Category: Store Events

  • Kevin Coval at Quimby’s!

    Join Kevin Coval as he reads and signs his new book of poetry Everyday People.

    Kevin Coval is the author of everyday people (EM Press, Nov.’08) and slingshots (a hip-hop poetica) (EM Press, Nov. ’05), named Book of the Year-finalist by The American Library Association. Coval’s poems have appeared in The Spoken Word Revolution and The Spoken Word Revolution: Redux (Source Books), Total Chaos (Basic Civitas), I Speak of the City: New York City Poems (Columbia University Press), The Bandana Republic (Soft Skull Press), Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reporter, Cross Currents, Crab Orchard Review, Rattle, 2nd Ave Poetry, The Drunken Boat, and many other periodicals and journals. Coval writes for The Huffington Post and can be heard regularly on National Public Radio in Chicago.

    Coval has performed on four continents in seven countries including; The Parliament of the World’s Religions in Capetown, South Africa, The African Hip-Hop Festival: Battle Cry, Poetry Society of London, University of the West Indies in Jamaica, St. Xavier’s College in Bombay, India, and four seasons of Russell Simmons’ HBO Def Poetry Jam, for which he also served as artistic consultant. From Jan. 2006 to May 2007, Coval visited 26 states and more than 50 cities during the promotional tour for his first book, performing at over 150 high schools, universities, book stores, theaters, community centers and Union Halls around the country.

    Founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, the largest youth poetry festival in the world, Coval is poet-in-residence at The Jane Addams’ Hull House Museum at The University of Illinois-Chicago and poet-in-residence at The University of Chicago’s Newberger Hillel Center, and teaches at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

  • Kilter release party at Quimby’s!

    Join us for the release of the new Chicago Goth Zine – Kilter.
    Kilter is an off-shoot of GothicArtChicago.com which is an events website and myspace page for the fine arts and music events within the Chicago Dark Art, Fetish, Gothic & Industrial community.
    Featuring reading and performances from:

    Jennifer Anne Buckley: General magazine intro, and overview
    Peter Propaganda: Local Events and Music
    DVNT Dom: Shabari and Bondage discussion and Demonstration
    Nyx: Erotic Poetry reading
    Zoe: a talk about the interviewing process

  • Laurie Lindeen author of Petal Pusher

    Join Laurie Lindeen, author of Petal Pusher for a reading and book signing.

    Laurie Lindeen’s obsession with music was immediate.  But launching a successful career in rock and roll would take more guts and determination than she ever realized she could muster.  Lindeen grew up with The Monkees, The Partridge Family, and singing tunes from Rogers and Hammerstein musicals.  However, when her parents divorced, Lindeen began to understand that life may be a little less sweet than the sugar-coated soundtrack of her youth let on.  If she was to discover that it was a wonderful life after all, it would have to be on her own terms.

    As one of the “lost girls of Generation Why,” Lindeen questioned all the conventions that confronted her.  Why should she bother finishing school on time?  Why should she push for a corporate career that would never make her happy?  Why bother with a serious relationship?  Why were all the moms that she saw so unhappy?  But one thing she never wanted to wonder was, “What if…?”

    Moving from Madison, Wisconsin to Minneapolis, Minnesota, a musical hot-bed of the 1980s, Lindeen packed light, with only the dream of playing music and a steeled will to succeed.  But, before she could play a note, Lindeen came face to face with the disease that silently stalked her every step of the way.  Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a disease that left her nearly blind in one eye and completely paralyzed on one side of her body,   Lindeen’s passion to make it big on the local, national, and international rock scene became her driving force.

    Forming the all-girl alternative rock band, Zuzu’s Petals, Lindeen and her best girl friends Coleen (“former cheerleader gone off the deep end”) and Phyll (“Annie Oakley meets Patsy Cline”) struggle to survive the many challenges of making it as a female underdog in the male centric rock world including practicing in an abandoned box car, being scammed by slimy music industry agents on under-funded European tours, and watching other, newer female bands selling out and having greater success.

    Ultimately, Laurie’s falling in love with singer/songwriter Paul Westerberg of Replacements fame and her first sense of having a true home since childhood cause her to revaluate her determination to “make it big.” With this new stable foundation in her life, Lindeen is able to truly see the negative aspects of her life in the band for the first time, and she ultimately realizes the difference between her dream and reality.

    About the author:
    Laurie Lindeen holds an M.F.A. in creative writing, a subject she currently teaches. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone’s Anthology Altrarockorama and on NPR. She lives with her husband Paul Westerberg and their son in Minnesota. Visit her online at www.laurielindeen.com

  • Nate Powell Event

    Join Nate Powell as he reads his new book Swallow Me Whole.

    SWALLOW ME WHOLE is a love story carried by rolling fog, terminal illness, hallucination, apophenia, insect armies, secrets held, unshakeable faith, and the search for a master pattern to make sense of one’s unraveling. Two adolescent stepsiblings hold together amidst schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, family breakdown, animal telepathy, misguided love, and the tiniest nugget of hope that the heart, that sanity, that order itself will take shape again

  • Porn & Pong with author Damon Brown

    McDonald’s has Fast Food Nation, the fish industry has Cod, but no book has successfully weaved the cautionary tales and humorous history of the world of video games into our modern society… until now. In Porn & Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture journalist Damon Brown spent five years exploring how the $20 billion video game industry traces our evolution in sexual mores, technological dependence and personal interaction.

    The VCR and the dawn of the modern porn industry parallels the first Atari systems, Reality TV skyrocketed the same year as The Sims, and the surgically-endowed Pamela Anderson was only outshined by one other woman: Lara Croft. In one of the most stimulating moments, Brown examines Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2005 tirade against Grand Theft Auto, and how politics, hidden agendas and financial pressure affect all controversial art forms. “From TiVo to Google to Match.com, technology is now part of our everyday lives,” Brown says. “Technology is officially sexy now.”

    Fans of pop culture, technology and modern sexual history will be addicted from page one. Author and regular CNN tech correspondent Scott Steinberg calls it “A stimulating look at two of today’s most controversial subjects,” while Playboy Senior Editor Scott Alexander says “…Brown shows the pivotal role erotic content has played in the evolution of this new medium, as well as the furor and controversy it inevitably stirs up.”

    Author Damon Brown covers sex, music and technology, but he is first and foremost a pop culturist. A Northwestern grad, he regularly contributes to Playboy, SPIN, the New York Post, Inc., AARP The Magazine and Family Circle. Damon also writes the Inspector Gadget column for PlanetOut, the largest gay and lesbian website.

    An in-demand tech commentator, Damon has been interviewed on CNN, NPR, G4 and BBC World, and has spoken at several conferences including the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association and Chicago Magazine Writers One-on-One. In 2006 he helped moderate the first annual sex in video games conference in San Francisco. Porn and Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture, is being released by critically-acclaimed indie publisher Feral House.

    Porn & Pong Website

  • French Milk author Lucy Knisley

    Join Chicagoan Lucy Knisley to celebrate the release of  FRENCH MILK. She will present and discuss some of her comic work and also sign copies of her book.

    With the sights and smells of Paris floating off the pages, FRENCH MILK is a witty graphic travelogue that documents six weeks that the 23 year old author and her mother spent living together in Paris. Through drawings, photographs and musings, Lucy takes readers on a journey that begins in Chicago and continues through Parisian sites both on and off the beaten path – from flea markets and comic shops to cemeteries, museums and cafes. A passionate foodie, Lucy’s story is infused with savory illustrations and descriptions of the authentic Parisian food she quickly grew to love… croissants, cornichons, chocolate mousse, and of course, that fabulous French Milk!

    Lucy is a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently attends the prestigious graduate program at The Center for Cartoon Studies and is the winner of The Center’s Diamond in the Rough Scholarship.

  • Trevor Alixopulos and Laura Park Sign Comics at Quimby’s!

    Come celebrate the release of Trevor Alixopulos’ 2008 Ignatz Award nominated graphic novel, The Hot Breath of War by Sparkplug Comic Books, with some of Chicago’s finest emerging cartoonists.   Join Trevor’s friends and fellow 2008 Ignatz Awards nominees Laura Park and Jeremy Onsmith for a signing to celebrate the release the Hot Breath of War.

    The Hot Breath of War explores love amidst conflict and the seduction of violence itself. Trevor lives and draws in Santa Rosa and is also the author of Mine Tonight (also by Sparkplug Comic Books). Old school Quimby’s heads might also remember Quagga?


    Laura Park has done illustrations for The Reader, Asthmatic Kitty Records and many others. Her mini comic Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream is available now.

    Jeremy Onsmith is crazy! We wish he did more minis!!!!

    More info at:
    www.alixopulos.com
    www.flickr.com/photos/featherbed/

  • Deb Olin Unferth Event for Vacation

    In Vacation:
    A man follows his wife. The wife follows a stranger. The stranger leaves town and the man goes after him, determined to settle the score. But the man is not the only one looking for the stranger, and the stranger has troubles of his own. Amid all this, the earth quakes, a boy leaps out a window, and a dolphin swims free. Of course people have adventures of this kind—of course! of course!—but we’ve never heard of it before. With deadpan humor and skewed wordplay, Deb Olin Unferth weaves a mystery of hope and heartbreak.

    Deb Olin Unferth  is a University of Kansas professor and Pushcart Prize winner. She has been published in Harper’s, NOON, 3rd Bed, McSweeney’s, Fence, and other places. Vacation is her first novel.

    Deb Olin Unferth will read and signs copies of Vacation at the event.

    “Deb Olin Unferth is one of the most daring and entertaining writers in America today. She is an artist who knows that every sentence is an opportunity to have it all — music, invention, narrative drive —  and hers most definitely do. This novel is tricky, odd, unnerving, hilarious, and ultimately quite scary, not to mention very, very moving. We may or may not deserve this Vacation, but we are lucky to have it.”
    -SAM LIPSYTE

    “Part mystery, part sonata, Unferth writes like a musician plays, weaving images and themes and melodies with these beautifully rhythmic, funny, heart-breaking sentences. The whole novel should be read aloud and relished.”
    -AIMEE BENDER

    “In visionary, original prose, Deb Olin Unferth’s wonderful, quirky Vacation briskly sends forth its characters on their expectant journeys of self-discovery. Sentence by sentence, Unferth surprises and makes profound sense of what it is to be alive and how easily a lifesuit may be shucked off: “You won’t even feel it.” Loud applause should follow this accomplished —entertaining, funny, sad, solemn—book.”
    -CHRISTINE SCHUTT

  • Joe Meno and Arthur Nersesian

    Joe Meno with Arthur Nersesian at Quimby’s!

    Join authors Joe Meno and Arthur Nersesian as the read signs copies of their newest books

    Demons in the Spring is a collection of twenty short stories by Joe Meno with illustrations by twenty artists from the fine art, graphic art, and comic book worlds–including Charles Burns, Archer Prewitt, Ivan Brunetti, Jay Ryan, Paul Hornschemeier, Anders Nilsen, Geoff McFedtridge, Kelsey Brookes, Kim Hiorthoy, Caroline Hwang, Rachell Sumpter, KOZYNDAN, Evan Hecox, and Cody Hudson.

    Oddly modern moments which occur in the most familiar of public places, from offices to airports to schools to zoos to emergency rooms: a young girl who refuses to go anywhere unless she’s dressed as a ghost; a bank robbery in Stockholm gone terribly wrong; a teacher who’s become enamored with the students in his school’s Model United Nations club; a couple affected by a strange malady–a miniature city which has begun to develop in the young woman’s chest, these inventive stories are hilarious, heartbreaking, and unusual. While many of them have never been previously published, others have been featured in the likes of LIT, Other Voices, Swink, TriQuarterly, and McSweeney’s.

    Joe Meno is the best-selling author of the novels Hairstyles of the Damned, The Boy Detective Fails, How the Hula Girl Sings, and Tender As Hellfire. He was the winner of the 2003 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and is a professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago

    Arthur Nersesian will also be on hand to read from his newest book The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx, the highly anticipated follow-up to The Swing Voter of Staten Island–the first two installments in Nersesian’s series of novels offering an alternate history of New York: The Five Books of Moses.

    Robert Moses was responsible for creating contemporary New York’s infrastructure, but he did so at the cost of destroying neighborhoods. In this novel, Robert has looted his brother Paul’s share of the Moses family fortune, repeatedly blocked his attempts at gaining public office, thwarted his career in the private sector, and set in motion events that will decimate Paul’s home life. Paul Moses’s deep-seated rage metamorphoses into an act of terrorism committed against his brother and against a city that he once cherished.

    Although it can be read as a stand-alone novel about Robert and Paul Moses, The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx is also a memory play that follows Uli Sarkisian–the hero of The Swing Voter of Staten Island–en route to solving a massive historical crime, while desperately struggling to escape from becoming another one of its victims.

    Arthur Nersesian is the author of eight novels, including the smash hit The Fuck-Up (more than 100,00 copies sold), Chinese Takeout (HarperCollins), Manhattan Loverboy (Akashic), Suicide Casanova (Akashic), dogrun (MTV Books/Simon & Schuster), and Unlubricated (HarperCollins), and, most recently, The Swing Voter of Staten Island, the first volume in The Five Books of Moses series. He lives in New York City.

  • Sin: A Deadly Anthology Release Event at Quimby’s!

    Join us for a release party and reading for Sin: A Deadly Anthology, by The Chicago Contingent. Five authors will read excerpts from their stories in the anthology and each author will also ask some sort of literary or Chicago trivia question with correct answers garnering audience members some fabulous prizes.

    SIN is the first of a new anthology series delving into man’s battle with right and wrong. It is an exciting collection of original short stories by The Chicago Contingent, an ensemble of Chicago’s top popular fiction authors, including Marcus Sakey, Patricia Rosemoor, Marc Paoletti, A.C. Frieden, Julia Borcherts, Dana Kaye, Jamie Freveletti, Ric Hess and others. Stories range from crime mysteries to fantasy to noir and inspire the reader to question where they’d draw the line when the circumstances go beyond the impossible.

    The Performers:
    A.C. Frieden is an author and lawyer living in Chicago. Born in Africa and raised in Europe and Asia, he carries his global experiences into his novels. His background as a molecular biologist, attorney, private pilot , martial artist and army sniper comes together in Tranquility Denied, his latest spy thriller set in Moscow and New Orleans, cities where he studied law. In addition, his non-fiction works have appeared in professional publications in the U.S. and Europe, including the National Law Journal, BNA periodicals and IICLE books. He teaches arts and media law at Columbia College Chicago and serves as senior intellectual property counsel with a large U.S. corporation.

    Julia Borcherts is the co-founder of and regular performer at the Reading Under the Influence monthly literary series. She has also been a featured reader at 2nd Story, The Parlor Reading Series, Printer’s Row Book Fair and many other events and venues. Her freelance work has appeared in Time Out Chicago, Metromix, Red Eye, Chicago Fighting Arts, Not For Tourists Chicago, ChicagoBoxing.com, The Golden Gloves program and other publications. She is the recipient of a first-prize award from the Columbia University (New York) Scholastic Press Association and teaches fiction workshops at Columbia College Chicago.

    Alverne De’Jesus Ball has a BFA in Fiction Writing and is pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing at Columbia College Chicago. He has taught comic book writing at Noble Charter High School in Chicago and is currently an editor at McGraw-Hill. Alverne’s work has been published in the literary magazine Annalemma, The Columbia Chronicle and online at Brokenfrontier.com. He received first place in the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Creative Writing Competition for his graphic story Virgin Wolf. He also received Weisman Scholarships for his graphic stories R-Squared, Geddeon and Zulu.

    Jamie Freveletti     is a trial attorney, martial artist and runner. After law school, she lived in Geneva, Switzerland while obtaining a diploma in International Studies. Back in Chicago, she represented clients in areas ranging from class actions for mass salmonella poisoning to securities fraud. Her debut thriller, Running from the Devil, will be released by Harper Collins/William Morrow in winter, 2009.

    Dana Kaye is a novelist, freelance writer and book critic living in Chicago. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. There she studied under well-known authors such as Patricia Rosemoor and Joe Meno, and found her love of writing crime fiction. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Time Out Chicago, Curve Magazine, Crimespree Magazine and the Windy City Times.

    Relevant websites:
    “Sin” (Avendia Publishing website)