…and our rights we will maintain is the Iowa state motto. And Iowa is where I’ll be later this week, specifically in Iowa City for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. If you’re going to be there, too, then maybe you can come hear me talk about point of view in creative nonfiction at 11:00 am on Thursday the 14th in the Eleventh Hour Lecture Series. What better way to celebrate Bastille Day?
Mid-June…
…is not just a season in very late spring; it’s also the Dead Man Publishing Facebook Showcase. Per editor Micah Cavaleri, “These showcases are an in-depth look at the work of an individual or group. Mid-June is absolutely anything that can be translated into a web-based format.” Showcase 1, some collaborative Crapseys by Elisa and me, went up yesterday. Thanks to Micah for including us, and to Adelaide Crapsey for popularizing the cinquain and for having a spirit “flashing unquenched defiance to the stars.”
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The poem Abbottabad…
…is really terrible, but probably not so terrible as all the extrajudicial killings and arrests the government likes to engage in. Over at his blog, Martin Seay discusses both of these things, and many more. Happy Fourth!
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Underground
Woman Made Gallery is going to be presenting a self-published art exhibition featuring the work of women, transgender, and gender non-conforming artists from all over the United States.
Curated by Ruby Thorkelson, the show includes both a pop-up library of zines, comics, and other self-published works by over 50 artists and writers organized in collaboration with Chicago Underground Library, as well as a show of installed artworks in all media by 12 self-publishing artists. The show will run from July 8 – August 18, 2011 at the WomanMade Gallery at 685 N Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago Illinois, and more details are here. Come to the opening reception on Friday, July 8 from 6 to 9 pm!
Artists Represented: Alexandra Blom, Liz Born, Anya Davidson, Megan Diddie, Meredith Eastburn, Edie Fake, Sanya Glisic, Robin Hustle, Anne Elizabeth Moore and and Esther Pearl Watson, Lee Relvas, Laura Szumowski
Pop-Up Library Contributors: Aria Boutet, Mia Beatrice, Alexandra Blom, Vanessa Capshaw, Mairead Case, Caitlin Cass, Sabrina Chap, Chicago Underground Library, Carrie Colpitts, Gabrielle Congrave, Dancing Girl Press and Studio, Enola D, Anya Davidson, Sarah Drake, Edie Fake, Betty Heredia, Robin Hustle, Marie Hunt, Curious Jane, Jessica Justice, Aidan Koch, Kate Larson, LB, Angee Lennard, Max Mandax, Kira Mardikes, Liz Mason, Sam Merritt, Mildred Pierce Zine, Hannah Melton, Louisa Parker, Jeannette Perkal, Emilie Lis Pradera and Natalie Bowers, Lee Relvas, Rose Metal Press, Jami Sailor, Kara Sievewright, Dean Spade, Simon Strikeback, Laura Szumowski, Students for Justice in Palestine at SAIC, Sy Wagon
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Flask Fiction
Nope, that’s not a typo (even though Google keeps trying to correct my spelling when I attempt to search the term). It’s a brand new reading series here in Chicago that “exists to pay homage to the longstanding relationship writers have with their drink, in the city known for its tradition in slam poetry and speakeasies,” and it’s making its debut this Thursday, June 30th at 5:00 pm at Lincoln Hall. The idea is that writers will show up, socialize, drink, write (pen and paper provided), and ultimately share the short short stories they come up with on the spot in a reading at the end of the evening, a reading which I will be helping to judge.
I’m not saying I’ll give you extra points if you compete while dressed as a flapper, but I’m also not saying I won’t.
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A beautiful audience…
…came to the Beauty Bar last night…
…for the Chicago launch of They Could No Longer Contain Themselves. For more pictures of the audience, the readers, and the painted chests, visit the Rose Metal Press blog here.
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They Could No Longer Contain Themselves will be contained…
…by the Beauty Bar, briefly, this Sunday, June 19 at 7:00 pm when four of the five authors in this collection of short short chapbooks read from their work. If you are in and/or near Chicago, then stop by, listen in, buy a book, have a drink and maybe even a manicure. It’s Father’s Day, I know, but why not bring your dad?
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There’s a whole manual devoted to Chicago Style…
…but what about The New Chicago Style? Find out this Thursday, June 16th at the Chicago Cultural Center at 6:00 pm, then come to the after-party afterwards at the Stop Smiling Storefront:
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Pressing some letters
Neither Abby Beckel nor Rebecca Saraceno nor I wore little black visors like these guys on the poster in the window of the Museum of Printing in North Andover, MA on Monday or Tuesday while we were letterpressing the covers of Tiff Holland’s forthcoming Rose Metal Press chapbook Betty Superman…
…but we did wear aprons and gloves and things. Witness Rebecca here, carving the linoleum block to make the central image: 
We can’t show you the chapbook cover (yet) because it’s top secret (for now), but we can show you the Vandercook in action… 
…the bookmarks we made…
…and the boombox we used to listen to the radio, pictured here atop the bin full of cleaning solvent-soaked t-shirt rags: 
Little known letterpressing fact: classic rock makes the work go faster. Led Zeppelin in particular.
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Sights to be seen in Iowa City include…
…but are not limited to: the Black Angel…
…a Giant Sloth dressed as Harry Potter…
…trees with those creepy stick-on faces…
…dioramas of hungry prehistoric fish…
…quotations from the works of notable writers embedded, Walk of Fame-style, into the downtown pavement…
…and attendees…
…and attendees…
…and attendees…
…of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. The ones pictured here came to my “The Evilly Compounded, Vital I” talk yesterday morning, and for that I thank them. Thanks, too, to Caryl Pagel for inviting me!