Hi dear Friends of the Press,
As the temperatures rise on this eve of the Summer solstice, we are rocketing along with new work here at St Brigid Press. Thanks for taking a moment to hear about it!
Recently we turned our attention to a new book honoring someone with a Very Big Birthday coming up in July ~ Henry David Thoreau turns 200 on the 12th!
Thoreau's birthplace, the Wheeler Minot Farmhouse in Concord, MA. Photo credit: John Phelan
What began as a small commemorative project has since evolved into a multi-faceted book. As Emily’s research into Thoreau’s life and writings progressed and as local, national, and international news unfolded, we began to see a strong connection between Thoreau’s work and that of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and began to feel the timely resonance of all three men today.
Turns out, Thoreau’s famous essay “Civil Disobedience” had a profound influence on both Gandhi and King. In different times, places, and circumstances, each man developed a philosophy and a practice of nonviolent resistance to injustice. Those ideas and their implementation lead to powerful individual and societal change, and are as relevant today as in the 19th and 20th centuries.
So, we’d like to introduce the new publication due out soon:
A Handbook for Creative Protest: Thoreau, Gandhi, & King in Conversation
The Handbook will present selected excerpts by each author, along with a Preface and commentary by Emily Hancock.
At about 35 pages, it proved a bit too large for us to accomplish at this time via hand-set metal type, so we decided on a unique and flexible “hybrid” design: The interior pages have been digitally typeset and designed by Emily and will be printed offset at a local shop; Emily will then letterpress print the covers and hand-sew the book here at the Press. This hybrid design lets us allow the full text to be what it needs to be, and yet still incorporates signature elements of the handmade book that are important to us and to you.
Our fingers are crossed for a late-July release. Stay tuned!
If you would like to put your name on the pre-order list, please email Emily at stbrigidpress@gmail.com
Many thanks, and all the best,
St Brigid Press
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary.”