Honour Your Inner Magpie

Planning ahead: Fourth Street, June, 2008: A Very Shiny Evening of Readings and Celebration
[Oh, look, it's a press release!]

Celebrate the return of Fourth Street in a very shiny way!

Elise Matthesen, a.k.a. the Lioness of
Lioness: Ornament for People and Places
invites you to

A Very Shiny Evening of Readings and Celebration

in honor of all Artists' Challenge* participants and Haiku Earring Challenge* poets,
and also in celebration of ten years of making and selling shinies with names
to people with good imaginations and the willingness to make art

on Friday evening, June 20
at the Holiday Inn Select Airport in Bloomington, Minnesota,
in conjunction with Fourth Street Fantasy Convention

There will be an invitation in your convention packet, but I'm telling you now
so you can plan ahead and bring any shinies you have to our documentation project
to be photographed for my portfolio. (See below.)

Doors open at 9:00; readings begin at 9:30.
Readers include Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, and many others.

There will be miscellaneous munchies and a cash bar, with coffee and cake to follow.
(Unorganized autographing afterwards will doubtless happen, so feel free to drag some books along to get signed, eh?)

Flamboyant attire encouraged, whatever that means to you. Jeans and a T-shirt is fine.
Full Victorian antique Goth pirate tailcoat with spats is fine, as far as the dress code goes,
though you might be giggled at for sounding like an eBay item description.

Heather Corinna will be photographing those who wish,
because part of the goodness will be documenting people and their shinies for my portfolio.
If you will be wearing a named necklace or other named piece,
please contact Elise before the event in order to reserve a photo time.
Heather will also be available on-site earlier that day and possibly on Saturday
for a limited number of author photos and other work;
please ask Elise for Heather's contact information if you wish to arrange a session.

*The Artists' Challenge program is a thing I do where when people meet a piece of mine and it sparks some art in them, we work out a deal.
For writers, these days it usually goes like this:
1. Somebody sees a piece of mine, reads its title, and it inspires them.
2. They come and talk to me about it.
3. I can see that they are really sparked and it's making them want to write, so if I have the leeway in the exchequery, I make an Artists' Challenge agreement with them.
4. They make a downpayment.
5. The piece goes home with them.
6. They write whatever it is they're moved to write, and send me a copy of it. They of course retain copyright; usually they sell the piece and then I get to admire it in print too, as well as having the joy of reading it early on and having been a part of the inspiration.
7. These days, they pay off the rest of the piece over time from money they get from their writing. I generally prefer that they don't give me more than 10% of any given check they receive, though people can trump that if they really want to.

The Haiku Earring Challenge is similar, only it happens in a party situation, usually at WisCon, and there's no money involved, though some people do make donations, which is very nice of them and lets me buy more beads to do more Haiku Earrings.

At this point, I have many dozens of Artists' Challenge people, and hundreds of Haiku Earring Challenge people, with more being added every year. It's a neat thing where art inspires art, and I love seeing what people do. I'm delighted to have an evening to celebrate ten years of doing this, and even happier that Bear is Guest of Honor at Fourth Street and will read one of her necklace challenge stories to us.