Supercrawl Presents Sharp Words Book Fair Feb 15 at Bridgeworks
Sharp Words returns to Bridgeworks for its third year! Join us at this free event to discover fabulous new books from innovative writers and publishers, to talk to authors and artists, and to celebrate writing in our city. RSVP today to ensure your access.
The book fair will be open from 11:00am to 5:00pm and will feature great independent presses, artists, comic book creators and writers along with talks about publishing, the writing life and more.
Vendors are slated to include Abundance Press, Raymond Beauchemin, Between the Lines Press, Black Eye Books, Book*hug Press, The City & the City Books, Darrel Epp, Gordon Hill Press, gritLIT, Hamilton City Magazine, Hamilton Public Library, Lime Press and the Comics Collective, David Lee, The Literary Press Group, Little Ghost Books, Mawenzi House, Serif of Nottingham, Stelliform Press, Stephen Pearl, Michelle Stark, Telling Tales Festival, West Meadow Press, and Wolsak and Wynn.
Sharp Words respects, supports and encourages the wearing of masks at our in-person events.
RSVP & INFO
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EVENT SCHEDULE (Subject to Change)
11:00 am
Doors Open
11:00 am to 12:00 pm
Understanding Small Press Publishing
There’s a lot of confusion about how to get your book published and whether or not you want to go it alone as your author or signed by a multi-national publishing company. But there’s a world of other publishers out there, in what’s called the small presses. Join author and radio host Jamie Tennant in conversation with Selena Middleton of Stelliform Press and Hazel Millar of Book*Hug Press to talk about how small press publishing works, and why so many great books come from these presses.
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Live Podcast of What Happened Next: a podcast about newish books
Nathan Whitlock brings his much-loved podcast to Sharp Words for his first live recording with award-winning Hamilton author Anuja Varghese!
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Is Anyone Listening?
It’s never been harder to get a good conversation going about issues that are important to our cities and communities, but that doesn’t mean we stop trying! Join Deborah Dundas, Opinions Editor at The Toronto Star, Meredith McLeod, co-publisher of Hamilton City Magazine and Lisa Quinn, the publisher of McGill-Queens University Press as they talk about how to create spaces to share ideas and information in our communities.
PLEASE NOTE: Evening component, Sharp Words Literary Cabaret, has been cancelled due to unanticipated logistical challenges.
Massive Thanks!
Massive thanks to everyone who came out for Supercrawl 2024. You made the festival’s 16th anniversary especially sweet and proved beyond question that Hamilton is a creative, dynamic, welcoming community.
Heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped make this year’s Supercrawl real: To our volunteers, staff, artists, vendors, and everyone who dug deep, filled their art with love, and worked incredibly hard to make this festival special. To the residents and merchants of our amazing neighbourhood for their generous hospitality. And, of course, thank you to the festival-goers of all ages — more than 285,000 — who came from far and wide and embraced all of it.
Mark your calendars for the next edition of Supercrawl, returning to James North September 12-14, 2025!
Supercrawl Reveals 2024 Festival Lineup
Supercrawl organizers have unveiled the festival lineup for the 2024 free festival weekend, taking place September 13-15, 2024 along James Street North in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, made possible by presenting sponsor TD Bank Group (TD).
Supercrawl’s schedule and festival map will be released in the last week of August.
Musical performers at Supercrawl 2024 (in alphabetical order) will include Matt Andersen & The Big Bottle of Joy, The Anti-Queens, A Side B Side, Rich Aucoin, Bend It Like Beck, Born In The Eighties, Boys and Girls Club, Colour Film, Charlotte Cornfield, Danko Jones, The Dears, Elliott Brood, Ellis, Explosions in the Sky, Golden Feather, Hamilton Children’s Choir, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Hamilton Superstars (featuring Steve Strongman, Dawn Tyler Watson, Roly Platt, Alfie Smith, Joel Parisien, Colin Lapsley, and Dave King), Haters, iskwē, Jambassadors, Kaïa Kater, Mia Kelly, Kellie Loder, Matthew Runaway, MonkeyJunk, MOONRIIVR, My Son the Hurricane, Peter Dreams, Rise Carmine, Royal Castles, The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Sadies, Jamie Shea & the Gentle Reminders, Superstar Crush, The Wild High, Yassin + Sean Terrio, and Zeus.
Supercrawl will host an interactive residency from globally acclaimed Squonk, who made their festival debut in 2022 to popular acclaim. The Pittsburgh-based post-industrial art rock performance troupe will be presenting their new production Brouhaha, an immersive outdoor spectacle bursting with rollicking music, dazzling imagery, and the thrill of audience participation.
In addition, the festival will feature:
• visual art installations from Arts For All, BecauseDesignMatters, Nathan Eugene Carson, Clear Eyes Collective, Cesar C. Cordoba, Frenly, Anthony Haley, Koe Design, Leafton Labs, Little Dada and the Boys, Chrix Morix, Open Window Artist Talks, and Stylo Starr;
• fashion showcases from Amici, Ashes, The Better Days Club, Certitude by K, Dope Chief, The Eye Of Faith, HeyHey & Co., Kandy Intimates, Mooncraft Market, The Muses, RoyalTeeP33, sariKNOTsari, Steel City Slither, Supercrawl Cosplay Showcase, Theatrix Costume House, and True Hamiltonian;
• dance from Defining Movement Dance, Garba Groovers, Omega Dance, RXD, Schiehallion Dancers, and Tocani;
• theatre from Catherine Allen & Tarah Ahmad, Emerson Arts, Make Art Theatre, and Carly Pokoradi.
• author talks and spoken word from Gary Barwin, Raymond Beauchemin, Gloria Blizzard, Lana Button, Kate Cayley, Steacy Easton, Dustin Galer, Ai Jiang, David Neil Lee, George Matuvi, Paige Maylott, Lishai Peel, Deepa Rajagopalan, Aimee Reid, Jessica Rose, Nicola Ross, Nicholas Ruddock, Jamie Tennant, Brent van Staalduinen, Anuja Varghese, A.G.A. Wilmot, and Nicola Winstanley;
• plus Hamilton Pro Wrestling, James North Yoga, The Local Invitational Skate Competition, MovementOM, and Sapphyre Poison Drag Xtravaganza.
Supercrawl will also offer dozens of food trucks, scores of craft vendors, plus a Family Zone packed with creative options for children and youth. Announcements on all three will follow shortly.
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Supercrawl is Hamilton’s premier multi-arts festival, fusing new and independent music with art installations, fashion, performance, literature, theatre, and artisanal craft. Supercrawl’s diverse multidisciplinary program of sound, performance, visual and media arts is staged along a pedestrian-only creative corridor in the heart of downtown.
A not-for-profit arts organization, Supercrawl is committed to honouring, showcasing and celebrating all varieties of creative work, positioning local and emerging artists alongside significant provincial, national and international peers. The festival fosters and promotes arts and culture as well as the myriad benefits they provide.
Founded in 2009, Supercrawl has successfully evolved from a modest arts-based single-day occurrence to a multi-day event with national/international profile and attendance. The festival has gone from a one-day celebration on a single block to a weekend-long experience encompassing over two kilometres of downtown streets, with attendance growing steadily from 3,000 to over 275,000 in that time. In addition to its namesake free festival weekend, Supercrawl Productions also produces ticketed concerts and events throughout the year.
Supercrawl was shortlisted for a 2019 Ontario Tourism Award of Excellence for Tourism Event of the Year and 2017 Canadian Tourism Award for Event of the Year. The festival received the 2015 Ontario Tourism Award of Excellence for Tourism Event of the Year and has been repeatedly recognized as one of Festival and Events Ontario’s Top 100 Festivals/Events (2015-2020, 2023-2024). In 2019, Supercrawl’s Family Zone programming earned a Festivals & Events Ontario Achievement Award for Best Youth Initiative.
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Supercrawl’s schedule and festival map will be released in the last week of August.
Supercrawl 2024 Call For Artists – Now Closed
Supercrawl is a free annual outdoor art and music festival held in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, showcasing a diverse and dynamic lineup of music, art, fashion, performance, talks, crafts, food and fun. In 2023, Supercrawl covered 22 city blocks and attracted more than 275,000 visitors over the course of the weekend. Organizers look forward to building upon that foundation at this fall’s festival — Supercrawl’s 16th anniversary — taking place September 13-15, 2024 on James Street North.
Calls for Artists for the 2024 edition of Supercrawl are now closed. Thanks to all who applied.
Please do not contact organizers regarding the results of your application before they are communicated to you. When decisions are made, you will be contacted.
Only materials as part of the official application will be considered. Third-party petitions, social media polls, gimmicky marketing campaigns, cold calls and the like will not favourably impact your likelihood of having a successful application. To the contrary: Attempts to influence curation will be counterproductive.
Please do not telephone, text, direct message, or use social media comments for artist-related requests/communications. All official communications will be conducted via email only.
Call for Volunteers will open in June.
Details on the first-come, first served Supermarket program will be announced September 1.
Follow our socials (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) or watch our website for more details!
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Supercrawl was founded out of a desire to showcase the city’s cultural vibrancy and eclectic arts landscape, and remains dedicated to honouring, showcasing and celebrating all varieties of creative work. Supercrawl prioritizes curating a diverse and representative festival lineup. We recognize our responsibility to amplify voices that have traditionally been marginalized, both in our community and in society as a whole.
Supercrawl is committed to inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. We strive to create an environment in which all participants may flourish. We are committed to removing systemic barriers to access and opportunity, and welcome artistic proposals from all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, or economic status. We welcome submissions from artists of all backgrounds, including but not limited to Indigenous, Black, people of colour, 2SLGBTQIA+, women, people with disabilities, and members of equity-seeking communities.
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Supercrawl Presents Sharp Words Book Fair Feb 24 at Bridgeworks
Sharp Words returns to Bridgeworks for a second sensational season! Join us at this free event to discover fabulous new books from innovative writers and publishers, to talk to authors and artists, and to celebrate writing in our city. RSVP today to ensure your access.
The book fair will be open from 11:00am to 6:00pm and will feature great independent presses, artists, comic book creators and writers along with talks about publishing, the writing life and more.
Vendors are slated to include 845 Press, Baseline Press, Between the Lines Press, Black Eye Books, Book*hug Press, The City & the City Books, Darrel Epp, Gordon Hill Press, gritLIT, Hamilton Children’s Authors Collective (featuring Joyce Grant, Aimee Reid, Karen Bass and Lana Button), Lime Press, Mark Leslie Lefebvre, David Lee, The Literary Press Group, Mawenzi House, Palimpsest Press, Pinhole Poetry, Serif of Nottingham, The Shale Project, Simulacrum Press, Stelliform Press, West Meadow Press, and Wolsak and Wynn.
At 7:00pm, join us for the Literary Cabaret, an evening of live music where your favourite local authors will pick up the microphone — not to read, but to sing!
Sharp Words respects, supports and encourages the wearing of masks at our in-person events.
RSVP & INFO
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EVENT SCHEDULE
11:00 am
Doors Open
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11:00 am to 12:00 pm
Behind the Scenes in Children’s Publishing
Join author and publishing industry veterans Joyce Grant, Karen Bass, Aimee Reid and Lana Button as they share their stories of bringing out award-winning books for children and young adults and explain the complicated journey from story idea to finding copies of your books in bookstores! This panel will be moderated by Joyce Grant, the award-winning author of Can You Believe It?: How to Spot Fake News and Find the Facts.
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1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Telling True Stories
Childhood memories of war, histories in poetry from the Caribbean island of Curaçao and a pandemic diary all sound very different, but they’re all fascinating ways to tell true stories. Join authors Dannabang Kuwabong, George Matuvi and Rebecca Rosenblum as they discuss how their stories took shape and why they chose to tell them in this form. This panel will be moderated by Hamilton Review of Books Editor-in-Chief Dana Hansen.
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3:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Books on Air
What does it take to put together a literary podcast? Why do people do it? Should you tune in? Join authors and podcasters Eden Boudreau, Tanis MacDonald, Brent van Staalduinen and Nathan Whitlock as they talk about why they put down their pens and picked up their mics. Moderated by Tanis MacDonald the host of Watershed Writers, which is heard weekly on Midtown Radio KW.
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7:00 pm
Sharp Words Literary Cabaret
Join hosts Amy Jones and Nathan Whitlock as they lead us through an unforgettable evening of music, singing, prizes and fun that you can take part in. Featuring performances by Lana Button, Denise Da Costa, Alicia Elliott, Joyce Grant, Liz Harmer, Melissa Kuipers, Joe Ollmann, Greg Rhyno, Mike Sholars and Meaghan Strimas. Music by The Approximators: Andrew Bondy, Tom Shea, Nathan Whitlock and Mark Woodland
