Canzine 2008

Canzine, Canada's Largest zine fair and festival of alternative culture, is on October 26 from 1:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Gladstone Hotel. $5 gets you in the door for zines, film screenings, readings and a copy of the Comedy Issue of Broken Pencil Magazine.

1:00 - 7:00 p.m. 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!

2:00 - 3:30 p.m. 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 - 4:45 p.m. 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 [at] brokenpencil [dot] com.

5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. 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.

1:00 - 7:00 p.m. 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!

2:00 - 5:00 p.m. 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 [at] brokenpencil [dot] com. Or just show up with your video.

2:00 - 3:00 p.m. 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.
Broken Pencil, PO Box 203, Station P, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S7
email: editor [at] brokenpencil [dot] com, phone 416 204 1700
For more info, go to WWW.BROKENPENCIL.COM.