Fred Sasaki: We all rely on technology for just about everything we do, including what’s perceived as anti-digital mediums like letterpress and screen printing. We’re looking at “print” as more than ink on paper. The gathering of the Printers’ Ball is about language and engagement, whether that manifests by metal or pixel or in person. The Printers’ Ball aims to raise awareness and foster community among all involved in that process, so it’s an obvious fit by virtue of the subject. We’re all the same in that sense.
Founded in 2005 by Poetry magazine’s then assistant editor Fred Sasaki and a couple of fellow staff members, the Printers’ Ball has quickly evolved into one of Chicago’s preeminent free literary events. Not only is attendance free, but each of the 250-plus publications, designers, printmakers, and writers involved are encouraged to supply free books, magazines, prints, and so forth. Now going into its sixth year, the Ball draws thousands of lit- and print-types to each event, making it one of the largest, most unique and exciting nerdfests in the country.
On July 30, Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book and Paper Arts will host the Ball for the second year running, and had what we thought was a great summary of the purpose of the event: “Printmaking, letterpress and the re-emergence of the artists’ book as a contemporary art form has enjoyed a cultural renaissance in the last ten years. [We are] delighted to be at the nerve center of this exciting new movement in printmaking. The Printers Ball is a celebration of innovative digital technology in printmaking and of preserving time-honored techniques.”
Some of 2010’s literary heavyweights will include The Believer, Tin House, Fence, The Oxford American, and Open City, but any and all types of publications are encouraged to attend, from fledgling literary magazines to alternative weeklies, and beyond. And this year’s theme, PRINT <3 DIGITAL, pronounces the first time the Printers’ Ball will welcome both print and online mediums.
As Knee-Jerk prepares to release its first print issue this fall, we thought we should find out more about the Ball, how it continues to grow, and what we can expect for the future of literary publishing. To do so, we spoke with some of the Ball’s formative members, including Sasaki, now associate editor at Poetry; Nell Taylor, founder and executive director of the Chicago Underground Library; and Sarah Dodson, director and managing editor of MAKE: A Literary Magazine. In addition to sharing their thoughts on how print and online publications will propel the future of literature, our interviewees also discuss classy (and inspiring) photos of T.S. Eliot, cities made of boxes, and what to do with a giant stack of Playboys.
To learn more about the Printers’ Ball, or to become involved, go to www.printersball.org.
—Jonathan Fullmer
How did you become involved in the Printers’ Ball?
Sasaki: T.S. Eliot. A bunch of us at Poetry went looking through old photos in the archive and came across a picture of Eliot in a white bowtie, eyes closed, at a formal magazine event. We thought about the sleeping ghosts of Poetry's parties and the legend of the Chicago Renaissance and its Dill Pickle Club, Cliff Dwellers Club, and the Little Room. We realized that we were out of touch with the community and wanted to mix things up. We thought, what better way to do that than throw a magazine party and invite everybody. We wanted to create a space for what we love and see what happened.
Taylor: The Chicago Underground Library came into being between the first and second Printers’ Balls. Fred emailed us about participating in the second one at the Double Door and since I hadn’t attended the first one, I assumed it was the kind of thing where publishers and organizations had tables. We’d just come off of our first Version Fest where we built a portable reading room called the “Library on the Spot” which was a giant refrigerator box painted blue with shelves attached to the outside and a single chair on the inside so no one would run off with our stuff. I told Fred we preferred to do things like build literary port-a-potties instead of plain old tabling and he asked me if I wanted to work on figuring out the layout of a few hundred publications. I proposed a couple really ridiculous things like hanging pie tins full of books, but we eventually settled on a giant cardboard city that doubled as cubbies and that people could actually walk into. My hand was frozen into the shape of a box-cutting claw by the time the Ball started that night. Since then I’ve continued to work on layout and some other creative elements of the Ball and cemented my role as volunteer wrangler in year four when we had only 30 minutes and 20 people to set up the entire Ball at the MCA [The Museum of Contemporary Art in 2008].
Dodson: I attended the first Ball and was blown away by the interest in print magazines – as evidenced by the amount of people present. At the time, my sister was working at [local alt-weekly] Newcity and she put me in touch with Fred Sasaki. MAKE was in its nascent stages and we were eager to be a part of the Chicago literary community and especially excited to contribute to the Ball, as the celebration of print lit was and is something we can really get behind.
What other events, programs, or organizations inspired the Ball?
Sasaki: The Printers' Ball is inspired by the people and organizations involved; everyone brings everything to the table. We don't follow any particular event programming model, but all of them. An old friend at Boston University, Dr. Root, taught me to “use everything,” and that rings throughout the planning stages. In that way the Ball is like some European poetry festivals, where it's common for different arts to coalesce in celebration of poetry, like the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam.
Taylor: Garden parties, Chicago’s increasingly elaborately themed reading series, arts and crafts time at summer camp, different kinds of printing processes, both the good and bad elements of professional conferences, free samples at the grocery store, and prom. Joining up with the Center for Book and Paper Arts took it to another level in terms of what was available to us for inspiration. Last year we planned the Ball entirely by walking through their studios and riffing on whatever was within eyesight.
Dodson: The Ball is inspired by what is happening in the city and by the location of the Ball. Chicagoans are creating new programs all the time, and we feel that incorporating those into the programming at the Ball helps make the Ball a microcosm of what is happening throughout the city at that given time. This is not to say it is all-inclusive. We are constantly finding out about new readings and publications – and those discoveries are part of what makes the Ball great. For example, the second Ball was held at the Double Door, so it made sense to book bands and make it a real party. Nell from CUL built a city out of boxes that was used to display the magazines, utilizing the varying spaces throughout the club. The following year at the Zhou Center, bands were included, as well as the popular reading series RUI [Reading Under the Influence], a video display of comics that weren’t offered among the loot, and a Ghosting machine. These new elements were added as we became more aware of those operating in Chicago’s print and literary community, through enthusiastic volunteers, and because the location lent itself well to video projections and performance art.
Why is Chicago the best place to host the Ball? What is unique about Chicago’s literary community and history?
Dodson: Hot dogs.
Sasaki: Chicago draws aces, and the art community is welcoming. The Printers' Ball is made easy with the talent around town; it's just a matter of puzzling people together, which even then happens organically. The history of the place is of course “big shoulders,” and standing on them gives a storied point of view; Poetry magazine, for instance, is fast approaching its centennial, with a hundred-year-strong stable of the greatest American poets.
Taylor: The best place to host the Ball is any place that puts a value on an event like this, but that’s the catch. You need to have a place where enough people believe in and value everyone else as a community, not competition. It could have theoretically started anywhere because the general idea—publishers giving stuff away for free in the interest of promoting themselves and the literary community—isn’t that complicated. There are pretty unique conditions that allowed this to start up here and develop the way it did, namely the support of Poetry. It’s not every day that an internationally known cultural institution decides to directly encourage the awareness of smaller local institutions and I think that contributed to other publishers and institutions coming on board. (Thanks, Fred.) Chicago also tends to be a good incubator for experimentation because people perceive the cost of living and professional stakes here to be relatively low compared to some place like New York, for example. I’ve heard the same thing said about Chicago’s theatre community, and even our restaurants.
It seems like the Printers’ Ball has gotten bigger and better every year. What keeps you guys going? What inspires you to continue the event?
Sasaki: There is always something new and there are always people working hard. Every year new organizations add to what's happening, and those that stay around year to year get better at what they do and elevate everyone else. And the support of the Poetry Foundation and Columbia College is seminal—without them we couldn't be so adventurous with what we are able to program, and wouldn’t have the resources and facilities to execute at such a high level. What keeps it all going, though, are conversations. Bottom line is that we live for this stuff.
Taylor: I think knowing that it can be bigger and better every year really keeps us going. We still have a long way to go before we max out its potential and that’s really exciting. It’s great to work with a group of people who approach an event like this less with a set of pet projects than pet ideals; and every year we’re working on the same questions: How can this have a greater benefit for the publishers giving stuff away? How can the attendees who aren’t involved in any of the publications feel like they’re still a part of the community and important to the event? How can we get strangers to talk to each other? What can we do aesthetically with a giant stack of Playboy that’s different than what we did with last year’s giant stack of Playboy?
Dodson: The response from attendees is pretty is inspiring, not to mention those creating print in what is sometimes a hostile environment. Every year, more people attend and more people participate, not just by sending their work, but by offering up their talents, be it for the stage, for poster design or for display. Seeing all that print in one place has a special affect on people: it’s infectious. The growth is somewhat organic in that each year more people contribute, and we as organizers are more experienced.
Why is the Ball important for writers, printmakers, presses, etc.? Have you seen any specific or general results of the Ball on the local or national art/literary community?
Sasaki: We’re something between a summit meeting and a maypole, so take your pick. If you like to read and write, there is something for you at the Printers’ Ball.
The community is really responsive to the call of the Printers’ Ball. I see new works spring forth on its occasion; alliances formed during the process of putting on the show; and a lasting momentum from the ideas that roll out from it all. Best of all, the event bridges groups and enlarges the conversation.
Taylor: Locally, I think the Printers’ Ball has had an effect on how the literary community is perceived, both internally and externally. Before the Ball, I don’t think there was any way to get a sense of how much media is actually produced in Chicago every year. The idea that there was some kind of cohesive all-encompassing literary community wasn’t something anyone would have attempted to claim except maybe in the abstract of talking about “book nerds.” People will always have their friends and fellow writers united by certain genres of fiction or styles of poetry, which creates a bunch of micro-communities who at the same time make up very passionate niche audiences for each other’s work within those micro-communities. The Printers’ Ball is like taking all of those communities, all of that potential for audience overlap and interaction, and setting it on shuffle for one night. Each one of those assorted communities is only half a degree away from the other ones to begin with and the Ball facilitates closing those gaps further. I also think it helps people who don’t consider themselves part of any literary community to get excited about what’s going on and consider joining in themselves. Get there early and it’s like walking through an interactive map of contemporary Chicago literature and print in which you can locate yourself anywhere.
Dodson: It’s easy to stay in your individual writing space, art community or gang of friends. The Ball serves as a physical manifestation of what is happening – literally putting what is out there in there. It creates a social atmosphere where discovery is inevitable and conversation is easy. It serves as a reminder that though we often work on projects separately, it’s important and necessary to touch base with other creative people and objects.
This is the first year the Ball is featuring online magazines/venues. Why now? How do digital mediums—like Knee-Jerk—fit the aesthetics of the Printers’ Ball? How do you see digital mediums and print mediums complementing each other in the art/literary community, either locally or nationally? What can print venues learn from digital, and vice versa?
Sasaki: We’re already answering your question! We’ve wanted to find a way to feature online entities since the beginning but couldn’t figure out how to make it make sense. Turns out all we needed to do was imagine “Print” and “Digital” sitting in a tree…
As far as literally fitting into the program, we’re able to do so much more working with digital mediums—throughout July, the Chicago Underground Library is providing a daily preview of magazines you’ll find at the Printers’ Ball, with capsules about each one; Gapers Block is bringing websites alive at the Ludington [Columbia College’s building that will house the Ball]; and PRINTERESTING.org is coming to town to spread some love of print.
We’ll also have Printers’ Ball exclusives on various websites. We’ll publish short documentaries about special projects we’ve taken on this year, with Busy Beaver Button Co. and Sonnenzimmer print shop, for example, including a teaser of Vanessa Place’s “digital reading” we commissioned, called Text Object. That will be available at the Harriet blog at poetryfoundation.org.
The collective movement of both the print and digital venues involved is nourishing. We send readers back and forth and together make a bigger impression.
We all rely on technology for just about everything we do, including what’s perceived as anti-digital mediums like letterpress and screen printing. We’re looking at “print” as more than ink on paper. The gathering of the Printers’ Ball is about language and engagement, whether that manifests by metal or pixel or in person. The Printers’ Ball aims to raise awareness and foster community among all involved in that process, so it’s an obvious fit by virtue of the subject. We’re all the same in that sense.
A quick example of this is demonstrated in the Printers’ Ball art book we’re making with the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College and the Chicago Printers’ Guild. We paired 20 writers with 20 printers to make a 20-page, 50-edition, hand-printed book of broadsides from many mediums. Each artist gets a copy and the remaining ten will live in major arts institutions around the country. So not too many people will have an opportunity to see it; that’s why we’re digitizing the book for electronic distribution. This otherwise hard-to-find, fine, rare work is made available with a click.
Taylor: Celebrating print media increasingly means celebrating the small press because it’s just not worth it to the big guys anymore. If your audience has always been smallish and niche, you’re in a better place to grow that audience than at any other point in history. It’s the publications that target a broad audience who are suffering. A lot of writers and publishers (and musicians, filmmakers, artists, and people who never would have previously identified as any of those if not for the accessibility of the internet) found the benefits of distributing their work online years ago, and I think the Printers’ Ball is catching up to that. Web venues like Knee-Jerk are much more closely aligned with small press print media when it comes to content and audience, and just as print media in Chicago and elsewhere has become less about competition than community, these web venues are complementary, not something to fear. In fact, they’ve done a lot of keep print alive because they keep the conversation going in between new print publications and also provide more opportunities to discuss what’s coming out or what might have been overlooked, pre-internet. In just the short time that the Printers’ Ball has been around, we’ve seen a tremendous change in attitude from publishers and writers about how to engage with digital media. A few publications reacted by reformatting to make their presentation more special, more like objects so that you felt like you were buying something beyond just words. Some have started digital offshoots. There will always be folks who are just freaked out by the internet period and won’t change what they do at all; but there are less of those now who feel like they have to pledge allegiance to one form or the other. They understand that blogging or putting out samples of their work online generates more interest in their print media and they’re comfortable publishing in both worlds. We’ve moved from general panic (which isn’t interesting) to acceptance (which is even less interesting) to innovation and collaboration (which is really cool) and that’s why the time is right.
What can the Printers’ Ball offer an emerging writer?
Sasaki: Contact. Writers find the newest writing in the vast, takeaway collection of books and magazines from publishers they may want to send their own work to. And the occasion brings these publishers and editors out for the party. There are also opportunities to perform, on stage and on page. For instance we’ll host a reading for the art book at the Printers’ Ball.
What are your personal goals or hopes for the future of the Ball? Do you have other plans for expansion?
Taylor: We always struggle with how to best represent the publishers who can’t afford to give stuff away. Personally, I’m always thinking smaller—there’re a lot of publications out there, especially ones that are self-published, that could really benefit from the exposure of the Ball. I’d also love to figure out how we can involve younger writers, maybe in a separate Printers’ Ball event since we’ve almost always been 21+. These are all things we’ve discussed together in our loose organizational form. Hopefully we’ll realize some of these ideas in the future.
Anything else about the Ball or yourself or life that people should know?
Sasaki: It’s never too late to participate in the Printers’ Ball till it’s over. Publishers should write to us at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
to learn and <3 more!
Taylor: I’m the founder and executive director of the Chicago Underground Library. In my day job, I work for a new media/video artist. Print <3s digital is my favorite Printers’ Ball theme ever.
People should know that the Ball really, truly is open to every publisher and literary organization. There’s no secret password. If you’re not in it this year, get in touch and you will be next year. We love new ideas and collaborators and the challenge of figuring out how to make something work. The Printers’ Ball crew is a family-size variety pack of nerds. Long live all nerds.
For more information about The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine, The Chicago Underground Library, MAKE: A Literary Magazine, and Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book and Paper Arts, check out the following, respective links:
www.poetryfoundation.org
http://underground-library.org
www.makemag.com
www.colum.edu/book_and_paper/
