The rumors are true, our monthly social get together, Work In Progress is tons of fun! It happens that last Wednesday of the month, and involves free snacks, and working on projects in a social atmosphere.
You can either present something your working on, and get feedback, or just hang out and work on your project and not feel so all alone for one night.
Stop by July 28th from 7 – 8:30pm for a good time!
One and a half years ago, in an attempt to overcome his nigh crippling shyness and to get out of the basement, Brayton J. Cameron began the zine Dear Deer Wolf Bear Shark (Long Reach Publishing) so he wouldn’t just sit in the corner of venues silently weeping in the dark while on tour with local rock band Geronimo! This kind of worked. Issue 5 is Brayton’s celebrated final issue. Some said it was funny, others said it was stupid, he just said the same as issue one, it was the “World’s best content. World’s worst zine.”
Shaylah Kloska and Lauren Hunter teamed up early this year to create Little Brother, a zine about, well anything, their first issue contained stories, poems, comics, and drawing ranging in topics from actual brothers, to strangers, to an octopus with a typewriter. Throughout this year Shaylah and Lauren have worked across the ocean, but this event brings the two of them together once again to officially release their 2nd delightful issue and, of course, read a bit from it.
For more info: http://www.ddwbs.com & http://heylittlebrother.tumblr.com/ & Little Brother on Facebook.
Mike Faloon, editor of the world-famous Go Metric! zine, celebrates the launch of his new book of stories, The Hanging Gardens of Split Rock: Stories, out now on Gorsky Press. Faloon is on tour with fellow Gorsky-ite James Jay (The Undercards), and will be joined by Chicago guy Jonathan Messinger (Hiding Out).
According to conventional wisdom some goals are best not pursued. The characters in The Hanging Gardens of Split Rock have yet to learn this. Pocket Hercules taps into the power of the ancient wonders to mend a broken heart, with some heavy metal to help. Little League coach Gary Shouldice probably goes too far in motivating his son. Leon Rayner serenades a girl he barely knows with his week-old punk band. From small town watering holes to veterinary clinics to jam band festivals the people portrayed in The Hanging Gardens of Split Rock are undeterred in the pursuit of their dreams. And maybe they should be. Deterred, that is.
The Performers:
Mike Faloon has paid the bills as a DJ, dishwasher, drummer, and school teacher. He is the publisher of two zines (Go Metric, Zisk) and a contributing writer to magazines such as Chunklet, Razorcake, and Roctober. His work has also appeared in The Zine Yearbook (Soft Skull) and The Overrated Book (Last Gasp). He lives in Brewster, New York with his family.
Poet and essayist James Jay lives in Flagstaff, Arizona where he has worked as a bartender, fire fighter, dish washer, janitor, furniture mover, and the like. He has taught poetry in high schools, jails, and universities. Currently, he is the Executive Director for the Northern Arizona Book Festival and the Managing Editor for Two Dogs Press.
Jonathan Messinger is the co-founder of Featherproof books, co-host of the Dollar Store reading series, Books Editor for Time Out Chicago and author of the short-story collection Hiding Out. He’s currently at work on Hiding Out 2: Hiding In, and Hiding Out 3: Don’t Stop Hiding.
For more info: Mike Faloon: http://www.gometric.typepad.com/ James Jay: http://jamesjay.org
Jonathan Messinger: http://featherproof.com
Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson launched Touch and Go fanzine in Lansing, MI, in 1979, and set out to chronicle, lambaste, ridicule, and heap praise on the new punk happenings. In laughably minuscule press runs by today’s standards, T & G was made by guys within the Midwest scene strictly for the edification of scenesters and pals in other cities like DC, Philly, Boston, LA, SF, and Chicago. Inspired by Slash and Search and Destroy and writers like Claude Bessy and Chris Desjardines, TV and DS pumped out twenty-two naughty, irreverent issues, spawned a legendary independent record label, and brought fame and fortune to the best bands in the land, including: Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Misfits, Negative Approach, the Fix, the Avengers, the Necros, Discharge, Die Kreuzen, Poison Idea—any punks worth their weight in glorious black and white.
I was inspired by how fearless and together Touch and Go were. They were really wild and extremely funny.”—Henry Rollins
“It was really one of the first times anyone outside of Washington really paid us any mind. The fact that Touch and Go took an interest in us really blew us away.”—Ian MacKaye
“Anyone who’s ever published a true DIY fanzine owes at least a small debt to Touch and Go.”—Decibel
For more info: http://www.touchandgobook.com
Nicole Wilson is the Assistant Programs Director of Poetry and Literature at Columbia College Chicago. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Coconut, Fifth Wednesday, RealPoetik, pacificREVIEW, Rabbit Light Movies, and Another Chicago Magazine, among others.
Kate Dougherty’s e-chapbook, We Trundle We Ignite, is forthcoming from Scantily Clad Press. More poems are published or forthcoming in The Carolina Quarterly, Cannibal, SIR! Magazine, Used Cat, and Action Yes. Kate holds an M.F.A. from Columbia College Chicago,
where she served as editorial assistant on Court Green.
Patrick Culliton’s chapbook Hornet Homily is available from Octopus Books. Recent work has appeared, or will soon, in Another Chicago Magazine, Beeswax, Conduit, Eleven Eleven and elsewhere. He teaches at UIC and Loyola.
For more info: http://www.octopusbooks.net/
When asked about his influences, Eugene Nelson Jr. points to three enduring sources: growing up on the Southside of Chicago in the 1970s and 80s, playing Role Playing Games with people all over Chicago, and loving my family everyday. Not a likely combination for a writer, but one that has brought forth Covert Operations: Alpha (AuthorHouse Publishing), a debut book that is filled with action, love, friendship, death, mystery, humor, magic, betrayal, technology and vengeance. All set here in the back drop of Chicago. Fast paced and intriguing, Covert Operations: Alpha’s science fiction marks the difficulties of everyday life in a world that has evolved into a powerful society filled with powerful beings. This book will wake up every brain cell you have in an effort to understand each character and their actions. Just when you think you understand something, everything will change and so will your understanding. This is the thinking man’s book and you will enjoy every moment of it. So check your equipment at the door and get ready for the time of your life as you are introduced to the world of Covert.
Bad attitudes meet sophisticated intelligence, and underground crime meets big business in this involving debut book. Eugene Nelson Jr.’s complicated characters and rude cut offs in Covert Operations: Alpha evoke a self-absorbed population. Eugene Nelson Jr., who still lives in Chicago, works from home now and spends most of his time creating new and exciting tales from his role playing game by the same name of Covert Operations.
For more info: http://covertoperationsalpha.com/
Writer Alan Goldsher & Artist Jeffrey Brown will present their new book, Present Paul Is UnDead: The British Zombie Invasion, that Goldsher wrote and Brown illustrated.
Are readers ready for a world in which the Beatles just wanna eat your brains? ALAN GOLDSHER (Hard Bop Academy) thinks so, and he may be right. In this humor-filled splatterfest, the rise and fall of the zombie Beatles unfolds through eyewitness accounts, newspaper clippings, and interviews. Violence and music go hand-in-hand as the zombiefied Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney fight, eat, and rock their way to fame and popularity while ninja lord Ringo Starr tries to keep them out of trouble. Nothing can stop them–not even a vampiric Pete Best, zombie-killing Mick Jagger, rival ninja Yoko Ono, or bad reviews. In fact, their only enemies may be one another, as personal conflicts threaten to break them up for good. Roughly paralleling the real-world career of the Beatles, this alternate history reimagines successes, failures, and rivalries with over-the-top bizarro charm.
JEFFREY BROWN illustrated Paul Is Undead. He’s best known for his bittersweet autobiographical graphic novels like Clumsy, Unlikely, and more. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, NPR’s This American Life, the Chicago Reader, the New City, and Time. He has been featured on and created a short animated music video for the band Death Cab For Cutie.
For more info:
alangoldsher.com
Jeffreybrowncomics.com
http://www.topshelfcomix.com/catalog/jeffrey-brown
The final words of the famous and infamous have been collected since antiquity because they speak to a primal curiosity and spark introspection: What does one say on the edge of oblivion?
We expect last words to be poignant, a résumé or summation of life experience. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. We want them to reveal secrets. But they very seldom do. Journalist Robert K. Elder spent 7 years writing Last Words of the Executed, chronicling the ?nal thoughts of the most discarded, reviled members of society. It’s an oral history of the overlooked, the infamous and the forgotten—who nonetheless speak to a common humanity with their last act on earth. This is the history of capital punishment in America, told from the gallows, the chair, and the gurney.
“This is a dangerous book. Who knows how we will emerge from the encounter? It makes me want to live, to use my energies in soul-sized pursuits like justice, like love…”
—Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking
“Robert K. Elder is a journalist in the noblest tradition. . . . What I will remember most about this book is its poetry in the speech of people at the most traumatic moment of their lives.”
—Studs Terkel, from the foreword
For more info: http://lastwordsoftheexecuted.com
The rumors are true, our monthly social get together, Work In Progress is tons of fun! It happens that last Wednesday of the month, and involves free snacks, and working on projects in a social atmosphere.
You can either present something your working on, and get feedback, or just hang out and work on your project and not feel so all alone for one night.
Stop by June 30 from 7 – 8:30pm for a good time!
Quimby’s is proud to team up with the organizers of Learnapalooza, a free, day-long neighborhood festival happening on June 19, 2010 in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago where community members, both businesses and residents, will exchange skills with one another. Anyone who has anything to share – and basically we all do – can offer a workshop. The idea is to provide a fun and free way for neighbors to share their passions and for everyone to learn new skills. The organizers of the festival hope that all attendees will realize how much they have to teach and learn from others.
Of course Quimby’s is participating! We’re offering three workshops about how to get involved in independent publishing, since that’s of course what we’re known for. Each of our workshops are 45 minutes long, and they’re at 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00 that day. There are workshops in a variety of places, and we hope that you’ll stop in to Quimby’s to attend our portion of the ‘palooza! You are of course welcome to come in on the day of as a walk-in, but if you RSVP to tell us ya think you might make it, we’d appreciate it so we know how many people to expect.
For more info or to sign up to teach a class, learn something new, or be a volunteer the day of: Learnapalooza
Quimby’s Workshops: Sat., June 19th, 2:00pm, 3:00pm and 4:00pm
