Canzine scene on November 8

October 10th, 2014

Since 1995, Canzine events in Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax have displayed thousands of zines and small press works and hosted hundreds of writers and performers.

The next festival of zine culture and independent arts, Canzine West, will be held at Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (149 West Hastings St., Vancouver) on Saturday, November 8, 2014, 1-7 pm. $5 admission.

Featured events include LA cartoonist Mimi Pond speaking about her New York Times bestseller Over Easy, a panel discussion about zines as political tools in the digital age, and the Giant Zine and Small Press Fair where hundreds of publications are on display and for sale.

Not all participating authors are emerging artists. Participants will include established writers such as Timothy Taylor, Carellin Brooks and Leanne Prain.

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Leanne Prain

In 2001, sales of Leanne Prain’s Yarn Bombing were boosted by an article on the front page of the New York Times‘ Style section in May (1.5 pages); this was followed by stories in the Associated Press, the Today Show’s blog, Forbes magazine, and Time magazine. A third printing was necessary in the summer of 2011.

“When I pitched Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti,” says Prain, “I had confidence that it would appeal to a niche group of crafters. Over the past few years, I have been astounded with the fervor that Yarn Bombing has received from mainstream media and non-crafters. Yarn Bombing has worked it’s way into the popular vernacular. It has been used in cell phone campaigns in Ireland, mentioned by Queen Latifa on Martha Stewart, used by Arthur Black in an essay, and even been the subject of a Threadless t-shirt. The book has been a spark which has helped ignite knit graffiti into a worldwide social phenomenon.

“Yarn Bombing successfully connected knitters with the world of street art,” Prain told BCBW. “I am hoping that my new book Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery receives a similar response from stitchers. Modern crafters are not just hobbyists; they are artists, anarchists, advocates, protesters, and rabble-rousers. Both books strive to propel those who make handicrafts to broadcast political or social statements, and to create positive change in their communities. I hope that Hoopla will inspire stitchers to explore the age old tradition of embroidery as a modern method of communication and art.”

Prain’s new Strange Material: Storytelling through Textiles (Arsenal Pulp Press $24.95) lifts handmade materials from the rack and highlights crafters who incorporate storytelling into the mediums of batik, stitching, dyeing, fabric painting, knitting, crochet, and weaving. Textile storytelling joins needle and fabric to create personal memoirs, cultural fables and pictorial histories through a wealth of texture and colour. From chapters on the “Textiles of Protest, Politics and Power” to “The Fabric of Remembrance” Prain brings her passion for textile crafts, design, art and urbanism to the page.

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Born in Vancouver in 1970, Carellin Brooks [umbrella photo] grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and Ottawa. She is a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in English literature from Oxford University.

As a self-described agnostic nudist, Brooks has provided the best book about the nudist beach near UBC, Wreck Beach (New Star 2007).

In her most recent book, Fresh Hell (Demeter $14.95), the Freudian scholar, Wreck Beach historian and Vancouver Public Library trustee Carellin Brooks has provided entertaining bleats and provocative analysis about the under-recognized roller-coaster ride of maternal child-rearing in the 21st century.

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Timothy Taylor

Born in Venezuela, Timothy Taylor was raised in the Horseshoe Bay area of West Vancouver before he moved with this family to Edmonton where he spent his teenage years. With an economics degree from the University of Alberta and his MBA from Queen’s, Taylor worked in Toronto prior to his transfer to Vancouver in 1987.

Taylor’s first novel about unsolved murders and culinary competition, Stanley Park (Knopf, 2001), was shortlisted for The Giller Prize and selected for the One Book, One Vancouver reading initiative of the Vancouver Public Library. Primarily concerned with the restaurant business, it became the basis for a screenplay by Taylor that was optioned by Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood.

Taylor has experimented with his latest book about the foodie culture of Vancouver, Foodville, by opting for new, digital-based publishing imprint.

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Registration for Canzine West is now open if you have work to display or you’d like to join the 1-2 Punch Book Pitch where, in front of a crowing crowd, you get two minutes to pitch your book to a panel of judges.

Full details at brokenpencil.com/canzine-vancouver.

For more information about Canzine, email canzine@brokenpencil.com.

Canzine is organized by Broken Pencil: The Magazine of Zine Culture and the Independent Arts.

MEDIA CONTACT: Emiko Morita, emikomorita@ymail.com or 778-995-3155.

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BOOKS:

Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti (Arsenal 2009; 3rd printing Arsenal 2014) 978-15515-22555 $21.95

Strange Material: Storytelling through Textiles (Arsenal Pulp Press 2014) (Arsenal Pulp Press $24.95) 978-1-55152-550-1

Wreck Beach (New Star 2007) ISBN 978-1-55420-031-3.

Fresh Hell (Demeter 2013) $14.95 978-1-927335-32-1

Stanley Park (Knopf, 2001)

Foodville: Biting Dispatches from a Food-Obsessed City (Nonvella 2014)

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