Printers' Ball!

We mentioned before that we're hosting the Chicago reading series face-off at this year's Printers' Ball. Here's some more info:

Printers' Ball 2009

1104 S Wabash, film row cinema stage (8th floor)

9-11pm

Emcees: Mary Hamilton & Lindsay Hunter

5 minute slots (timed Quickies style!)

Featuring readers reppin' the following reading series:

Mental Graffiti

Quickies

Reading Under the Influence

RecRoom

Red Rover

Danny's

Homolatte

Sunday Night Sex Show

2nd Story

Second City Third Person

Ray's

The Encyclopedia Show

We are so excited! And watch out readers, because we're searching high and low for an extra special noisemaker with which to bounce your asses off the stage should you go over 5 minutes.

Bring it!!

QUICKIES + PRINTERS' BALL = TLF

Quickies! will be hosting the Chicago reading series face-off at this year's Printers' Ball! The Printers' Ball is FREE and you're sure to run into a lot of friends and enemies (and covert booze)!

Fifth Annual Printers' Ball

Ludington Building
1104 South Wabash Avenue
5:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Admission to the Printers’ Ball is free and open to all ages.

Founded by Poetry magazine with other independent Chicago literary organizations, the Printers’ Ball is an annual celebration of print culture, featuring thousands of magazines, books, and broadsides available free of charge; live readings and music; letterpress, offset, and paper-making demonstrations; and much more. This year’s Printers’ Ball is co-produced with Columbia College Chicago and the Center for Book & Paper Arts, and is set to take place in the landmark Ludington Building, former home to the American Book Company. Select events during the Printers’ Ball are being recorded for Chicago Public Radio’s Chicago Amplified.

See you there!!

Another New Calligraphy and An Implausibility of Gnus in TimeOut Chicago!!

Read TimeOut Chicago's article on Another New Calligraphy, the press that published Toby Bengelsdorf's book, An Implausibility of Gnus!! So exciting!

BBQ! Dollar Store! Hideout!

The Dollar Store Tour kicks off today with a BBQ/reading/improv show at the Hideout from 1-6 p.m. If you like food and being amused, this your shit. 

1-6pm, $8

The Hideout

1354 W Wabansia Ave

Chicago, IL 60642

Readings by: Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf, Chris Bower, Aaron Burch, Elizabeth Crane, Zach Dodson, Natalie Edwards, Amelia Gray, Mary Hamilton, Lindsay Hunter, Jac Jemc, Jonathan Messinger, Caroline Picard, Diana Slickman, Scott Stealey, Jill Summers, Robbie Q. Telfer

Improv by: 1, 2, 3, Fag and Hag! (Seth Dodson, Kellen Alexander, John Hartman and Christina Boucher), and An Oak (Neil Dandade and Adam Schwartz)

It's ALSO a big barbeque, and all you can eat drumsticks, and veggie burgers, and fixin's, and corn-on-the-cob, and picnic sides!
Oh, and one more thing: we’re raffling off a custom-built, featherproof-themed bike, compliments of Working Bikes Cooperative.
This afternoon delight will cost $8 at the door, and for $8 you get 8 things:
1. Admission
2. A featherproof mini book
3. Readings by Chicago’s finest and Improv by Chicago’s funniest
4. Hosted bar by Red Stripe 1-3pm! Yum!
5. All the barbeque you can eat
6. Your very own Dollar Store official souvenir pin
7. A Working Bikes bike raffle ticket
8. A shot at a missed connection, and the time of your life.

Come one, come all!

Good News!

First, co-hostess Mary Hamilton has a (wow holy shit amazing) story in the new Smokelong! It also features this painting by her amazing brother, Eddie:


Smokelong Quarterly, June 25, 2009 Issue
Me and Theodore Are Trapped in the Trunk of the Car with Rags in Our Mouths and Tape Around Our Wrists and Ankles, Please Let Us Out., by Mary Louise Hamilton

Second! Mascot Toby Bengelsdorf has a book out from Another New Calligraphy!

An Implausibility of Gnus

Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf

An Implausibility of Gnus is the product of Bengelsdorf’s compulsive pick-pocketing from the coats of the American psyche. Over 30 short and shorter stories pack into the collection, each revealing sparkling tidbits of the ordinary or ordinary disclosures of the fantastical: kitchen slop and siphophores, travel and murder. Connect the dots if you care to, or just marvel at the rounded corners and think about swimming.

Numbered box of handmade cards, books, and "ketchup"
$10 (US postage paid)
Buy! (It's gorgeously designed by ANC, and it's written by Toby. What more could you want?!)

Congrats to both writers! Thanks for associating yourselves with Quickies! even though you both have no choice!

Whatta Mag Whatta Mag Whatta Mag Whatta Mighty Good Lit Mag

SOMNAMBULIST QUARTERLY

Quickies! alum (and inaugural whistlee) Lex Sonne has launched an online lit journal called Somnambulist Quarterly. Based on its extremely solid first issue, the future looks bright for SQ. From the website:

"Somnambulist Quarterly is an online literary magazine based in Chicago. We intend to publish the best literary fiction and poetry from both established and emerging writers. A photo essay will be included in each issue to give the stories and poems some color."

Check it out and submit! Shit is tight.

I'mah spit the truth, I won't stop till I get FICTION AT WORK in they birthday suit

Announcing the re-design of Quickies! mascot Toby Bengelsdorf's awesome site Fiction at Work! "We like entertaining stories that make us laugh, but this is very much a preference, and not a rule." 

The best part, aside from the great fiction? The link marked "Boss!" that you can click should your boss walk up behind you while you're perusing the site, which opens up to a sales matrix so it looks like you're working. 

Check it out and submit--shit is trill!

Windy City Story Slam Championships at the METRO!

This Saturday, January 24, come witness the Windy City Story Slam Championships at the Metro! 12 Finalists, 12 Stories, 1 All-City Champ! 

Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8!

Lindsay Hunter will appear as a special guest. Huzzah.

Lit Gangs of Chicago Rec Room Reading at the MCA!

From recroomers.com:

"So Help Me God

"curated by Erin Teegarden

"Rec room returns to the MCA for its Literary Gangs of Chicago series. Since this event takes place on Inauguration Day, we solemnly swear to focus our readings and performance on oaths, promises, commitments, and initiations."

Featuring Allison Gruber, Carl Marcum, M. Eliza Hamilton Abegunde, Eric Elshtain, ERIN HELLAH TEEGARDEN, MARY FUCKING HAMILTON, Jason Bredle, Krista Franklin, Miki Howals, KYLE SHITYEAH BEACHY, NICOLETTE HONEYASS BOND, Matthias Regan, and Pat Babbitt & Lindsey Fisher.

Tuesday, January 20, 6:30 p.m., Puck's Restaurant at the MCA. It's gonna be good!

I want my $2!!!!!

Jac Jemc's new chapbook, A HEAVEN GONE, is available now from ML Press!! It's a measly $2 and as far as I can tell, shipping is free. Get your copy before they sell out!

Also newly out from ML Press is SOME OF THE LETTERS THAT WERE CUT, BUT THAT TELL EVEN MORE OF THE STORY OF JONATHAN BENDER, WEATHERMAN (b. 1967-d. 1999) by Michael Kimball and LIKE IT WAS HER PLACE by future Quickies! reader, Kim Chinquee. 

When I say m! you say lady!

Mary Hamilton has a great new story up at Thieves Jargon! Check it out here and then when you see Mlle. Hamilton, slap her on the ass with glee!!

It's me, Ma. You ain't dreamin. Starstruck MARY HAMILTON, JAC JEMC, AMY GUTH & TIM HALL damn near stopped breathin...

Quickies! Bostonian wife Mary Hamilton, along with past readers Jac Jemc and Amy Guth AND future reader Tim Hall, will be reading at the Orange Alert Reading series Monday, December 15 at The Whistler, 2421 N. Milwaukee, at 7 p.m.! This kind of lineup doesn't come along too often, so make sure you don't miss it!

This TOBIAS AMADON BENGELSDORF harrassed the whole neighborhood...

Quickies! mascot Toby Bengelsdorf has a Featherproof mini-book just waiting to be downloaded, folded, and treasured for all eternity. It includes some of the best Zach Plague design work I've seen yet! Check it out!

Hold up wait a minute don't go there, 'cuz I ain't your hooooooo...ly smokes, look at all this talent!

Quickies! contributor Jac Jemc has a story in the new Caketrain (also featuring SAIC prof and the source of many wet dreams, Sara Levine!)! I've already ordered my copy and I can't wait to get my dirty, dirty hands on it. Mlle. Jemc also has a story at Dogzplot and a 50-word story and interview (MH/LH shout-out, what?) at Nick Ostdick's blog.

Any other Quickies! contributors with good news? Email it to quickieschicagoATgmailDOTcom and we'll put it up here faster than you can say "Those are some fast sluts!"