Kickstarter

THE PROJECT

Way Off Broadway is an ongoing, multimedia, collaborative book project.  Since November 6th, 2009, Photographer Shane Rocheleau, Poet Courtney Queeney, and Writers Nate Eastman and Corey McCullough have been reflecting on a seven-mile stretch of road in Green Bay, WI called Broadway (Shane lived there for more than two years).  Once the hub of paper production in the United States, Broadway’s identity now shudders and cracks much like that of many places in this Country.  What has risen, however, is not exclusively ruin or rapture, but hope and beauty and catharsis, too. 

We want to bring attention to this one of many ignored places. Broadway is indicative of many regions, many towns, many people.  Simply:  this is a street in America; it reflects - and refracts - myriad aspects of American life.

Thousands of images, hundreds of poem drafts, and many essays later, we have arrived at a crucial moment:  we must come together with our respective media, create a buzz about the project, and orchestrate the form of our book. 

WHY ARE WE ASKING FOR HELP?

Here's where you come in:  there are things we are attempting to finance as we draw yet closer to our goal:

1)  Ultimately, we need to send something to publishers, right?  PDF documents may work, but we would like to have funds available to create a well-printed, well-designed book maquette (composite of sorts) - and multiple copies at that - so that prospective publishers will be turned on by the professionalism before even laying eyes on the contents!

2)  In an effort to promote our project, we have begun creating process oriented exhibitions (we recently hung our first at the Visual Arts Center in Richmond, VA).  If we could, we'd also love to start developing a ready-to-hang, professionally printed and presented exhibition that we could pitch as a gallery proposal to better spread the word.

3)  While we've bought our own plane tickets thus far, we're hoping for a little help (aren't we all strapped these days?).  We think it will take at least two more face-to-face meetings to feel confident in our product (FYI: we live in Richmond VA, Chicago IL, Berkeley CA, and Durham NH, respectively).

There it is, in order of need.  We'll set our funding goal low because anything helps, but to achieve all of the above, we'll need five times our goal!

FOR A PROJECT TEASER, click the link below:

WAY OFF BROADWAY slideshow

INTERESTED IN SIMILAR(ish) PROJECTS?

Alec Soth's Broken Manual                                                                                       One Big Self by Deborah Luster and C.D. Wright (super expensive! but you can get C.D. Wright's One Big Self poetry here)                                                               Hard Ground by Michael O'Brien and the magnificent Tom Waits

Thank you all,                                                                                                               Shane, Courtney, Nate, and Corey          

And thanks to St. Norbert College for your support.