Some indie events to keep you warm as the winter is starting to creep in: The Lilah Kemp living room reading series in Halifax, life-drawing classes in Toronto and a comic book launch in Montreal

Halifax

Dec 14., Lilah Kemp Reading Series, 6395 North Street, 8pm, Free.

The salon-style reading series in the living rooms of locals is back with an extra special holiday extra-extravaganza, that is to say six young writers reading their new work. BYOB!

Toronto

Dec. 14, â??Life Drawing,â? Gladstone Hotel (Gallery on the 2nd Floor), 1214 Queen Street West,  8pm, $8

Artist Walter Ruston hosts Torontoâ??s longest-running life drawing class. …

Indie Writers Deathmatch short story contest breaking news!

We’ve sweetened the pot for our winner! The writer who wins Deathmatch 2012 will now get:

12 gorgeous silkscreened prints by acclaimed Montreal illustrator Raymond Biesinger.

That’s in addition to

*Publication in Spring 2012 issue of Broken Pencil Magazine.

*$250 in cash money!

*Stacks of recent titles from great indie presses Coach House Books and Tightrope Books, plus subscriptions to amazing magazines Geist, Taddle Creek and SubTerrain!

Enter the world’s most audacious short story contest right now!

Want to see what you are getting into? Check out past years of Deathmatch insanity â?? 2010 is here and 2011 is here.

Now we’ll leave you with a nice gallery of  Raymond Biesinger’s work. These are just some of the prints the winner of this year’s DM will receive! …

A short(er) list of what we were reading this week:

Long-ago zinester Adee Robinson gets excited about zines all over again after attending a talk by former Bikini Kill front woman and avid zinester, Kathleen Hanna.

The third annual Graphic Medicine conference is coming to the University of Toronto this summer, all about the representation of treatment and medicine in comics. In the meantime, you can read the conference’s new blog here. Or, heeey, you could also pick up the latest issue of Broken Pencil and read editor Lindsay Gibb’s feature on mental health in zines.

And the Barnard Zine Library in New York is keeping the Occupy Wall Street movement going, asking for submissions to its OWS-themed zine.

Broken Pencil’s annual short story contest is back for blood! Every year we receive hundreds of submissions for the Indie Writers’ Deathmatch and from there we choose a mere eight shorts stories to pit against each other week after week for battering and praise from the bloodthirsty comments thread of contestants and readers. After all the bloodied noses and bruised egos, one writer emerges to win fame, publication and some pretty sweet prizes. 

Last year’s runner-up Colin Brush not only survived the bruising but he’s returned to tell his tale and interview past rivals and winners. In the lead-up to the December 31 submission deadline we’ll be featuring Brush’s interviews with past rivals and winners. But first! We hear Brush’s own gory tale:

…

Feeling crafty? We sure are. Check out this weekâ??s indie events that have an extra special crafty twist with holiday card creation in Halifax and a slew of weekend craft shows in Toronto.

Toronto

Dec. 10, â??SPoT Winter Book Fair,â? Hart House (University of Toronto), 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto, 10 am, Free

Readings from poets and fiction writers, workshops and a whole lot more from Small Press of Torontoâ??s biannual book fair.

…

Get a read on what we were reading this week:

The Gothamist in NYC gets “a little nostalgic for the early 90s” and then realizes there are six great NYC zines everyone should get reading. Check out their recommendations here.

An interview with the intriguing Annelise Atkinson who runs the Caribou Zine Shop that is currently stationed at the Hopkinson’s Gallery in Nottingham.

Great piece from zinester Lacey Prpic Hedtke on the difference between art books and zines here.