The schedule of this year’s Chicago Poetry Block Party is now live! If you’re in Chicago, join us for this free celebration of poetry, music, art, and community at Austin Town Hall on Saturday, July 28.
Gradual agony seeped through the skin like venom, so inhumane and aggressive, making physical pain look so diminutive. I wanted to shake the pain away, but it took root- negating and incomprehensible, refusing to depart from sweet memories. Grief’s spindly hands took hold of my mind and hurdled me into an abyss every time his presence awoke me at night. You deserve this. My mind screamed. No one is here because of you. My conscience screeched, but he couldn’t hear my thoughts anymore. I was screaming to an empty shell, pleading with a hallow body.
He was haunting me-it was easy to conclude. My mind tried to grasp his death; analyze it, break it apart in small pieces and formulate a proper answer that would make sense as to why he was gone. But alas, I couldn’t even explain the simple question, the one inquiry that branched off into countless possibilities:
RiverStones Custom Framing 33 N. Main St. Rochester, NH 03867
J. L. Long’s first novel, A SLOW-MOTION SUICIDE, has been published through Lulu Books and is now available for purchase. The official book launch and live reading is scheduled for the September Rochester Writers Night event on Thursday, September 16th. An open mic for other writers will follow.
In Issue #17, Managing Editor Rivka Yeker interviews the owners of Chicago-based independent bookstore Volumes Bookcafe about community and their intentions with the store.
“Rebecca and Kimberly George are two sisters who once dreamt about opening up a bookstore. Both sisters have master’s degrees and are certified to teach, but they have focuses in different areas. Kimberly’s foundation is rooted in theatre and working with younger children while Rebecca’s is focused primarily on English and teaching high school and college students. This is why their passion for Volumes is so strong. As former teachers, they deeply understand the benefits and difficulties of the American education system, recognize the needs that the Chicago Public Schools have, and are actively working on giving young people resources and spaces that help them feel empowered and comfortable. Due to their hard-work and ambition, they were able to create something that encompassed their visions of what a bookstore should look and feel like.”
Interpal is pleased to invite you to an evening of performance and poetry to help raise awareness of the desperate situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as the winter approaches.
All proceeds will go towards our #LightUpALife campaign to bring safe lighting equipment to the people of Gaza to help them through the darkness of winter and alleviate the safety risks posed by flooding and environmental catastrophe.
Please RSVP to: [email protected]with your name and contact details as soon as possible.
Tickets will cost £3 and will be available to purchase on the door.
Further information is available on our Facebook page.
What are some fun romcom trappings/tropes/genres y’all wanna see Black girls/poc illustrated in? Right now I’ve got a list of fake often punny titles, (ex: This Will Only End in Tiers - about rival bakers, natch) but I wanna know what the people want, lol.
Please don’t go giving me your specific personal book ideas/wips/ocs and pitches and whatnot, lmao. Just generic pls~ ♡
10/08/17 - The first appearance of the pub exterior! Someone on an internet forum I occasionally frequent was asking how to achieve this kind of double exposure effect, so I was having a play around & decided I rather liked it.
03/08/17 - This was intended as a follow on from the gramophone poster I did back in May, with the idea that the two posters could work separately, or side by side.
20/07/17 - This was an early draft of the ‘chalkboard’ design from a few weeks back, which didn’t quite work in black & white. I was having a play with some different ways to achieve a distressed effect & felt it was worth a revival.
22/06/17 - This is part 1 of a series, which will be revealed over the next few weeks. The idea was that they could work individually, or all together as a quadriptych.
15/06/17 - I spotted a cool chalk board outside a pub, which sent me via Google image search into a rabbit’s warren of craft blogs by people who take what goes onto their kitchen blackboards very seriously indeed (mine just says butter & washing up liquid in my terrible scrawl at the moment). Anyway this was an attempt to digitally channel some of that homespun style.
13/04/17 - channeling a Victoriana theme again this week. Mostly I wanted to use the awesome vintage illustration of the fiddle for something. I had some fun playing around with the misaligned-print effect too.
02/08/18 - The current management of the Market Vaults are departing, so I thought we needed one last open mic night poster for the last one this evening!
28/12/17 - The final instalment! This is a portrait of Joe Calicott, a favourite blues artist of mine.
I’ve managed to miss a couple on recent weeks as I was away, but this is your final open mic poster of 2017. I won’t be continuing a to do poster every week, as there really are only so many things you can do with the same nine words, but I will be continuing this blog with a piece around once a month on commission for other people. If you’ve liked what you’ve seen here & would like me to do something for you then drop an email to [email protected].
30/11/17 - If this year of weekly posters has taught me anything it’s how useful being able to define patterns in Photoshop can be. This was based on 1968 Moby Grape poster by Lee Conklin, with the microphones standing in for his hand drawn image of thousands of faces.
23/11/17 - This was inspired by some time looking at 60s west coast rock posters, although my version ended up being quite a lot tamer than some of the stuff it drew on. I guess I’m just too gosh-darned conventional to turn on, tune in, & drop out….
Also I’ve been desperate to use the dancing girl with the accordion for something for ages, so I’m glad she finally got an outing :)
