ALLEYWAYS Praise!

Phantom Billstickers - New Zealand's Largest & Finest Street Poster and Street Media Company - offers a few nice words regarding Alleyways, the latest theme issue in ESP's Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore! series, via its Facebook page:

Every so often something happens in either the writing world or in music that is extremely refreshing. The Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore! publications are a good example. Here is the latest issue Alleyways. You fast get the idea that not every writer has been to a "creative writing" class that has rendered them impotent first and stupid second. We commend our brothers in Baltimore for stepping out beyond the line of boredom. Good writing (like good music) should always come from the street. Good postering does too.

Praise for SMILE, HON, YOU'RE IN BALTIMORE!

"If you only know Baltimore as 'that city from The Wire' you need to get down with some Smile, Hon.  DIY anthropology at its best!" - MICROCOSM PUBLISHING

Hemingway, Gellhorn subjects of new HBO biopic

Photo: HBO

Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman star in a new HBO movie about the marriage of writer Ernest Hemingway and journalist Martha Gellhorn.  According to National Public Radio, the couple "married in 1940. Four years later, she expected to cover D-Day for Collier's magazine. By that point, her marriage was fraying, and when Hemingway took the job instead, the indomitable Gellhorn stowed away on a hospital ship and beat her husband to Normandy..."

SMILE, HON, you've got a face for radio!

Orson Welles as The Shadow.

Did you ever wonder what I might sound like if I were Benn Ray, co-owner of Baltimore's own indie all-star, Atomic Books?  Neither did I  - but now you can hear it for yourself on this week's installment of The Inverse Delirium Podcast, a self-described "spoof of media culture & life in this American Baltimore."  This week's guests also include WYPR's Nathan Sterner and Unknown Penguin Patrick Flynn, mostly as themselves!

SMILE, HON leaves the beaten path

BALTIMORE, Md. – If main-street facades embody the stuffy front parlors of urban existence, then alleyways are certainly its living quarters, a place where collars are opened, tongues are relaxed, and business gets done.

Group of employees and several small boys in the littered alley entrance to a Baltimore garment factory, 1921. Source: National Archives.

Now, through July 1, 2012, literary byway Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore! is accepting stories, essays, poetry, photography and other artwork that creatively interpret the theme of “alleyways” for an upcoming special issue.  Creative non-fiction is preferred, though all submissions will be considered.  Copy (100 – 2,000 words) should be submitted via e-mail as attached Word (or text) documents.  Image files should be approximately 5" x 7", 300+ dpi (.JPG or .TIF format).  All contributors will receive a byline/artist credit for their work as well as two (2) complimentary copies of the issue.

From the harbor to the hills, Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore! collects the tales of those on whom Mobtown has left her indelible mark. Polished, professional essays; barroom sermons delivered from the sanctity of a favorite stool; the poet's fleeting sentiment, captured in both word and snapshot – Smile, Hon offers a slice of Baltimore as told by Baltimore, presented with the time-honored DIY accessibility of a limited-run, handcrafted zine. A two-time Utne Independent Press Award Nominee, Smile, Hon has also been dubbed "Best Zine" by Baltimore Magazine (2008) and Baltimore City Paper (2004). Other special theme issues have tackled such subjects as sex, rats, tattoos and waste.

An Eight-Stone Press production, Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore! is available locally for purchase at Atomic Books (Baltimore, MD); City Lights Books (San Francisco, CA) Cyclops Books & Music (Baltimore, MD); Microcosm Publishing (Bloomington, IN, and Portland, OR); Quimby's (Chicago, IL); Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse (Baltimore, MD) and Ukazoo Books (Towson, MD).

For more information, contact:

William P. Tandy, Editor

Eight-Stone Press

P.O. Box 11064

Baltimore, Maryland 21212

E-mail: Wpt@eightstonepress.com

Website: http://www.eightstonepress.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wptandy

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/eightstonepress

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Back-to-back Bodine!

Jennifer Bodine, daughter of legendary Baltimore Sun photographer A. Aubrey Bodine [above] and curator of his life’s work, will deliver a slideshow/lecture based on her latest book, Bodine’s City: The Photography of A. Aubrey Bodine, beginning at 11:00 a.m. this Saturday, April 14, in the Poe Room on the second floor of the main branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Cathedral Street in downtown Baltimore. Bodine’s City collects more than 150 Bodine prints highlighting the photographer’s artistic eye. Writer and photographer Jim Burger will introduce the program.

This free event is part of the ninth annual CityLit Festival, a daylong celebration of the region’s thriving literary scene and its heritage. For more information, visit the CityLit Festival website.

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The following week, Ms. Bodine will join the Friends of the Mencken House to discuss and sign copies of Bodine’s City from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday, April 21, at the Mencken House, 1524 Hollins Street, in Baltimore, Maryland. “Sage of Baltimore” H. L. Mencken and Aubrey Bodine were colleagues at the Baltimore Sunpapers, and the two men maintained a close, longstanding friendship. Attendees of the April 21 event will also be able to tour the Mencken House & Garden, which are normally closed to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

For more information, visit www.menckenhouse.org or www.aaubreybodine.com, or e-mail menckenhouse@gmail.com or jbb@aaubreybodine.com.

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SMILE, HON represents at 9th annual CityLit Festival

BALTIMORE, Md. – Count Eight-Stone Press (ESP) among the horde of local imprints represented in the Literary Marketplace at Baltimore’s ninth annual CityLit Festival, held from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. this Saturday, April 14, 2012, at the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Central Branch in downtown Baltimore. Stop by the ESP table to meet William P. Tandy, editor and publisher of ESP’s long-running, critically acclaimed Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore! series, and pick up the latest issue, or peruse the back catalogue and a variety of Smile, Hon merchandise.

Hailed as “a can’t-miss event on the city’s cultural scene” by Baltimore Magazine, CityLit Festival is a collaborative effort between CityLit Project and the Pratt Library. This year’s Festival headliners include Kwame Alexander, Edward Hirsch, Thomas Lux and Benjamin Busch. Jennifer Bodine, daughter of legendary Baltimore Sun photographer A. Aubrey Bodine and curator of his work, will deliver a slideshow lecture on her latest book, Bodine’s City: The Photography of A. Aubrey Bodine, highlighting her father’s artistic eye. (Read William P. Tandy’s review of Bodine’s City in Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore! No. 15.)

For more information, visit the official CityLit Festival website.

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