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Hooray for Canzine!
Hotel Canzine is Canada’s Largest Zine Fair and Festival of Alternative Culture, located every year at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. And just in case the shift in weather was getiing you down, this year’s theme is “Comedy.”
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 1pm-7 pm The Gladstone Hotel Downtown Toronto, 1214 Queen St. West (Queen just East of Dufferin) $5 admission comes with a free copy of the Fall issue of Broken Pencil Magazine
Full schedule after the fold!
1-7pm Giant Zine Fair!
Over 150 zines from across Canada on display and for sale! The heart of the event, indie publishers both in print and online come from across the country and the continent to show their wares! Be amazed at the creativity, ingenuity, and sheer weirdness!
2-3:30pm Comedy! On our upstairs mainstage some of Canada’s weirdest, wildest and funniest comedians perform. Featuring the wild antics of Anand Rajaram, the off-kilter singing of Devon Hyland, the standup comedy of Pat Thornton, the improvisational offences of Kayla Lorette and Alana Johnston, and the absurdly hilarious monologues of Kathleen Phillips’s many alter egos. All that and Stefanie Drummond too! Hosted by Katie Crown.
3:45-4:45pm The One-Two Punch Book Pitch A new Canzine feature: live on our mainstage in front of a crowing crowd, you get two minutes to pitch your book to our panel of judges. They get one minute each to tell you why you’ll never get published in a million billion years (or why they want to see your manuscript in their in-box asap!). Guest judges are ECW Press editor Michael Holmes, Literary Agent Samantha Haywood, and writer Hal Niedzviecki. Participants must register in advance: to do so email canzine@brokenpencil.com.
5pm to 6:30pm The Funniest Readings Ever! You never knew CanLit could be so damn funny. The best of funny, featuring new writers with hot Fall books and some of Canada’s proven snarky meisters of poetry and prose. Watch them turn a boring reading into a cross between a fart machine and a whoopee cushion! Starring: Stacey May Fowles, Daniel Allen Cox, Derek McCormack, Sarah Steinberg, Jon Paul Fiorentino, and Elyse Friedman.
1-7pm Hotel Room Installations Canada’s brightest and weirdest will be creating one day unique environments to explore in 5 of the Gladstone Hotel’s Rooms. Don’t miss Jim Munroe’s Room of Indie Video Games, Plus the weird worlds of Sonja Ahlers and Lisa Smolkin, and an all day sing-along with the High Heels Lo Fi!
2-5pm All Day Underground Video Screening Open Screening and curated program by James King. Special comedy film program will start with a screening of the poet Sandra Alland’s short film Slippery, a silly meditation on the slippery nature of overused or supposedly universal words. All are welcome to bring videos (VHS or DVD only, 10 minutes and under) to show to the world. Register in advance by emailing canzine@brokenpencil.com. Or just show up with your video.
2-3pm Workshop: Start Your Own Cooperative Zine and Book Distribution Outlet. We’re thrilled to host a workshop by Joe Biel, brainchild behind Portland, Oregon micro-publisher and distributor Microcosm. Biel’s workshop will go step-by-step through the process of setting up a co-op distribution business by working with similarly-minded publications to get independently published zines, comics and books out into the world. Skills and techniques will apply to smallest scale publications. D-I-Y! Hotel Canzine is made possible by grants from the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Hotel Canzine also is supported by the following most excellent sponsors: Magazines Cana da, The Toronto Reference Library, Fantagraphics Comics, Open Book Toronto, Insomniac Press, Pages Books and Magazines, Mint Records, The Diesel Playhouse, CKLN 89.5, CIUT 88.1, Eye Weekly and the Gladstone Hotel. Canzine is an annual event organized by Broken Pencil, the Magazine of Zine Culture and the Independent Arts.
