Printers’ Ball: PRINT <3 DIGITAL

The sixth annual Printers’ Ball, which this year takes as its theme “Print Loves Digital,” is an annual celebration of literary culture founded by Poetry magazine and other independent Chicago literary organizations. The Printers’ Ball is produced with the Center for Book & Paper Arts and the Student Affairs Offices of Columbia College Chicago.

What:           Sixth Annual Printers’ Ball
Where:         The Ludington Building
                    Columbia College Chicago
                    1104 South Wabash Avenue
                    One block west of Michigan Avenue
When:          Friday, July 30, 2010 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM
Admission:   Free, all ages

In addition to featuring thousands of magazines, books, broadsides, and other takeaways available free of charge, the Printers’ Ball will showcase live readings, music, and performances and host letterpress, offset, silk-screening, rubber-stamping, and paper-making demonstrations. Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine, will offer a welcome at the beginning of this year’s festivities.

Immediately following are descriptions of the events leading up to the Friday, July 30, Printers’ Ball. To learn more about the schedule of the Printers’ Ball itself, please scroll down.

Printers’ Ball Lead-Up Events

Wednesday, July 1 to Friday, July 30Chicago Underground Library’s Daily Blog-Down to the Printers’ Ball

In celebration of this year's Printers’ Ball theme, Print <3 Digital, Chicago Underground Library presents a daily online preview of the Printers’ Ball throughout the month of July. CUL editors, volunteers, and guest bloggers are working around the clock to bring readers a preview of what can be found and who can be met at the Ball, in addition to spotlighting relevant archives of small press and independent local media. CUL’s model borrows community-building principles from digital culture to strengthen and draw attention to local networks in print, proving that not only does Print <3 Digital, but Digital <3 Print, too.

Wednesday, July 7, 8:30 PM
Thursday, July 8, 3:30 PMChic-A-Go-Go Show #679
CAN-TV Cable channel 19

Lil’ Ratso, the puppetronic host of Chicago’s dance show for kids of all ages, meets the Printers’ Ball! Combining classic TV entertainment with an original, quirky style, Chic-A-Go-Go creates a diverse TV world where people of all ages, colors, and backgrounds are linked together by their love of music and dance.

Saturday, July 10, 7:00 – 10:00 PMSon of Science of Obscurity
Jupiter Outpost
1139 West Fulton Market
Free admission

Chicago Underground Library presents a celebration of literary experiments! It’s the return of the Science of Obscurity, the Chicago Underground Library’s annual lead-up event to the Printers’ Ball. Featuring new, unpublished, and in-progress works presented as science fair experiments, the night will also offer a public “book launch” via catapult, scientist speed dating, and digital readings to warm your hardened techie heart. Left and right brains come together for Print <3 Digital—everyone wins when the laws of physics and literature collide.

Date TBA: Watch Site for Release Date!
Printers’ Ball Art Book Releasewww.printersball.org

A collaborative art book produced by the Center for Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College, the Chicago Printers’ Guild, and Poetry magazine will be released and ready for circulation. Twenty writers were paired with 20 printers to create a limited-edition (only 50 copies!), hand-printed art book. The book, a compilation of broadsides, features the work of Kathleen Judge, Steve Walters, Audrey Niffenegger, Ed Roberson, and others.

Dates TBA
Behind-the-Scenes Documentaries and Slideshowswww.flavorpill.com/chicago

Flavorpill.com will spotlight video documentaries on featured Printers’ Ball collaborations with Busy Beaver Button Co., Center for Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago, Chicago Printers’ Guild, Poetry magazine, Sonnenzimmer, and others.

Printers’ Ball 2010 Schedule
Friday, July 30, 6:00 – 11:00 PM

Scheduled Events:

6:00 PM: Christian Wiman introduces Printers’ Ball 2010
6:00 – 9:00 PM: PRINTERESTING.ORG’s “COPY JAM!,” an interactive art print occurrence.
6:00 – 10:00 PM: Dave Tompkins, the author of How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, The Machine Speaks, dee-jays his vocoder playlist, with live vocoder and special guest
7:00 – 7:30 PM: “The Precession,” a digital poem and live performance of original writing and real-time data collection by Mark Jeffrey and Judd Morrissey
8:00 – 10:00 PM: The Show 'n Tell Show, hosted by Zach Dodson and Michael Renaud, with Studio Blue’s Cheryl Towler Weese, Edie Fake, Isaac Tobin, and Kathleen Judge
10:00 – 11:00 PM: Live music by Icy Demons

Ongoing Events:

• Printers’ Ball limited-edition Busy Beaver Buttons to the first 500 guests
• Red-carpet interviews with Amy Guth, digital news editor for books at the Chicago Tribune and co-host of ChicagoNow Radio on WGN
• Gapers Block traffic jam of Chicago lit sites
• Gallery presentation of and reading from the Printers' Ball 2010 Art Book, with broadsides featuring the work of the Chicago Printers' Guild and local poets and writers
• Book binding by Chicago Books to Women in Prison
• DEUSEXPAGINA, a live experiment in literary quantum mechanics and wholly fabricated reviews of wholly fabricated books
• Elevated Diction: poems performed live during your elevator ride between floors
• The Gnoetry poetry-making machine
• "Pandora's Star Box," a poem-film by Carrie Olivia Adams
• Public Media Institute’s Mobile Screen-printing Cart
• “Text Object,” a featured digital reading provided by Vanessa Place
• Video gallery featuring Bound Off, contratiempo, Rattapalax, Switchback Books, and Wholphin DVD, plus metal type animation by students from the London College of Communication
• Fresh Squeezed Poetry, poetry written to order by Illinois Arts Council award winners
• Plus more with Anchor Graphics, Captain Carpenter, the students and alumni of Columbia College Chicago, and others
• The Next Objectivists typing the poetry of the multitude. Poetypists will compose in public and turn "raw or/e" into poetry chapbooks to be distributed on-site.

Major sponsors include:

Busy Beaver Button Co., CellStories, Chicago Printers Guild, Chicago Publishers Gallery, Chicago Underground Library, Flavorpill, Gapers Block, MAKE: A Literary Magazine, Newcity, Open Books, PRINTERESTING.ORG, The Show 'n Tell Show, Sonnenzimmer: The Art & Print Studio of Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi, Stampland, STOP SMILING BOOKS, TripleQuick, and Venus Zine.

The Printers’ Ball extends special gratitude to:

Sugarplum Catering, Founders, Milwaukee Special Reserve, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Point, and Schlitz.

Printers’ Ball participants and collaborators:

6x6
ACM
ADITA (A Day in the Air)
After Hours
ALARM
Albert Whitman & Company
Alethea Norene Art Projects
Allbook Books
The Alternative Press Center
Anchor Graphics
Annalemma
A Public Space
Apparatus Magazine
Apple Valley Review
Arcadia Publishing
AREA Chicago
Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal
Arte y Vida Chicago
Artful Dodge
ART-HOUNDS
Artifice Magazine
Bailliwik
Bateau Press
Beard of Bees
Beauty Pearls for Chemo Girls
The Believer
Bellevue Literary Review
Black Lodge Press
Black Ocean
BOMB Magazine
Book/Mark Quarterly Review
Bound Off
Build Your Own Chicago
BULL: Men's Fiction
Busy Beaver Button Co.
Canarium Books
Candy Dinner
CANNOT EXIST
Captain Carpenter
Carpe Articulum Literary Review
Cave Wall
CellStories
Center for Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago
Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co
Chic-A-Go-Go
Chicago Amplified
Chicago Books to Women in Prison
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Publishing Industry Programs
Chicago Gallery News
Chicago INNERVIEW Magazine
Chicago Journal
Chicago Poetry Calendar
Chicago Publishers Gallery
Chicago Quarterly Review
Chicago Reader
The Chicago Reporter
Chicago Review
Chicago Review Press
Chicago Subtext
Chicago Underground Library
Chicago Zine Fest
CHIRP
Citadel Books
ColorLines magazine
Columbia College Chicago
The B.A. and MFA Poetry Programs at Columbia College Chicago
The Student Affairs Offices at Columbia College Chicago
Columbia Poetry Review
The Common
The Common Review
The Constant Conversation
contratiempo
Conversational Reading
Court Green
Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction + Art
dancing girl press
Dear Navigator
Delicious Design League
Design Bureau
Elevated Diction
The Encyclopedia Show
Ether Sea Projects
Euphony
Evanston Print & Paper
Exact Change Press
featherproof books
Fence
Fence Books
The Fiction Writing Department of Columbia College Chicago
Fifth Wednesday Journal
Flavorpill
Fresh Squeezed Poetry
Front Forty Press
Gapers Block
Geneva13 Press
The Georgia Review
Gnoetry
Green Lantern
Green Sugar Press
Guild Complex
Hayden’s Ferry Review
Haymarket Books
Hotel Amerika
Hourglass Books
House Press
In These Times
Indigo zine
Insight Press
International Socialist Review
Intuit: Center for Intuitive & Outsider Art's library
The Iowa Review
Is Greater Than
JAB: Journal of Artists Books
Journal of Ordinary Thought
Knee-Jerk
Lake Claremont Press
Lake Forest College Press
Les Figues Press
Light Quarterly
Lilith
Literago
The Literary Review
Litmus Press
Love Your Blood
Lumpen
The MacGuffin
Mad Licks
MAKE: A Literary Magazine
Mandorla
Matériel
McSweeney's
Microscope Publications
Mildred Pierce Zine
milkmag
Moonlit
Neighborhood Writing Alliance
The New York Quarterly
Newcity
Next Objectivists Poetry Workshop
Ninth Letter
Noemi
Nostalgia Digest Magazine
&NOW Books
NTI Upstream
NYQ Books
Off Campus Writers Workshop
Open Books
Open City
Orange Alert Press
Other Voices Books
Outsider
The Oxford American
Oxford Poetry
Pace Communications
Packingtown Review
PALABRA A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art
The Platypus Review
Playboy
Please Don't
The Poetry Foundation
poetryfoundation.org
Poetry magazine
The Point
Polyphony H.S.
Poor Taste magazine
PPDC
PRA Publishing
Printers Row/Tribune books
Proximity
Publications Department of the Art Institute of Chicago
Public Media Institute
Publish Chicago
The Puddin'head Press
Puerto del Sol
Qlix magazine
The Quarterly Conversation
Que(e)ry
Quimby's
RaceWire
Rattapallax
RCP Publications
READ zine
reconstruction room
Red Rover Series
Reggie’s Rock Club
Requited Journal for Innovative Art
RHINO
Robert Duffer, the Chicago Literary Scene Examiner
Roctober
Rose Metal Press
Sara Ranchouse Publishing
Say What?
Seven Corners
Shame That Tune
The Show 'n Tell Show
Silver Tongue
Skyline
Snow City Arts
Socialist Worker
Sourcebooks
South Loop Review
Spinning Jenny
Spire Press
The Spoon River Poetry Review
Stampland
STOCKYARD
STOP SMILING
STOP SMILING BOOKS
Sugarplum Catering
Surrealist Editions/Black Swan Press
Sustainable Sex
Swan Isle Press
Switchback Books
Sycamore Review
Tampa Review
Tarpaulin Sky Press
Tebot Bach
TenStyle Media
THE2NDHAND
Think Journal
Third World Press
Tin House
TripleQuick
TriQuarterly Online
Tuesday; An Art Project
Two with Water
Ugly Duckling Presse
Venus Zine
Versal
Verse Wisconsin
West Branch
Wholphin
wicked alice
Wise Guide
Wordspace Press
The Writers WorkSpace
Wurlington Press
You, Me, Them, Everybody
Young Chicago Authors
Zone