Baltimore21201.Com

Get LIT in Baltimore! - Part 2

I posted a note on Sunday about getting LIT in Baltimore by way of an email from Carole Evitts. Here's the follow-up...

Spring 2008 brings a lot of good things to the mid-Atlantic. One of the best promises to be this year's 5th Annual CityLit Festival. Rub elbows with, and learn from, some of the best in the literature scene on April 19th at the Enoch Pratt Free Library (downtown on Cathedral Street). 10AM - 5PM. Think: Laura Lippman, Manil Suri, Dan Fesperman, Carole Boston Weatherford, Michael Olesker, and dozens of others. This event is free to attendees and free to exhibitors. Put on your thinking caps, you Lit-Types!

President and CEO of the CityLIt Project, Gregg A. Wilhelm, wants us to know that: CityLit Project nurtures the culture of literature in Baltimore and throughout Maryland. Programs include free public events, registration-based writers' workshops and conferences, a rock-n-read concert that targets the 18-34 crowd (which represents the steepest rate of decline in reading), and efforts to get youth to dig reading and writing as creative, expressive arts.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! (OK, too much late night TV. Way too much.) Gregg Wilhelm is too modest. Here are just a couple of quotes from those in the know:

“CityLit Festival is one of my favorite events of the year. The energy and creativity that CityLit Project brings to it--and to each of its programs--is worthy of the library’s support, and the entire community’s support.”
Dr. Carla Hayden
Executive Director
Enoch Pratt Free Library

“We value the content CityLit Project has provided the Baltimore Book Festival over the years. In a city rich with a variety of creative arts, Baltimore is fortunate to have CityLit as a champion of the literary arts.”
Bill Gilmore
Executive Director
Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts

“After searching for a way to become involved with the local literary community, I found exactly what I was looking for— it’s the nonprofit CityLit Project. At the happy hour, it was apparent that CityLit and JMWW are achieving their mission to nurture the culture of literature.”
Corinne Levinstein
Writer

Baltimore! Get Lit! REALLY, Get LIT!

A couple of days ago I wrote about the sad state of the iffy, dicey, and generally lame media releases that arrive on my desk after January and continue to arrive until the sun warms us up a bit and Baltimore's collective community spirit brightens. I was a tad-bit blue as I wrote that last post because we haven't had a decent snow storm this winter -- and, nothing makes me happier (and nothing warms ME up) more than a Baltimore snow-day.

Just then, I received a wonderful email notice from Carole Evitts. I read it, and I smiled, and I felt much warmer and a whole lot more positive. I felt the sunshine. (But, still no decent snow for 2008 was in the forecast. Rats...)

Here's the sidebar: I consider the Evitts' family one of the smartest and most productive and giving literary families in current-day Baltimore. Here's a very condensed Evitts' snapshot: Carole's husband, author, professor, and truly nice guy, William J Evitts PhD, has been a fixture at Johns Hopkins University for a long, long time. Evitts' son, Michael, is the amazingly knowledgeable voice of Baltimore's Downtown Partnership. Their daughter, the award winning writer Elizabeth Evitts, was editor of Baltimore's slick, glossy -- and intelligently written magazine -- Urbanite. The magazine for Baltimore's Curious. I hear that Elizabeth is now setting up her own shop as most high-level, creative Baltimorians tend to do.

Oh yes, and then there's Carole A Evitts. When I was introduced to her a couple of years ago by way of a project for the Historic Charles Street Association, I knew that we'd met a decade or so before. We worked it out and sure enough... Carole and I were working on Zoomerang together way back in the late 1980s. We decided that, yes, Baltimore will always be a small town where friends live, leave, return, and reunite.

Stay tuned for the announcement from Carole that turns smart Baltimore smarter and more positive each year... and GET LIT!

Oh and by the way, if you want to learn about the Civil Rights Movement (and the Baltimore riots) in our city from folks who lived here and lived those events, click here for a PDF: Baltimore Riots. It is a must read.

After January Each Year: The Ho-Hum Press Releases Hit Baltimore

Odd, but true... Take this urgent message from the Live Baltimore Home Center:

Need a makeover? Want to be on national TV? Then head down to the Harborplace Amphitheater on Monday, February 18, where one lucky person will be "glambushed" live on TV during the CBS Early Show. [Say now, that sounds like a good time to be had by all.]

The Early Show's Dave Price will be LIVE in Baltimore on Monday morning. All Baltimoreans are invited to show their support by joining him as part of the show's audience from 5:30 - 9:00 a.m. One lucky audience member will be selected for a makeover by designer to the stars, Bradley Bayou - author of "The Science of Sexy." WJZ-TV's Ron Matz will also be broadcasting live. We want to show support for the CBS Early Show and proudly represent the city of Baltimore, so come out and don't miss your chance to be on national television. 

[They've got to be kidding, right?]

And, this just in from "The Insiders Club" at 1st Mariner Arena:

WWE PRESENTS BACKLASH - Sunday , April 27^th AT 7:45 PM

As a member of the 1st Mariner Arena Insiders Club [I'm on their mailing list, yes. But, I had no idea that I was a member of anything so very special...] you are invited to take part in an exclusive presale for WWE Presents Backlash, at 1st Mariner Arena on Sunday. Attendees must be 14 years of age.

[Oh swell, let's round up all of our young teens and head out to see this smart little package. Oh and yes, the best tickets are $175 each...]

He doesn't look like another Hanna Montana so I think I'll hold-off on this one and not stand in line.

If you've ever read this blog before, you know that I'm a rah-rah, full-on supporter of Baltimore and 21201. It just gets creepy on the PR front around this time of year. Stay tuned for some of the truly worthwhile notices of late winter.

And, if you see huge guys walking around downtown Baltimore in tights... well, consider yourself warned. It's not altogether pretty.