Bathers Library Newsletter #11

Hello all! What a whirlwind it has been! Sorry for the post-Symposium radio silence! I had to take a break to process/come back to life. What a success! (The Symposium I mean—not my return to life—which was *also* successful, but the Symposium is more relevant to what we’re doing here in the newsletter). Thank you all for coming out and being a part of it. We pretty much sold out every event and raised enough money to pay all our speakers and workshop leaders and (pretty much!) cover the costs of new speakers, mics and other supplies we needed to pull it off. This could not have been possible without our volunteers and members. Thank you for being such incredible supporters of this scrappy project—it means the world to me. If you’re not already a member, consider signing up!

There is so much going on! Let’s get right into it.

ANNOUNCING COHORTS!

Join our brand new program! Cohorts are discipline-based groups of 6-10 people who gather regularly to share and critique one another's work, to read together, participate in regular events related to their field, and attend guest artist talks. Kind of like a “crit group plus.” So, if you’re making work—writing, painting, making movies, whatever—and you’re looking for a space to share and connect with peers, Cohorts is the place to do it!

Genre-specific groups will meet roughly twice a month to share work, and also to go to one discipline-specific events (an exhibition or reading or screening for instance). This first group will meet from mid-October through the end of the year (and maybe a bit into January if we need more time).

Participation in Cohorts is free for Bathers members at the $20 per month level (funds go to paying facilitators and guest speakers, and hopefully to keeping the lights on at the library!).

Find out more and fill out an interest form below. Fill out the form by 9/24 to be considered for the first cohort of cohorts!

Death to Spotify Forum

Yes! We are so excited to announce this series organized by Stephanie Dukich & Manasa Karthikeyan: DEATH TO SPOTIFY, Decentralizing Music from Capitalist Economies! This is going to be so sick!

This is a five-part hybrid reading/action group and speaker series. Each week, from 6-7pm participants will be invited to commiserate on the future of music economies and then will be joined from 7:15-9 by various incredible guest speakers to discuss their projects.

The entire series is $30 (all fees go to paying speakers) and a limited amount of walk-up space will be available each week at the door.

This sold out within minutes of posting! We’ll have limited walk-in space for each speaker, so come through and we’ll make sure to squeeze you in. More info and speaker list is here!

Welcome our new residents

We are so excited to announce our new groups of free studio residents! Our Fall group is just moving in now. We have increased our program from 2 to 4 per term (woo!) and have a rad mix of text and visual artists sharing our space. Keep an eye out for upcoming residency programming and learn more about them here!

New Mag Alert

So excited for our September events calendar/mini-mag! Pick one up during store hours (12-6 Th-Sa) at Bathers! Submissions are now open for October—send in events and short essays now to make it into the mag! (More info and submission guidelines at the link).

FALL/WINTER READING GROUP PROPOSALS ARE NOW OPEN

Fall Reading Group Proposals are open! Bathers Library Reading Groups are like brief, thematic book clubs created by our community. Reading groups can be based on a topic, theme, author, or whatever other interesting organizing principle you'd like to suggest. Reading groups should be structured to last about 6 weeks, and to be able to have between 8-15 or so people.

A $150 honorarium will be given to all accepted groups with at least 8 attendee sign ups. If under 8 people sign up for the group, it will not be offered in the final program (and we'll welcome you to resubmit next time!).

We will do our best to accommodate as many proposals as possible. Once groups are selected, we'll promote the season of groups and gather attendees.

TIMELINE: Deadline for submission is September 23rd. Accepted groups will be confirmed soon after. Fall groups will start mid-October, and winter Groups in January. You can indicate your preference for start-time below.

Fall groups will start mid-October and go through November. Winter groups will be January through mid-February. If you’ve done a group before, you can totally propose it again.

THIS EMAIL IS TOO JAM PACKED! THAT’S IT FOR NOW!