Hello! I am here to tell you about the great success of last night’s release party for the 826michigan OMNIBUS. It was a great success! We had a packed house, gobs of excitement, bubbling enthusiasm, growing confidence, and cookies. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million, and Melanie from Annarbor.com did such a beautiful job with this video, that we’ll just let it sum up the night:
Many thanks to Jared Hawkley, my favorite publishing intern; Jason DePasquale, drawer of amazing robot illustrations; Jim Ottaviani, writer of a very clever introduction; and, of course, our students, who are funny, smart, and really just nice to be around. You are all the biggest inspiration of my life, no question.
Monday, February 1, 2010 – Feature of the Month: More of the Subtle Art of the Infomercial!
Here it is, the product of our last Subtle Art of the Infomercial workshop! Many thanks to Todd R. Pebbles for lending his expertise, to Blake Swihart for helping out, and to Catherine Calabro for being awesome.
Monday, February 1, 2010 – Volunteer of the Month for February 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 – Significant Objects
Have you guys heard of Significant Objects? According to their website, the idea was: “A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should — according to our hypothesis — acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!” Which means, they have some sweet writer create a story around an object, and then they auction off said object.
Pretty cool, right? Making it EXTRA cool, at least in my book, is that for Significant Objects, v2, all proceeds go to 826 National! (Oh how we love that!)
Including this, the music box chosen by Michigander and talented, creative writer Nicholas Rombes. Read the story, and if you like it, bid on it! The proceeds go to a good cause (we sure think so, although we are biased).
Friday, January 22, 2010 – Brian Evenson Helps Us Kick off the Great Lakes, Great Times Reading Series Tomorrow Night!
Isn’t it about time 826michigan had a reading series? Join us, won’t you? (Have I drawn you in with so many questions? Frances, our On-site In-school Coordinator, and I were recently talking about how so often students start something with a question as a way of drawing the reader in. Sometimes it works, and, well, sometimes it doesn’t. How am I doing?)
ANYWAY. We are proud to bring you, in conjunction with writer Elizabeth Ellen, The Great Lakes, Great Times Reading Series, a monthly series designed specifically to give you access to the best emerging and establishing writing around. (Sounds fun, right?)
Tomorrow night, we kick things off here in the lab at 826michigan at 7pm when host Matt Bell introduces us to the amazing Brian Evenson, Joanna Howard, and Blake Butler. Join us for this free event! Trust me when I tell you that it will be a marvelous way to kick off your Saturday night!
Upcoming guests include Deb Olin Unferth, Dan Chaon, and Jeff Parker, among others. (Please click here for the full line-up.)
We hope to see you tomorrow night! Everyone is welcome, although it should be mentioned that, unless otherwise noted, these are not family friendly events.
Monday, January 4, 2010 – Mittenfest IV Wrap-Up: I Have No Idea Where to Begin.
Hi friends. I’m here to fill you in on Mittenfest IV, also known as four-of-the-best-days-of-my-life, also known as holy-cow-am-I-ever-tired, also known as Lovefest 2009-10. I quite literally do not know where to begin. Four days, forty bands, a million kind words said about 826, and no fewer than eight hundred hugs.
I have loved Mittenfest since it began, but this year was really something else. There was an OUTPOURING of love and support for what we are doing. It was amazing. It was overwhelming. It was really, really special. Thank you to all the bands who donated their time and expertise. Thank you to the hundreds of people who packed the Elbow Room to capacity every night.
Maybe I should have started here, but check this out:
That’s right. Mittenfest IV made $12,000. Last year, we made $4,500, and that’s right about where we budgeted it for this year. My friends, I don’t need to tell you, but I will: That is AMAZING. That is Andy Garris presenting me with the best-looking check I’ve ever seen.
In the coming week, we’ll have tons of pictures, a video that’s eight minutes and twenty-six seconds of Mittenfest, featuring every band that played, and more goodies.
Of course, I cannot end this without thanking some VERY key people. Brandon “BZ” Zwagerman, Mittenfest founder, did a tremendous amount of work booking bands and marketing the event. Andy Garris, Elbow Room owner and all-around-great-guy, gave us the full door proceeds, and has been so relentlessly supportive of us over the years I’m getting a lump in my throat just thinking about it. Chris Bathgate was responsible for the coolest decorations and best sound I’ve ever seen and heard at the Elbow. Angela Duncan donated her talents as a designer. Beezy hosted a special brunch for us (please eat at Beezy’s, 20 N. Washington in Ypsi, it is deliiiiiiiiicious!) and caused a thousand more people to fall in love with her. VG Kids donated amazing t-shirts, so amazing, in fact, that we sold out of them. Quite Scientific Records bookended the event with champagne toasts.
And, of course, HUGE THANKS to our sponsor, the Detroit Red Wings. They auctioned off super-cool merch and donated the proceeds to us.
And I’d like to give shout-outs to the people who spent about forty hours at the Elbow Room this weekend right alongside me: Jason DePasquale, Andy Garris, Linda Jordan, Jeremy Peters, and Brandon Zwagerman. Ohhhh Mittenfest V, I cannot wait to meet you!
Friday, January 1, 2010 – Feature of the Month: Our very own music video!
In November, 826michigan volunteer and robotier extraordinaire Tyler Brubaker created a music video for us, utilizing some of our favorite 826ers. Enjoy!
Friday, January 1, 2010 – Volunteers for the Month for January 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 – Mittenfest IV ... Don’t Take OUR Word For It.
Hello! How are you all? I feel like I haven’t spoken to you in a loooong time. It’s been a busy winter! The Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair has been keeping us incredibly busy (hooray!) this holiday season, as have the Winter Workshop Schedule (hooray!) and the 826michigan OMNIBUS (hooray!) and tons of 826michigan alumni stopping by for a visit (hooray!) and planning for next semester (hooray!) as well as Mittenfest IV (hooray!).
It’s no secret that Mittenfest is one of our favorite things EVER. And I mean that quite literally. Please check out the following links for all things Mittenfest IV:
With more coming out in the next few days! It seems EVERYONE’S as excited as we are!
Aaaand here’s your handy, bullet-pointed list of All Things Mittenfest IV:
And don’t forget to join us at Beezy’s Cafe, 20 N. Washington, just down from the Elbow Room (6 S. Washington), on Sunday, January 3, for a special Mittenfest brunch. 8.26 percent of your cost will be donated to 826!
Many thanks! To! The Red Wings and Open Skate for sponsoring! Andy Garris from the Elbow Room for being awesome! Brandon Zwagerman and Chris Bathgate for everything! VG Kids for donating t-shirts! Angela Duncan for design! Beezy for hosting brunch! Quite Scientific Records for donating a champagne toast at midnight on New Year’s Eve! (Please click on the Mittenfest website for more details on all of our wonderful sponsors and helpers!)
HOPE TO SEE YOU THIS WEEKEND AT MITTENFEST! All tallied, it is sure to be FORTY-TWO HOURS of AWESOME.
Friday, December 11, 2009 – Gearbots WIN!
My friends, today I am happy, no, elated!, no, ecstatic!, no, ALL OF THE ABOVE to announce: our window display, The Gearbots, took first place in the Main Street Area Association’s Window Display Contest!
Many thanks to all who voted for us, and of course to our illustrious robot army, brilliant enough to construct a window that can only be referred to as “winning.”
What’s that? We are getting a warm, fuzzy feeling deep in the tin of our robot hearts. Happy holidays to us!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 – Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong.
Friends! I have had a strong cup of coffee, AND I have something very exciting to tell you about!
I’ll start with something that’s exciting, but be warned, something Even More Exciting is on its way, in the next paragraph! Join us this Friday night for Midnight Madness in the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair! We’ll have 20 percent off all of our student publications! We’ll have all of the fantastic merchandise you and your bot have come to expect! We’ll have holiday gifts galore at reasonable prices, AND all proceeds benefit the free student programming at 826michigan: It’s like a DOUBLE gift! We’ll have a Chocolate Drop courtesy of the Melting Pot, which apparently involves melted chocolate and stuff to dip into it!
AND! Every hour, on the hour, from 7pm to 11pm, we’ll have a BotChoir performing all of your favorite holiday standards in front of the store! (If you and your friends and family would like to be part of BotChoir—and why wouldn’t you??—email me!) That’s right friends, at long last: robot caroling! And I’ll tell you, there’s nothing better after a strong cup of coffee than doing a Find/Replace All with “angels” and “robots” in a Word document!
So please! Join us Friday night so you can heeeeeaaaaaarrrr the robot vooooooooices! O niiiiiiiiight diviiiiiiiiine…
And don’t forget to vote for our amazing window by clicking here!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 – Feature of the Month: A thank you note from our good friends at University Prep in Detroit!
Some of you may remember last spring when we did a multi-session workshop in Ben Curran’s class at U Prep in Detroit. The final catalog looked like this:
A few weeks ago, we got a heartwarming package in the mail. We loved it so much, we decided to share it with you as our Feature of the Month. Thank you cards are great, and we love getting them. But THIS, friends, is, hands down, the best thank you card we’ve ever gotten.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 – Volunteers of the Month for December 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009 – Turns Out My Parents are Cheaters.
Hi friends. Just wanted to pop in and let you all know what a fun time we had yesterday at the first (and hopefully not last) Euchre-for-Cheaters Tournament and Michimania Festival 2009. I am delighted to tell you that my parents won, and they did it in a very cheatery way. Here is a bulleted list of some of their accomplishments:
- Though they lost to 826michigan Executive Director Amanda Uhle and her husband Frank in the first round, they managed to convince Frank and Amanda to forfeit and allow them to go on to the next round. Jedi mind tricks?
- They beat the exact same team twice. Impossible?
- They charmed everyone into liking them so much that teams, once they lost, gave them their leftover money, allowing them to enter the finals with almost a thousand dollars to cheat with. Or did they?
It should be noted, as far as point three is concerned, that in all honesty, players seemed to be as interested in helping whatever team played the illustrious and dynamic duo of former Volunteer-of-the-Month Tyler Brubaker and his son Cameron Flora as they were in helping my parents. We love Tyler and his son very, very much, but suffice it to say their cheaterly ways and euchrey prowess did not make them many friends yesterday.
So congratulations to my parents. I can assure you they are fine, good people, and well deserving of the honor of being crowned King and Queen of the Michimania Festival 2009.
Many thanks to everyone who helped. All told, the event raised about $3500 for our free student programming. Truth be told, it’s under what we budgeted, but it’s still a pretty decent chunk of change. Extra thanks to Lauren London, Regan Borton, Frances Miller, Dr. Sara Walker, Rachel Lieberman, Kelly Mendenhall, Jason DePasquale, and all others who helped us run the show. SUPER extra thanks to all of our players. We worked out the kinks and are excited to try it again next year!
Friday, November 13, 2009 – Meet the Gearbots!
My friends: We were here late last night doing something we could not be more proud of. Have you met the Gearbots? Their living room is located in the front window of the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair. They are a robot family from the 1950s watching what we have determined is the robot version of the holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life. (You’ll have to stop by to find out what that is.) Have you heard about the Main Street Area Association’s Window Display Contest? It is our hope that the Gearbots win, and you can help.
Here’s how it works: MSAA is offering $500 (which would be great to help fund all of our free student programs!) and $250 in gift certificates (which would be perfect for appreciating our volunteers!) to the best window. We are PRETTY SURE this is it:
You really should stop by and see it for yourself!
Here’s how you help: All you have to do is click this link, and vote for us. It couldn’t be easier! VOTE NOW. And we hope to see you in the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair soon!
Monday, November 9, 2009 – Two Things. Or Maybe, err ... Let’s Call It One-and-a-Half Things.
Hi! I’m dropping in today to remind you that THIS WEEKEND is our Euchre-for-Cheaters Tournament and Michimania Festival. I’m also going to cheat, sort of, you know, in the spirit of the event.
For those of you who don’t know, our Euchre-for-Cheaters event works like this: Team solicit donations for 826michigan. The more money they make, the more “cheats” they earn, so they can cheat their way to victory! Cheats include changing trump half-way through a round, reneging on purpose, and making your opponent play in mittens.
HERE’S where I cheat: My PARENTS are participating. Have you met my parents? They are wonderful people. I mean it. I don’t mean to brag, but I literally do not know anyone who has better parents than me. So if you’ve been thinking about donating to 826michigan, or if you’d like to sponsor a team in our tournament, allow me to recommend Bill and Linda Sumerton, aka the Loner Knights. You can get to their page (and see their hilarious picture AND where I get my sense of humor) here. Go on … DO IT!
And HERE’S the half: New window display going up Thursday night in the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair! We worked on it all weekend, and all I can say is this: YOU WILL BE WANTING TO STOP BY FRIDAY AND SEE IT BECAUSE IT’S GOING TO BE AMAZING.
Sunday, November 1, 2009 – Volunteer of the Month for November 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009 – Feature of the Month: Superhero World of Words Podcast!
This October, Ami Walsh, MFA, and Cynthia Smith, BSN, RN, joined forces once again and reprised their Superhero World of Words workshop. This six-session workshop brought together two young writers who had faced a medical challenge, and showed them that words are a powerful tool for recovery!
Press play above to listen (5:21)
Or click here to download the mp3 (4.9 MB)
Ari and Sofia did an impromptu reading in front of the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair on the workshop’s final night:
Many thanks to Ami, Cynthia, and our magnificent and wonderful workshops intern, Catherine Calabro.
Thursday, October 29, 2009 – Workshops for Adults! Hooray!
Hey, adults! If you have ever said to yourself, Boy, I wish I could sign up for an 826michigan workshop, or, Geez, I wish 826michigan offered workshops for adults too, this is for you: 826’s How to Write Like I Do, a series of writing workshops for adults taught by professionals in their fields. These absolutely affordable workshops benefit the free programming we provide for students (AND feature Zingerman’s goodies!). This fall: fiction, graphic novels, screenplays, and blogging!
And so, without further ado, we proudly present our fall series of How to Write Like I Do workshops for adults:
Saturday, Oct. 31, 1-4pm — Stephen Elliott, (!!!!), author of seven books including the just released true-crime memoir The Adderall Diaries, presents: Writing from Experience. Attendees will discuss how to use their own lives as jumping points and framing devices for their stories, both fiction and non-fiction.
* Stephen Elliott will also be at 826michigan TONIGHT, Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7pm, as the kick-off for our new Great Lakes, Great Times Reading Series (details forthcoming). He’ll read from his new novel and answer questions. This event is free to the public, so please come. (We should probably note that this is not exactly, well, “family friendly.”)
Thursday, Nov. 5, 6-9pm — Jim Ottaviani, Eisner-nominated author of eight graphic novels about scientists, most recently T-Minus, presents: How to Write with Pictures: Scripting Graphic Novels. Attendees will discuss how the graphic medium has progressed, how to tap into its particular strengths, and how to get from idea to script to an effective collaboration with artists and editors.
Thursday, Nov. 12, 6-9pm — Jeff Meyers, lead film critic for Detroit’s Metro Times, and editor of the online publications Metromode and Concentrate presents: A Crash Course in Screenplay Structure. Attendees will discuss the basics of screenplay structure and constructing an effective logline.
Thursday, Dec. 10, 6-9pm — Mark Maynard, local blogger, has been publishing the award-winning zine Crimewave USA for fifteen years, and blogging for about eight, at the popular local site MarkMaynard.com. During the course of the evening, he will share some of the more successful and unsuccessful articles, interviews and comics that he’s put out over the years, and work with people on their own ideas for blogs/zines/etc. He will also talk about the use of blogs for social change.
Cost is $60 for a single workshop, or $50 per workshop for those signing up for multiple workshops. Do these make a great present to yourself or someone you know? YES! To sign up for a workshop, click here. As I mentioned, all proceeds benefit free student programming (including our on-site tutoring program at West Middle School, in-school residencies for four Ypsilanti schools and one Ann Arbor school, writing workshops, field trips, publishing opportunities, and more!), AND coffee and goodies (read: brownies and other yums) provided by Zingerman’s.
Questions? Email Angela at Angela@826michigan.org.
Monday, October 26, 2009 – ONWARD, Indeed.
After many, MANY months of excitement, turmoil, photography, description-writing, emails, and more, we are proud to present: a website for the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair. At long last, robot owners and enthusiasts alike can order all of the parts and improvements their robots need online.
Do not tarry! Travel to www.onwardrobots.com immediately and check it out!
SPOILER ALERT! We’re too excited not to mention that: very soon, the general public will be able to order our limited-edition set of screen-printed robot travel posters from the internet. These beautiful posters, designed by Ben English, will make the perfect holiday gift for anyone on your list.
Many thanks to Mollie Edgar and Claire Gaynor, the website designers! We could not thank you enough for all the hours of your lives you whittled away coding, cropping, importing, uploading, and a bunch of other words I have only a slight understanding of. What are you still doing here? Go to www.onwardrobots.com right away!
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