4th Annual Printers’ Ball

Museum of Contemporary Art
220 East Chicago Avenue
Chicago

The Printers’ Ball is an annual celebration of print literature in Chicago, hosted by Newcity, Poetry, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), in collaboration with CHIRP, MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine, Proximity Magazine, Stop Smiling, Venus Zine, and over 100 local literary organizations. The event showcases a diverse selection of print publications, available free of charge, including magazines, journals, weeklies, posters, and broadsides, plus a full night of live entertainment.

From MAKE 5 contributor John McNally:

My new book WHO CAN SAVE US NOW?: BRAND-NEW SUPERHEROES AND THEIR AMAZING (SHORT) STORIES, coedited with writer extraordinaire Owen King, is available now from Amazon and should be available everywhere soon if it isn’t already on the shelves. As the title states, the book features 22 brand-spanking-new stories featuring brand-spanking-new superheroes, with a few villains thrown in for good measure. (For those of you who happen to be from — or around — Burbank, Illinois, my story features a superhero who lives in Burbank.) A few of the writers included are Jennifer Weiner, George Singleton, David Yoo, Elizabeth Crane, Richard Dooling, Jim Shepard, Will Clarke, Kelly Braffet, J. Robert Lennon, Sean Doolittle, Tom Bissell, and Sam Weller. It also includes kick-ass illustrations by the wildly talented Chris Burnham.

G.M. Levinson, reviews editor and resident DJ, has taken his love of books to the streets. With a bike specially designed for his purpose, Levinson is pedaling books throughout Chicago. But by pedaling, we mean literally. Just as they were donated to his project, Somethingtoread.net, they will be donated to the public.

“My greatest love in life is reading books,” Levinson says. “And even more than that is sharing books with people, so I really wanted to figure out [a way to] get books into peoples’ hands.”
Time Out Chicago / Issue 176 : Jul 10–16, 2008

Many years ago, Bill Hillman’s poems appeared in the first issue of MAKE. Since then, a lot has happened. Too much to list. Most recently, he started this:

“Come check it out we’re gonna have Rambo the Ball Hawk telling home run catching stories at Wrigley. Sergio Mayora is a former candidate for the Mayor of Chicago. Kennedy from the Thinman is doing a musical set and as always so is Mr. Henry. And as always a possible late night story by Don DeGrazia. The Slam is packed with top competitors it’s gonna be a hell of a night.”

Check out the article by Robert Duffer in TimeOut.