Special Tickets Available for Revenge of the Book Eaters

July 31, 2006

We are pleased to announce that our benefit on August 23 at the Beacon Theater, REVENGE OF THE BOOK EATERS (with Jon Stewart, Sufjan Stevens, David Byrne, Sarah Vowell, Dave Eggers, John Roderick, and John Hodgman), is sold out. Thank you to everyone who bought tickets—we are eagerly anticipating this one-of-a-kind evening of music, comedy, and literature. If you weren't able to get tickets in time, all hope is not lost. 826NYC is offering a limited number of Priority Tickets (front and center seats) for $250 each. All proceeds, of course, will come directly to the organization and will support student programming here. Contributions above face value are also tax deductible. If you are interested in purchasing Priority Tickets please call us here at 718-499-9884.

826 Goes Green

July 25, 2006

A very large green screen has made its home at 826NYC. Why put up such a thing, you might ask? Because Summer Filmmakers' Doomsday in the USA, featuring a scientist resembling Kurt Vonnegut, a plague with a near-unpronounceable name, and a very familiar jolly man, cannot be filmed without mind-twisting whirls of special effects!

Despite a couple of costume and wrinkling delays, our actors took take after exhausting take in front of the new screen—suspended miraculously with binder clips and some string.

The Book Eaters Take Revenge, August 23

July 13, 2006

826NYC and The Bowery Presents present Revenge of the Book Eaters, a star-studded night featuring some of today's most recognized names in indie-rock, literature, and comedy, including Sufjan Stevens (in a rare stripped-down performance), Jon Stewart, David Byrne (alone, onstage, with a guitar), Dave Eggers (best-selling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), Sarah Vowell (best-selling author and This American Life contributor), John Hodgman (Daily Show regular and author of The Areas of My Expertise), John Roderick (The Long Winters) and special guests to be announced in an evening that promises once and for all to settle the debate: words or music - which is better?

This event, which is named after a story by an 826NYC student, is the first in a series of six concerts in six cities to raise money for children's literacy programs in the 826 writing centers across the country. Revenge of the Book Eaters Tour info

Summer Filmmakers Begins

July 12, 2006

826NYC Summer Filmmakers, in which students will write, direct and star in two original five minute movies, began yesterday afternoon. The session involved selecting genres to work in, outlining the two stories, and beginning to work on the scripts.

The stories, one horror and one disaster movie, are already beginning to take shape. Between the two, there's quite a bit to look forward to, including a possessed homocidal telephone, a meteor crash in a rural trailer park, the pandemic outbreak of a skin-tightening/hair-burning/green-bump-causing disease, and the evacuation of the United States by airplane.

Casting and pre-production begin next week, so stay tuned for more updates and photos.

Young Adult Writers' Colony

July 10, 2006

Today marked the first workshop of the Young Adult Writers' Colony, which kicked off with a very productive first session. Pages of time traveling fantasy, free verse poetry, and letters addressed to therapists concerning persistent nicknames were nervously collated and passed around. Our nine authors mused over line breaks and considered tense shifts; and at the end, each writer walked out with a folder full of marked up copies and heightened sense of where their novel was going. We're excited to see these novels take shape over the next eight weeks!