If you visit Forest Home Cemetery in October, you might spot one grave littered with typewritten thank you notes.
That’s the resting place of Christopher Latham Sholes, the Milwaukeean who invented the QWERTY keyboard and one of the first typewriters. And from Oct. 3-5, QWERTYFEST will honor him, and the keyboard’s local origins, with events appealing to writers and analog geeks alike.
Highlights include the Typewriter Ball – with vendors selling keyboards, typing contests and live music performed on typewriters – as well as a cemetery tour where visitors will leave those typed notes on Sholes’ grave, and a discussion with the man who repairs Tom Hanks’ collection of 250-plus typewriters.
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“He’s got some great stories about interacting with Tom,” says QWERTYFEST co-founder and OnMilwaukee writer Molly Snyder.
Beyond the keyboard, festgoers can also dip into the DarkFusion Systems’ gaming lounge for a game of Oregon Trail, or even a brunch and bowl at Riverwest’s Falcon Bowl.
This year, the QWERTYFEST team wanted to honor more than their namesake and feature other forms of analog technology.
“There’ll be people vending and showing their (vintage) collections and also giving workshops on film photography,” Snyder says. “People who collect records, who love to take and develop film photos, who are really into keyboards or pens. They’re our kind of peripheral nerd friends, and we want to bring them all in.”
And those who don’t collect anything analog are still welcome to partake in the festivities. “The fun of it is that we (co-founder and MilMag contributor Tea Krulos) make it this jam-packed weekend and people can come out to everything or dip in and out,” Snyder says. “We encourage Milwaukeeans to come be a part of it because this is just as much about Milwaukee pride than anything else.”
The full schedule of events can be found at QWERTYFEST’s website.
