Buffalo Small Press Book Fair heralds the return of spring

Buffalo Small Press Book Fair heralds the return of spring	by Christopher Britton

Small Press Extravaganza!

The third annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair returns this Saturday with its usual assortment of unusual missals, proffering everything from handmade artist’s books to comics, micropress poetry to zines. This year promises to be a refreshing one, with more than 70 vendors, including a healthy dose of locals as well as a smattering of work from around the Northeast, including New York City, Baltimore, Toronto, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Last year's Buffalo Small Press Book Fair at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum.

In three short years, the book fair has become an integral part of the Buffalo literary community, a hallmark of spring, a reunion for expatriates, an impetus for cultural production, a networking must, and a symbol of the city’s artistic vitality. An often chilly weekend provides the backdrop for the exchange of warm words, warm hugs, and the tacit camaraderie of perseverant marginalized artists. Authorship and artistry may often be solitary pursuits, but for a few short days in March, the book fair serves as a reminder to authors and artists that they aren’t alone.

The fair has been restructured this year to incorporate free skill-building workshops in bookbinding, screenprinting, and zine making. Basic bookbinding techniques will be taught by Rich Kegler, local book artist, owner of P22 type foundry, and head of the Western New York Book Arts Center. Stencil silkscreening and photo emulsion techniques will be demonstrated by local commercial screenprinter Courtney Brent, and Rochester artist Peter Lazarski will lecture on zine culture, distribution, and construction. All of the workshops will be hands-on, and they are free and open to the public.

In previous years, poetry and fiction readings have been held concurrent with the fair, but because of the new workshops, the readings have been pushed to Friday night’s Small Press Poetry Fest. Organized by Mike Kelleher, AaronLowinger, and Steven Zultanski, the Poetry Fest will include readings by more than 30 authors divided by press, and they will be capped off by this year’s featured reader, acclaimed New York City poet Anselm Berrigan.

The fair and the Poetry Fest are the perfect opportunity to overdose on the written (and spoken) word, jumpstart your artistic batteries, or pick up a few inspired curiosities. If this year is anything like the last two, the joy will be palpable, the work will run the gamut from edgy to traditional, and you’ll leave feeling good about Buffalo.

The Buffalo Small Press Book Fair takes place Saturday, March 21, noon-6pm, at the beautiful Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum (453 Porter Avenue). The Small Press Poetry Fest takes place from Friday, March 20, 7pm-midnight, at the fantastic new Sugar City collaborative art space at 19 Wadsworth Avenue. See www.buffalosmallpress.org for details.

—christopher britton

Reader Comments

C. Alexander Brown
19 Mar 2009, 11:30

The Small Press Book Fair is a great idea, and as a Canadian and retired Federal Government official with an interest in the Arts, I would very much like to see it expand to Toronto, where it would get a great reception.

C. ALEXANDER BROWN
Ottawa, Canada.

John Q Blogger
25 Mar 2009, 17:50

A reason a free press and a free internet.

Once again the Buffalo News is banning bloggers who question the ethics of giving away their paper for free online and charging subscribers for the same news commodity. Artvoice gives away this paper free at news boxes and online. The Buffalo News charges home subscribers to their paper and turns around and hands out their paper for nothing to online users. This isn't right.

It is a valid to question the ethics of the Buffalo News charging subscribers for this commodity and giving it away for free to non paying customers.

A choice was made by the management of the Buffalo News. It was a decision that is unfair and wrong to the subscribers of their paper. They can't have it both ways. The Buffalo News charging practices are unethical towards paying customers.

The Buffalo News charging practices also get into the ethics of charging people with a crime for taking the newspaper from a local store or newspaper box. What wisdom is there in bailing out internet users at the expense of Buffalo News subscribers? It can now be presumed the Buffalo News is encouraging subscribers to stop paying for their paper and get their Buffalo News for free like many of the online readers are currently doing.

Recently in the Buffalo News placed the AIG scandal story at the bottom of page A-6, and a Buffalo firefighter, over time story onto the front page of the Sunday Edition. This is really bumpkin-ville journalism at best.

The national story about AIG the corporation that nearly put this country and the world into a economic 911 was front page news worthy. It's trillions compared to millions and life threatening trauma to America being compared to over time in Buffalo government. Yet the Buffalo News doesn't see it that way. Those who agree with the paper don't get blocked. Those who disagree and call the Buffalo News on their subscription ethics get censored via internet blocking.

Over the last ten years, Buffalo fire houses and fire companies have been closed. Men have died and retired while the N.Y. State Control Board have not allowed a new recruit class to replace the losses in man power that caused the over time in the first place. The Buffalo News blocks this opinion.

Now a Buffalo News blogger is being allowed to make outrageous statements like this one.

"But it doesn't matter how good a job policemen and fire fighters do."
-Buffalo Libertarian

Today my opinions that I have written below (in response to the above blogger) were blocked from the Buffalo News web site.

Citizens have every right to question and change the practices of how their government is operated. Other citizens have the right to question the careless and ignorant Buffalo Libertarian's statements written on a Buffalo News web site. Subscribers to the Buffalo News have the right to question the fairness of the pricing policies of the newspaper they buy.

Bank book priorities are being used to reduce the safety of our city to a Darwinian logic. Buffalo Libertarian's blogger statement, about the way firefighters and police doing their jobs doesn't matter, is absolutely irresponsible. Lives should never be sacrificed to save dollars. It is better to be in debt than dead under the ground. This is the opinion that the Buffalo News censors on their web blog.

The state of this countries democracy may very well fall back into the hands of small presses and poets. The Buffalo News is big brother on their web site. Opinions that are counter to the Buffalo News corporate speak are now subject to censorship by blocking of email addresses.