2012 Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism. Unmarketable was Mother Jones’ Best Book of 2007.
In Jim Terry’s book Come Home Indio (Street Noise Press), a graphic memoir, he talks about growing up between two cultures. Born Irish and Native American, he juxtaposes growing up in the mostly white suburban world with the tug of his Native roots in Wisconsin. Along the bumpy road he fumbles with loneliness, cultural confusion and a healthy dose of alcoholism until he ends up at the Standing Rock Conflict in North Dakota, where he begins to see things anew.
Join Tim Terry in conversation with Anne Elliott on the Quimby’s YouTube channel on Friday, November 13th, 7:30pm Central Time as they talk about this dynamic new graphic novel. YouTube.com/QuimbysBookstore
To celebrate the release of this book, buy the book from Quimby’s now and get a drawn and signed bookplate by the author (while supplies last). Buy it in the brick-and-mortar store or at quimbys.com here.
“Both uplifting and gut-wrenching, beautiful and terrifying. Terry’s account of losing himself between worlds, and finding home in the balance between them, deserves a place among the all-time great graphic memoirs.” -EZRA CLAYTON DANIELS, author of Upgrade Soul and BTTM FDRS
“Illuminated by bursts of both joy and sorrow. With humbling sensitivity and candor, Jim shares with us his personal journey down emotionally complex paths towards home.” -TIMOTHY TRUMAN, author of Scout
“As raw, honest and human. The kind of work that can only be done in the form of comics, intimately revealing the black and white lines of a worldview shaped by a life.” -TIM SEELEY, author of Hack/Slash and Revival
The work of Jim Terry has been featured in such places as: Sundowners, Vampirella, Heavy Metal, Alice Cooper Vs Chaos, Creepshow and more. This is his first work as writer and illustrator.
Jim will be in conversation with Anne Elliott, the co-owner of Chicago’s own Sideshow Gallery. She is an artist, teacher, tarot reader and lover of all things strange and exotic. For more info, see sideshowgallerychicago.com as well as on IG @sideshowgallerychicago & Twitter @sideshowgallery.
Q-Anon. Fake News. Bohemian Grove. False flag attacks. Deep state. Crisis actors. Whatever Gate. Is any conspiracy worth the life of a believer?
The mainstream news media struggles to understand the power of social media while conspiracy advocates, malicious political movements, and even foreign governments have long understood how to harness the power of fear and the fear of power into lucrative outlets for outrage and money. But what happens when the harbingers of “inside knowledge” go too far?
In American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness (Feral House), author Tea Krulos tells the story of one man, Richard McCaslin, who’s fractured thinking made him the ideal consumer of even the most arcane of conspiracy theories. Acting on the daily rants of Alex Jones and his ilk, McCaslin takes matters into his own hands to stop the unseen powers behind the world’s disasters who congregate at conspiracy world’s Mecca- The Bohemian Grove. It all goes wrong with terrible consequences for the man who styled himself-The Phantom Patriot.
McCaslin is not alone, as conspiracy-driven political action has bubbled its way up from the margins of society to the White House. It’s no longer a lone deranged kook convinced of getting secret messages from a cereal box, now its slick videos and well-funded outrage campaigns ready to peddle the latest innuendos and lies in hopes of harnessing the chaos for political gain. What is the long term effect on people who believe these barely believable stories? Who benefits, and who pays the price?
Krulos investigates and explains the power of conspiracy and the resulting shared madness on the American psyche.
Tea Krulos is a Milwaukee-based writer who documents the underground world of fringe sub-cultures. His previous books, Apocalypse Any Day Now-Deep Underground with America’s Doomsday Preppers and Heroes in the Night-Inside the Real Life Super Hero Movement explored the driving beliefs and lives of the people who choose to reject accepted reality and substitute their own.
NOW FOR A LIMITED TIME: FOLKS WHO BUY THE BOOK WILL GET A LIMITED EDITION SUPPLEMENTAL ZINE AND SIGNED AUTHOR BOOKPLATE. WHILE SUPPLIES LAST. GET YOUR COPY HERE.
*Until COVID-19 status has been changed, we are post-poning this event until an undeclared later date. Stay tuned to quimbys.com for info about the rescheduling.*
Last month’s tarot readings went so well with Isabelle Rizo that we’ve invited her back for another night!
In this evening of exploring Tarot with Transylvanian Mystic, Hypnotist, and Artist Isabelle Rizo learn what the tarot cards will tell you. Having used tarot since 2014 as a way to ground herself on her travels she found the collective unconscious easily mirrored through her own experience.You can bring a simple question and we have a conversation with the cards, or bring something that you need specific guidance on. Isabelle’s readings are inspired by her Romanian upbringing, using Eastern European folk stories, symbolism, and ethnographic influences to give nuanced readings and performances.
“Isabelle witnesses and holds safe space wherever she goes.” –Emily Stroia, Author of Into the Light
Isabelle has been featured in such places as: Atlas Obscura, Prague College, The Whoroscope Witch Podcast, and was hired by GOOP as a resident tarot reader. Way Cool Magazine. She is the resident tarot teacher at Inner Sense Healing Arts where she teaches every Wednesday night in Chicago. Her work and workshops have also been featured at Occult of the Bazaar, She Spoke International Art Exhibition, and Sideshow Gallery. She runs her hypnosis practice with a group of amazing diverse and queer therapists at Art of Balance in Chicago as well Head Facilitator of The Coven which is an online and offline group of artists, healers, and liminal space dwellers with international and local members.
In this evening of exploring Tarot with Transylvanian Mystic, Hypnotist, and Artist Isabelle Rizo learn what the tarot cards will tell you. Having used tarot since 2014 as a way to ground herself on her travels she found the collective unconscious easily mirrored through her own experience.You can bring a simple question and we have a conversation with the cards, or bring something that you need specific guidance on. Isabelle’s readings are inspired by her Romanian upbringing, using Eastern European folk stories, symbolism, and ethnographic influences to give nuanced readings and performances.
“Isabelle witnesses and holds safe space wherever she goes.” –Emily Stroia, Author of Into the Light
Isabelle has been featured in such places as: Atlas Obscura, Prague College, The Whoroscope Witch Podcast, and was hired by GOOP as a resident tarot reader. Way Cool Magazine. She is the resident tarot teacher at Inner Sense Healing Arts where she teaches every Wednesday night in Chicago. Her work and workshops have also been featured at Occult of the Bazaar, She Spoke International Art Exhibition, and Sideshow Gallery. She runs her hypnosis practice with a group of amazing diverse and queer therapists at Art of Balance in Chicago as well Head Facilitator of The Coven which is an online and offline group of artists, healers, and liminal space dwellers with international and local members.
Writer, musician, comic artist zine-maker (and former Quimby’s employee) Al Burian (best known for his Orwellian-themed band Milemarker and darkly humorous personal zine Burn Collector) reads from new work and presents his newest book, NO APOCALYPSE: PUNK, POLITICS AND THE GREAT AMERICAN WEIRDNESS, a collection of columns and miscellany from turn-of-the-millennium publications such as PUNK PLANET and THE SKELETON. Seen through our contemporary lens, The 00’s reveal themselves to have been a time of splendidly naive optimism: remember when we all thought George W. Bush was the worst US president there could possibly be? Remember when the neighborhood seemed too crappy to ever get gentrified? Return to those carefree days, when the Y2K computer virus had just failed to happen and environmental collapse was still near-future science fiction.
The evening also sees the first US appearance of DEAN STREET, an epic comic book series (we dare not say “serialized graphic novel”) by Al Burian and Berlin comic artist Oska Wald. The action in DEAN STREET takes place in a mythical version of Chicago, and features a zany cast of characters, some unnerving supernatural occurrences, and the best rock show ever drawn.
Plus a brief music performance by ANARKUSS, the post-apocalyptic no-electricity song and story act. A glimpse into what punk bands will sound like when the power grid fails and we all revert to eating nuts and berries…
“Al Burian is the bastard love-child of Spalding Gray and Henry Rollins”-Ex Berliner
