Pocket Con 2018

Free Write Arts & Literacy engages incarcerated and court-involved youth and young adults in the performing, visual, and literary arts so that they become the narrators of their own stories and the authors of their futures. By co-designing creative space with our students, Free Write supports them as they develop educational and career opportunities that reduce recidivism while also contributing to the public discourse around issues of youth incarceration.Through one-on-one literacy tutoring and workshops in creative writing, visual art, music production, and workforce development, Free Write students build competencies in reading and writing, art making, technical skills, community building, and critical thinking. Students hone and exemplify these skills through publication, exhibition, and performance opportunities while incarcerated and upon returning to the community.In the summer of 2000, Free Write began working one-on-one with incarcerated youth in hopes of improving their print literacy skills. The project readily expanded to include creative writing, visual art, and music production workshops, resulting in densely packed and widely distributed anthologies and public exhibitions of student work. To date, Free Write has published seven of anthologies, installed over 50 public exhibitions, and worked alongside over 10,000 detained and criminalized youth and young adults.

Free Write Arts & Literacy

Pocket Con is a free single day convention for Chicago youth brought to you by a partnership between the Chicago Public Library, Freewrite and LOKari Productions. It focuses on work by artists of color, particularly African American authors and artists, as well as comics with a primary character who is Black. Pocket Con also features work in the comic genre by other underrepresented groups, such as women, Latinos, LGBTQs, and other minorities. We have a strong belief in Indie comics and publishing, and welcome small press and self published authors as well as those involved in related forms of expression and interest, such as webcomics, animation, small-budget film-making, video game design, and zines. Our mission for this event is primarily to promote literacy using the graphic novel format, reflect on the history of race and gender portrayal in comics and film, and introduce characters, writers and authors who have a different voice than the primarily white, primarily male, primarily straight characters written by generations of comic authors (themselves primarily white, straight, and male). We would also like to empower young writers and artists by introducing them to the collaborative process that is comic creation, and encourage them to produce and submit work of their own for contests at the con.
 
If you are interested in being a vending Artist or workshop leader Contact Elgin Bokari at Elgin@freewritechicago.org

Chicago Cultural Center

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Pocket Con 2018

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Pocket Con 2018

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