Printers’ Ball 2010: PRINT <3 DIGITAL

CHICAGO — The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine are pleased to co-produce Printers’ Ball 2010 with Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book & Paper Arts and the college’s Student Affairs Office. The sixth annual event, which this year takes as its theme “Print Loves Digital,” takes place Friday, July 30, in the city’s vibrant South Loop neighborhood. Founded by Poetry magazine and other independent Chicago literary organizations, the Printers’ Ball is an annual celebration of literary culture.

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 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
Admission: Free, all ages
Information: www.printersball.org

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.

2010 marks the first year that the Printers’ Ball will host electronic publications. In support of its theme, “Print <3 Digital,” the event and related projects will demonstrate how print and digital media can complement one another.

Printers’ Ball 2010 will be held at Columbia College Chicago’s landmark Ludington Building. The Ludington, the former home of the American Book Company, currently houses the college’s Center for Book & Paper Arts.

Select Printers’ Ball events are being recorded for Chicago Public Radio’s Chicago Amplified. Other major Printers’ Ball collaborators include the 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 for their generous support of the evening’s festivities.

More than 2,000 people annually attend what has become one of the largest celebrations of print culture in the country. With Printers’ Ball 2010 marking the introduction of electronic participants, more than 200 local, national, and international literary organizations are now involved in the annual event.

Select Printers’ Ball 2010 Features:

• 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
• Chicago Underground Library’s daily blog-down to the Printers’ Ball
• PRINTERESTING.ORG’s “COPY JAM!,” an interactive art print occurrence
• 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

For complete details on official lead-up events, a full schedule, and a listing of participating organizations and collaborators, visit printersball.org or e-mail [email protected].

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About the Center for Book & Paper Arts Columbia College Chicago
The Center for Book & Paper Arts (CBPA) at Columbia College Chicago is dedicated to furthering knowledge and appreciation of book art, including letterpress and offset printing, bookbinding, papermaking, and artists’ books. We work to preserve historical techniques while promoting research and innovations in the media of book and paper arts.

About Chicago Amplified
Chicago Amplified is a web-based audio library of diverse educational events recorded throughout the Chicago region.

About Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago is an urban institution that offers innovative degree programs in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to more than 12,000 students in over 120 undergraduate and graduate programs. An arts and media college committed to a rigorous liberal arts curriculum, Columbia is dedicated to opportunity and excellence in higher education. For further information, visit www.colum.edu.

About Flavorpill
Flavorpill is an open network of culturally connected people. An intuitive platform empowers Flavorpill’s eagle-eyed editors, savvy users, and the world’s best venues to share the most exciting and worthwhile events happening in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and London. Flavorpill fosters and promotes the arts, entertainment, and nightlife—embracing the underground, the mainstream, and everything in between.

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About Poetry
Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Monroe’s “Open Door” policy, set forth in Volume 1 of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s mission: to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre, or approach. The magazine established its reputation early by publishing the first important poems of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg, and other now-classic authors. In succeeding decades it has presented—often for the first time—works by virtually every major contemporary poet.

About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit www.poetryfoundation.org.

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