The Green Lantern Gallery has had a tumultuous year: after its initial incarnation was shut down due to a city ordinance, Green Lantern director Caroline Picard teamed up with featherproof books’ Zach Dodson to create a multimedia art space. Temporarily housed in Ukrainian Village, the idea was for the revamped Green Lantern Gallery to eventually move into permanent digs designed to foster inter-art collaborations—a gallery, office space for the two presses, The Paper Cave indie bookstore, a performance space and a café/bar, staffed by four year-long artists-in-residence.

For now, though, Picard’s dream will have to wait. With the lease up on their temporary space and unable to find a suitable long-term home, The Green Lantern Gallery is closing up shop. “We did want to have one last hurrah in the space we had, though,” explains Dodson. With that, “The Last Annual Midwest Pop-Up Bookshop” was born. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Opium Magazine presents its fifth Chicago Literary Death Match at Hideout on this April Fools Day, featuring a panel of three judges presiding over four readers who read their work to the death, so to speak. Featherproof Books’ Zach Dodson, stand-up comic Cameron Esposito and Trap Door Theatre’s Tiffany Joy Ross are our judges for the evening, while the readers are The Encyclopedia Show’s Robbie Q. Telfer, Uncalled-for Readings’ Tim Jones-Yelvington, Green Lantern’s Caroline Picard and Kevin Leahy. Opium’s Todd Zuniga and Comedy Central blogger Dennis DiClaudio host the activities. A night of literary debauchery, Literary Death Match leaves some blood on the floor. It being April Fools and all, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few tricks were in store. (Tom Lynch)

April 1 at Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, (773)227-4433, at 8:30pm. $5-$8.

RECOMMENDED

Local literary magazine MAKE celebrates the release of its new issue, titled “This Everyday” and featuring contributions from Stephen Elliot, Laura Gabel-Hartman, Dan Beachy Quick, Caroline Picard and more. The release event features readings from contributors Rob Schlegel, Robert Duffer, Brian Anderson and Emil Ferris, musical performances from Leroy Bach and Marvin Tate, plenty of giveaways and, if I know MAKE, lots and lots of beer. The ten-dollar admission nabs you a copy of the issue, which boasts MAKE’s new redesign. (Tom Lynch)

MAKE Magazine Issue #8 release party is October 2 at Roots & Culture, 1034 N. Milwaukee, (773)235-8874, from 7pm-10pm. $10.

By Jonathan Kaplan

When resurrecting a piece of writing predating the Civil War, precautions must be taken to maintain the genuine message of its words. So when Green Lantern Press decided to reissue a publication about a sea voyage during the winter of 1819-1820, they took it to a whole new level.

“The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle” came into Green Lantern’s hands as a weathered yellowing pile of newspaper pages still holding the dust and mold from almost 200 years ago. From there, the transformation became a polished and readable bound edition of a piece of history. The editors of the Gazette had to figure out their goal as far as how they were going to bring back this moment in time. Did they want to replicate the original experience or make it something completely fresh? By the time it was finished, the revised edition was aesthetically modern while keeping the heart of a work created generations ago.

The collection of journal entries, captain’s logs, letters, poetry, short fiction and visual art chronicles the expedition of ships HECLA and GRIPER as they traveled in search of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Commanded by Lieutenant William Edward Parry, the ships and their crew of nearly a hundred men traveled through vast seas of ice, temperatures never exceeding sixteen degrees Fahrenheit, before anchoring in the Arctic for the long and dark winter to come.

During this time of the year in the Arctic, the sun fails to rise above the horizon for nearly three months, making the time spent waiting less than cheerful. Along with usual shipboard duties, the crew members produced and performed plays as well as created sets and costumes. In conjunction, there was to be a weekly newspaper titled The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle which held contributions from officers of the two ships. “Writing the newspaper was a way for the officers to take care of their men viz. entertainment. It’s kind of like the Gazette is like a very old-timey Onion, but in the middle of nowhere,” says Caroline Picard of Green Lantern Press. The idea for the re-pressing sprouted after she discovered a book called “Arctic Dreams” by Barry Lopez and, among other things, he mentions the Gazette. I asked Caroline a few questions about why she believes this anthology is relevant to today’s readers. Read the rest of this entry »

Is it wrong to feel optimistic? You couldn’t be blamed if you didn’t. Yet while the country’s economy crumbles around us and less and less funds are available for the producers of the printed word, those in the literary world are finding new and inventive ways to stay afloat. We will not go down without a fight, and progress, of course, is key. So is awareness—in order to get the word out more efficiently (and, likely, to untether itself from the uncertain future of the paper form), Printers Row Book Fair changed its name from “Book Fair” to “Lit Fest” to have a title that better fully represents the weekend’s events, in time for its twenty-fifth anniversary edition. As is our custom, we time our annual Lit 50 list to the weekend’s events; this year’s list of local behind-the-scenes literati—no straight-up authors or poets this time—covers a large spectrum of Chicago’s world of words. As with past years we sought out those behind the smaller presses as well as the monumental figures. Some new names have emerged and many staples appear again, but all tirelessly labor to bring this ancient art to the community at large. Read the rest of this entry »