CCLaP

Greetings, if this is your first time to the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography; my name is Jason Pettus, CCLaP's Executive Director, and I welcome you. I thought I would take a moment, for all of you who are new, to explain exactly what the center is all about, and what exactly we do. This information is also laid out all pretty-like in a PDF brochure, for those who would prefer reading it that way; simply right-click on this link and choose "Save Link As..." to your hard drive.

CCLaP's mission is to connect underground artists of outstanding quality with the audience eagerly seeking these artists; we do this by maintaining a uniquely personal relationship not only with our artists but with our audience as well. It's to both groups that we seek advice, project ideas, tips on who to feature, even hosts of our live events, workshops and clubs. And instead of maintaining separate membership and artist-development programs, CCLaP combines the two into one, bringing both artists and patrons together in not only a professional but social way.

CCLaP's specific list of products and services can be broken down into the dozens, but roughly fall under one of the following groups:

Live events: Those we usually charge an admission fee for, unless otherwise noted. Includes the weekly CCLaP Slam; monthly CCLaP Showcases; monthly CCLaP Sessions; as well as special events. All events, unless otherwise noted, are $3 for the general public, free for both Members and Fellows.

Creative work: A growing collection of artistic work on display, made by both Members and Fellows of CCLaP, as well as fans and audience members. This collection will also be turned into merchandise, starting later this year, that will be sold online and in general gift stores in the Chicago area; it is the main way our for-profit center plans on paying our bills.

Community events: Those that are usually free to the general public, unless otherwise noted, most also organized and run by our Members and Fellows. Includes workshops on both artistic and business issues; a series of discussion and hobbyist clubs; an entire series of intelligent family events; as well as our special "CCLaP After Dark" series, specifically for those over the age of 21.

CCLaP Online: Special online features we offer only at our website. Includes a regularly-updated podcast; an ever-growing collection of frequently asked questions; a collection of over 30 RSS feeds; as well as a special section called the Sandbox, where artistic work is released under a special Creative Commons license, for other artists around the world to use legally in "mash-ups." This section will also eventually include the "Cafe Network," a new social network CCLaP will sponsor, linking visual artists with the cafes and other retail spaces in Chicago that feature artists, as well as the audience looking for both these artists and venues. It will also eventually include a wiki, maintained by our Members and Fellows, entitled "The CCLaP Guide to Being a Self-Sustaining Artist."

Publications: Starting early in 2007, there will also be a publications section to the CCLaP website, where you will not only be able to download the latest eBooks for free, but also directly order and pay for our latest paper books, to be FedExed or mailed straight to your home. (CCLaP is currently seeking a publications intern for the 2007 winter semester; to get an early jump, contact us now.)

Regular events start in September 2006; CCLaP is currently hosting a series of special one-time events throughout the summer. To learn more about any of these products or services, please click on their category in the sidebar menu.

I know it's early, but I wanted to get an entry up about the upcoming CCLaP Showcase series, for those who are interested. Right now it's set to begin on Saturday, September 23rd, and continue monthly on Saturdays after that.

The CCLaP Showcases are a way for the staff of the center to highlight writers we think worth promoting, but who might not yet have the body of work needed for their own feature or one-person show. Each showcase is grouped around a common theme, whether relating to the writers or the work in question -- "sexy librarians," "bloggers," "politically-incorrect erotica," the list just goes on and on. Each showcase, then, will feature from four to eight such writers, hand-chosen by the CCLaP staff, each reading for about 15 minutes.

We are currently in talks with a local independent bookstore, concerning hosting the CCLaP Showcases; more details will be released here as they become available. We are also always on the lookout, by the way, for other independent bookstores and cafes who would like to host similar events, as well as our Member-led clubs, workshops and social events; doing so will get your logo shown on every page of this site, as well as select printed material. To express an interest, please simply contact us. The CCLaP Showcases are programmed and hosted by Nikki Patin, Director of Live Events. And don't forget, working writers, joining our free Fellowship program will get you first invitation to perform at such events.

Interested in just tracking the news about the CCLaP Showcases, by the way? We have an HTML page here where you can always find the latest, as well as a special RSS feed just for those entries.

Wow, hard to believe, but after two years of working on the plans for this arts center, our live-event schedule finally begins in a mere two and a half weeks. Yikes, I'm nervous! And that's because we still have a lot to do before the first event happens, including finding venues for our three ongoing shows. Want to help? Got a place in mind? Here's how the month of September is looking, for those who are interested...

--To start, on Friday September 15th will be the first CCLaP Session, in this case featuring Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn. This was formerly scheduled to be held at a coffeehouse in the Uptown neighborhood, owned by the boss of my last day job; but he and I have ended up having a falling-out, so now we're back to having no venue. (It's this previous day job, in fact, that has ended up causing all these problems with CCLaP in the first place; namely, that I ended up putting in over 420 work hours at it in two months, leaving me with just absolutely no time at all this summer to work on these final details.)

--Then on Thursay, September 21st will be the first of our CCLaP Showcases; three to five mid-level writers, many with their own books and zines, each reading on a common subject picked in advance. And yes, once again, we currently have no venue associated with this show.

--And then on Monday, September 25th, comes the date that I know many of you are looking forward to -- the first CCLaP Slam and open mic. And no, we don't have a venue for this yet either!

After this, then, CCLaP settles down into its regular schedule; the Slam every Monday, the Showcases the third Thursday of each month, the Sessions the second Friday of each month. Anyway, that's the latest; and if any of you either own or work at a venue in Chicago that would be interested in sponsoring one of these shows, or simply know of a cool place that you think will likely say yes, by all means please let us know. By all means let us know!

Happy news to report today; that the CCLaP Showcases, our monthly themed exhibition of mid-career writers, finally has a host. It's Katherine Hodges (pictured above outside the excellent Quimby's Bookstore in Wicker Park), someone who's been a friend of mine for a long time, and who I'm proud to have joining our staff.

For those who don't know, Katherine has been involved with the world of small-press and zine publishing since literally a teenager; in fact, it was a music zine she did in high school called "Spiffy" that first brought her to national attention, after her infamous article "My Mom Made Dinner for Pavement." (Her mom in fact even made Pavement a cake, with a big P made of icing on the top; when they asked what the P was for, she replied, "For Pavement!")

Katherine has been in the forefront of the basement-press community since then, regularly attending conferences and conventions on the subject around the world, as well as self-publishing a series of confessional booklets and zines, detailing such subjects as weight, identity, and moves to giant cities at a young and possibly not-ready age. (Her latest project, for example, is entitled "City of Destiny" and concerns all of these subjects; but Katherine asked me not to link to its blog, because "Oh God, I haven't updated it in such a long time, I'd just be ashamed of myself at this point." So okay, Katherine, update that blog already!)

And speaking of which, Katherine has of course asked if she can have a little extra time to get herself ready for these shows, which we're of course happy to do; and that's why the official start date for the CCLaP Showcases is now set for Thursday, October 19th. Don't forget, the Showcases has its own page here at the website, as well as its own RSS feed, for those who would like to check out the latest news concerning just that subject; and since Katherine is now a Fellow of the center as well, she too has her own webpage and her own RSS feed. I hope you're as excited as I am that Katherine is now in charge of this series; I'm looking forward to some great Showcases this fall!

So, I have some news to share today that I'm not particularly excited about, nor particularly happy about; that due to a lack of money, I've had to postpone CCLaP's live-events schedule to spring of 2007, versus this Friday when it was supposed to kick off. It's a frustrating decision for me, one that I put off until the last possible second -- after all, we were less than a thousand dollars away from being ready to start the live-events schedule, and I was really hoping that we might have pulled off a miracle there in the last couple of weeks. But alas, no.

Of course, this isn't all bad news; I've decided in fact to move CCLaP's publishing schedule, originally slated to begin next spring, up to the present day. So for the majority of you who interact with CCLaP (all you website visitors, that is), not much will change here; we'll still be featuring great creative work from brilliant artists around the world, and also sharing news and tips from the rest of the world of the underground arts. In fact, for those of you who live outside Chicago, you actually may be pleased by this announcement; it means not only the usual short stories, poems, essays, photos and more here at the site, but also a continual series of full-length electronic books being published by us too, all of them available for free, none of which contain crippling digital-rights management (DRM) software.

It probably goes without saying that it's been a stressful week for me; that's why I've decided to take just a bit of a break from CCLaP, perhaps a week or so, to regroup and get in touch with the authors and artists who I've been talking with this summer. As always, I appreciate the support that many of you have given the center, and hope that you'll continue to visit here this fall and winter.