Friday, July 18, 2008

Blow Out! 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


filling Station Magazine is thrilled to announce
The Fourth Annual
CALGARY BLOW OUT!

Thursday July 31 to Saturday August 2 2008

PLUS: NEW! Small Press Book & Arts Fair, Saturday August 2 1:00-5:00 PM
with media artist performances by local artists Travis Murphy & Anne Koizumi,
Samuel Garrigó Meza and The Arbour Lake Sghool

FREE!
This explosive literary festival once again puts the spotlight on Calgary's talented writing community, featuring twenty-five poets, performers, and fiction writers that are either locally-based or have strong ties to the city.

Four Amazing Events:

Event A: Flywheel Throwdown!
Filling Station's regular reading series pumps us up for the Blow Out!
(Please note the new venue!)

Thursday July 31, 7:30 PM
Pages Books on Kensington
1135 Kensington Road N.W.
Readers: Christopher Blais, Emily Carr, Jocelyn Grossé, Jonathan Ball

**

Event B: The Big Fat Opera Takeover
Great big literary voices challenge the Pavarotti-sized acoustics of Arrata!

Friday August 1, 8:00 PM
Arrata Opera Centre
1315 - 7 Street SW
Readers: Christian Bök, Aritha Van Herk, Carmen Derksen, Glen Dresser, Ian Sampson, Jordan Scott, Julia Williams
Host: Jonathan Ball
DJ: DJ Geosphere

**

Event C: Small Press Book & Arts Fair
New addition to the Blow Out! Includes media artist performances by local artists Travis Murphy & Anne Koizumi, Samuel Garrigó Meza and The Arbour Lake Sghool starting at 3:00 PM!

Saturday August 2, 1-5 PM
Arrata Opera Centre
1315 - 7 Street SW
Participants: Small pressers, artists, bands, and other folk hawk handmade books, glossy print mags, zines, broadsides, CDs, and other enticing you-name-its.

**

Event D: The Pantoum of the Opera
There may not be phantoms or even pantoums*, but all manner of words haunt Arrata tonight!

Saturday August 2, 8:00 PM
Arrata Opera Centre
1315 - 7 Street SW
Readers: Craig Boyko, Jason Christie, Melanie Little, Chris Ewart, Clem Martini, Andrew Wedderburn, Sheri-D Wilson
Host: Derek Beaulieu
DJ: Pilgrim

* The pantoum consists of a series of quatrains rhyming abab. The second and fourth lines of the first quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the following quatrain. Succeeding quatrains introduce a new second rhyme, i.e. abab bcbc. The form can include as many stanzas as the poet wishes as long as they follow this structure. The closing stanza opens with the second line of the previous stanza, but the second and fourth lines come from the first stanza. Hence, the last stanza is structured like this: Line 2 of previous stanza Line 3 of first stanza Line 4 of previous stanza Line 1 of first stanza. Most Blow Out readers won't be reading these!

**

Of course, there'll also be books, booze and plenty of filling Station Magazines available for purchase!

All Blow Out! events are absolutely FREE and open to the public. Join us in celebration of Calgary's booming literary talent!

CONTACT:

Laurie Fuhr
Managing Editor, filling Station
403.999.2566
lauriefuhr@yahoo.ca
calgaryblowout.blogspot.com

SPONSORS
filling Station gratefully acknowledges the kind support of the following sponsors of Blow Out! #4:

ALBERTA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
ARRATA OPERA CENTRE
CALGARY ARTS DEVELOPMENT
CALGARY COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS
PAGES BOOKS ON KENSINGTON
STEAM WHISTLE

EVENT HISTORY
Started in 2004 as a one-night event to celebrate the diverse literary talent in Calgary, The Calgary Blow Out! became a full-fledged festival in 2005. Held in the late summer every year since then by the editorial collective of filling Station magazine, the festival has expanded at times to include music, film, theatre, and, this year, visual art. Blow Out! continues to showcase an explosive amount of creative work from both established and emerging artists.

ABOUT filling Station
filling Station is a locally-based, nationally-distributed literary magazine that is dedicated to showcasing innovative poetry, fiction, drama, film and visual art, and promoting local and international arts communities.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Flywheel Blow-Out Throwdown!

Usually, filling Station’s Flywheel reading series happens on the first Thursday of the month. But the stars have aligned strangely this month making the first Thursday of August actually the last Thursday in July so that our beloved Flywheel might warm us up for filling Station’s annual Blow Out! literary festival. In order to make up for the possible tearing of the space-time continuum on this one, we promise to harness the heat and power of the sun at its hottest and most powerful to deliver readings so hot and powerful that you will need some pretty epic sunscreen. Hot!

Our readers this month:

Christopher Blais
Emily Carr
Jocelyn Grossé
and Jonathan Ball

At the (new) usual place and slightly-altered time:

Thursday, July 31, 2008
7:30pm sharp
Pages Bookstore on Kensington (1135 Kensington Road NW)

The Flywheel reading series is free and open to the public