[270sherman.ca]
We are happy to announce that this Saturday, May 17th, Broken Pencil will be bringing a killer line up of of our favorite writers and performers to show out at the closing reception for the massive contemporary art installation TH&B United at the Cotton Factory in Hamilton, located 270 Sherman Avenue North.
Featuring large-scale works of art from a bunch of artists from Hamilton, Toronto and Buffalo (TH&B, get it?), the whole project is installed in and around a 20,000+ square foot mill.
On the night of the closing event, we are thrilled to present poet Aisha Sasha John, comix artist Aaron Manczyk, weird comedian Brand Neil (Neil LaPierre), writer/performer Brock Hessel and Broken Pencil’s founder and publisher, Hal Niedzviecki. We’ll also be giving away 75 free copies of Broken Pencil Issue 67 along with special secret promotions!
Read the performers bios below, and join us in Hamilton on May 16th! There will be a shuttle bus with a limited number of seats leaving the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto (1214 Queen St W). Reserve seats here. See you there.
Many thanks to the generous support of the Hamilton Public Library and TH&B for making our participation possible!
Performers:
Aisha Sasha John
Aisha Sasha John is a dance improviser and author of THOU (BookThug 2014) and The Shining Material (BookThug 2011). She lives in Toronto.
Brock Hessel
Brock Hessel is a poet, performance artist, and founder of Queer Writes an LGBTQ creative writing group on U of T campus. With his Facebook group, Social Abjects Unite, he was asked to take part in Jordan Tannahill’s #queerdeathdrive mini-exhibit during the “Fan the Flames” edition of First Thursdays at the AGO last summer. His academic essays, journalism, and poetry have appeared in VOX, Hardwire, Nest Magazine, Zhush Redux, TOZ, The Gargoyle, and The Buzz.
Aaron Manczyk
Aaron Manczyk is a Toronto based artist. He does a lot of drawing. He sometimes makes movies and comics. His most popular comics are ‘Cum Lung’ and ‘Panthor’.
Hal Niedzviecki
Hal Niedzviecki is the founder and fiction editor of Broken Pencil. He is a writer, speaker, culture commentator and editor whose work challenges preconceptions and confronts readers with the offenses of everyday life. He is the author of eight books including the collection of short stories Look Down, This is Where it Must Have Happened (City Lights, April 2011) and the nonfiction book The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors (City Lights, 2009).
Neil LaPierre
Neil LaPierre is a Toronto based comedian and artist. LaPierre was the 2010 Valedictorian for NSCAD University where he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Both his performances and visual work are humorous dealing with deeply personal issues (being gay) in a surreal, emotional manner. In 2012 he was awarded The Husky Scholarship which allowed him to do an artist-in-residence program under Michael Portnoy at the Banff Centre. LaPierre is the only person to perform every time at Life Of A Craphead’s monthly show, Doored. LaPierre blurs the lines between performance art and entertainment.
See you on Saturday!