Our 2020 festival is postponed due to the pandemic.
“In virtually no time flat, Short Run has gone from ‘let’s put on a show’ to ‘this is the heart and soul of Seattle’s creative community.’ Imagining a Seattle without a Short Run is as unthinkable as a Seattle skyline without a Space Needle.” – The Seattle Review of Books
Short Run and Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery present:
BLAZERS
NOV 14 – DEC 09
BLAZERS displays the work of 12 artists selected to attend our 6th annual Trailer Blaze Comics Residency, scheduled for last April but postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19. These women and non-binary artists represent Short Run’s commitment to alternative comic storytelling born of experimentation rather than complicity with rules and tradition. Read more…
Short Run and Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery present: HOT MACHINES
OCT 10 – NOV 11 (all day opening on Saturday, October 10th)
Hot Machines is a Risograph art show featuring prints and books printed at Paper Press Punch (Jessica Hoffman & Justin Quinlan, Georgetown) and Cold Cube Press (Aidan Fitzgerald & Michael Heck, Pioneer Square), two homegrown small businesses hanging on through it all – Read more…
There’s lots of great online content out there to keep you inspired and help you keep up your drawing and comics-making practice. Read more…
Short Run is honored to among the grantees! This is the first relief grant we have received and it gives us hope that we can outlast the COVID-19 disaster.
The Literary Arts Emergency Fund, launched and administered by the Academy of American Poets, the Community of Literary Magazine & Presses, and the National Book Foundation, has announced that it will distribute $3.5 million in emergency funding to 282 nonprofit literary arts organizations, magazines, and publishers who have been severely financially affected by COVID-19. The organizations receiving support have cumulatively reported over $27 million in financial losses and are projecting over $48 million in financial losses in the next year. Literary Arts Emergency Fund was established “in response to the lack of institutional support for the nonprofit organizations and presses that sustain literary culture in the U.S.,” and was made possibly by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Read more here.
Thank you so much to everyone who bought a t-shirt and made a donation!! We were able to donate $870.40 to Wa Na Wari, one of our neighborhood partners!
We have just a few t-shirts left from a 2nd printing – visit our shop!
In the spirit of collective well-being and care, we are postponing the festival until we can meet again safely. With this year being our 10th anniversary, this announcement is truly tough to make. Short Run has always been more than just a festival; it is a community made up of all of us weirdo artists and readers who found each other through our shared love of comix and zines. We will miss seeing you in person—crowded together in Fisher Pavilion, behind and in front of tables filled with the best books. We hope to announce a 2021 date as soon as we possibly can.
In the meantime, we’re not going away! We know we have a community to support—whom we need just as much! The festival has always served as a deadline for us artists to make new work. For the time being, we have to find new ways to get motivated and feel connected—new ways to celebrate printed work and to share the stories that are piling up inside of us. The pandemic has exposed how broken our systems are. It has revealed truths about suffering that we have known all along. Comix and comix artists help us heal by expressing solidarity in both our shared and unshared experiences. They are a critical eye on these broken systems. They envision a better tomorrow by helping us process our thoughts and realities.
We can’t wait to surprise you with upcoming print and publication projects, offbeat summer school workshops and discussions, and revamped grant and residency opportunities. Keep a look out—and let us know what you’re up to, even if it’s just staring into space (we’re doing a lot of that, too). Stay safe—and, more than ever, STAY WEIRD!
The Short Run Board of Directors
(Kelly, Mita, Emilie, Jessica, Otts, Lyli, and Meredith)
Are you stuck at home? Are your anxieties through the roof? We’d like to collect 1-page comics about what your daily life looks like now, whether it be good or bad. We’d like to share what this experience LOOKS like. Pages will be reprinted in a quick & dirty old-school photocopied zine (once we feel safe going out to print it), in the meantime, we’ll post the comics on our tumblr page and share the link widely. Stick to 5.5″ x 8.5″ digest mini-comic format so that we can easily put it together. No deadline, comics will be loaded as they are received.
Email your comic page to short.run.info@gmail.com
UPDATE: Short Run’s Dash Grant is temporarily on hold! All applications received will be held until further notice, and the applicants will have a chance to refresh their application before judging.
This micro-grant is for self-publishers who could use the help to finish their comic. Because of our fundraising efforts, we are able to double the cash amount previously offered. Guidelines are below. Read more…
***UPDATE: Trailer Blaze Comics Residency postponed 1 year due to safety concerns regarding COVID-19 and our state’s mandated quarantine. All residents will be welcomed back next year with no additional application.***
We are honored that so many artists took the time to share their work with us. We received almost 60 applications for 6 open slots! Receiving this much interest in the time, space, and company that Trailer Blaze offers has solidified what we already knew: this kind of opportunity away from home to focus on a project with the support of your creative peers is so important. Read more…
We’re so thrilled that our Dash Grant winner Rumi Hara was able to come to Seattle a few days early and screen print her covers for her gorgeous new mini-comic, The Peanut Butter Sisters. She had this to say, “I had a wonderful time in Seattle! It was amazing being part of the Short Run community, meeting new friends through comics and being inspired to keep making more books. I’m so grateful for the time and space and all the encouragement I was given to make the new comic.”
Thank you everyone who exhibited, attended, volunteered, promoted, or funded us! What an amazing year! We’re still compiling photos but keep your eye on our flickr page, where all the photos will be stored.
