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The Craft of Letterpress

Book Looks: Selections from the Press Library, Part 4

January 19, 2024

Hello Friends, and welcome back to Book Looks!

I began this blog series in 2021 to highlight some of the interesting volumes here in the St Brigid Press library — from the history of book-making to printing press maintenance, from typography and type design to the biographies of famous (or not) printers, and from paper-making to hand-sewing books. We’ll take a brief look at three volumes today, and spotlight more over time.

This edition of the series is inspired by my trip to Canada last October, where I participated in a marvelous gathering (a “Wayzgoose”) at Gaspereau Press in Nova Scotia. You can read about that adventure HERE.

Thanks for coming along as we browse the print shop shelves!

Emily Hancock

Previous Book Looks editions:

BOOK LOOKS, PART 4

Design With Type by Carl Dair

To learn about the 20th-century-history of typography and design in Canada is to encounter the extraordinary work of Carl Dair. Born in Ontario in 1912, Dair became an exceptional graphic designer, teacher, and type designer, and in 1952 published Design With Type. This relatively slim but comprehensive volume became a staple resource in the trade, and is still available new from the University of Toronto Press who published the revised version in 1967 (although there are many inexpensive used copies floating around for you to snag). “Good design in any field demands that the designer know the materials with which he is working”; this is, essentially, Dair’s purpose for writing this book and his hope for his readers. The well-illustrated, concise tour of the forms and functions of type on the page is all in service of Dair’s ultimate vision —that of encouraging excellence in visual communication, not mere “visual stimulation.” [University of Toronto Press; I recommend the revised version published after 1967.]

2. Smoke Proofs: Essays on Literary Publishing, Printing & Typography by Andrew Steeves

My Canadian trip destination last autumn was Gaspereau Press in Kentville, Nova Scotia. Established in 1997 by Andrew Steeves and Gary Dunfield, Gaspereau is a relatively small offset- and letterpress-print shop that has had an outsized impact on the literary culture of its home province and beyond. From the digitally designed, offset-printed with letterpress jacket trade editions of poetry and prose, to Steeves’ completely letterpress printed fine press volumes, each book is an impeccably made home for excellent literature. In 2014, Steeves published a book of his own writing called Smoke Proofs: Essays on Literary Publishing, Printing & Typography. Rather than a “how-to” primer on typesetting or page layout, this collection from a true citizen-publisher is more of a what and why, “identifying issues, challenging dogma and agitating for our full and creative engagement with the many challenges we encounter when we set literary works into type and publish the results.” Steeves and his work have always called on me to be my best creative self for the good of the community I serve, and this book is a superlative guide and goad, inspiration and invitation, that I return to regularly. Smoke Proofs is a trustworthy, hand-held compass for anyone adventuring into the wilds of literary publishing and printing.

3. Keeping Watch at the End of the World by Harry Thurston

“All of us belong, as much as the black ducks / at rest in the harbour…”

Harry Thurston grew up in Nova Scotia and became a prize-winning poet and environmental journalist, as well as mentor to many students at the University of King’s College. His word-and-image collaborations with the renowned New Brunswick photographer Thaddeus Holownia (several volumes of which have been designed by Andrew Steeves) are exquisite. I was lucky to meet Thurston last autumn and to pick up copies of several of his books published by Gaspereau Press, including the outstanding Keeping Watch at the End of the World. The sea is a central presence in this beautiful collection. Whether writing about his native, booming Bay of Fundy or the Mediterranean’s millennia of layered stories, Thurston’s heart and eye take in and give back to us the intricate, flowing world. His ear, like his pulse, are tuned to the tides — whether oceanic, emotional, or historical. And he is always walking that wrack line, where the sea — whether the sea of time or of memory or of water itself— gives up its mysteries (and takes them back again). Grab a copy of Thurston’s work and enjoy his keen company in “This brief time we have to share / while the tide fills and empties the bay.”

(Apologies for the shadow-dappling on some of these photos below. My photographic error, not on the pages themselves.)

To close out our little trip to Canada, here’s a final word from Carl Dair — this poster hangs in a prominent position at St Brigid Press:

Well, that’s all for now, friends, as I gotta get back to setting some type ;-) Stay tuned for future installments of Book Looks, and in the meantime, be well and read on!

Emily

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Book Looks: Selections from the Press Library, Part 3

January 23, 2023

Hello, Friends! Book Looks is BACK!

We began this series a couple of years ago, highlighting some of the interesting volumes here in the St Brigid Press library — from the history of book-making to printing press maintenance, from typography and type design to the biographies of famous (or not) printers, and from paper-making to hand-sewing books. We’ll take a brief look at three volumes today, and spotlight more over time. (If you missed the first Book Looks post, read it HERE, and the second Book Looks post HERE.)

Thanks for coming along as we browse the print shop shelves!

Emily Hancock

BOOK LOOKS, PART 3

Research for a new small letterpress project sent me to the library stacks this very week. I needed to brush back up on the history of type design and printing in northern Italy during the Renaissance period. A niche subject? Yeah. And fascinating! I pulled down a few volumes, books I hadn’t looked at in a while — it felt like catching up with old friends. If you’re into type and printing history, here are some books that just might interest you, too.

Historical Types: From Gutenberg to Ashendene by Stan Knight

As calligrapher and type designer Paul Shaw writes, “Historical Types is a modest book in scale and appearance that deceptively hides a wealth of information…” In under 100 pages, Knight provides an illustrated survey of the high points of type design from the 1450s to the first years of the 1900s — from Nicolas Jenson and Aldus Manutius working in Venice during the period I was studying, through the French Renaissance and Baroque, Neoclassical and Rational, 19th century and Private Press types that followed. Not one to to be wordy, Knight’s descriptions of each type, designer, and accompanying printed examples are short and tight, packing a good bit of info in just over half a page. The real treasure, especially for comparative study, are the large photo reproductions, taking up three-fourths of each two-page spread — we get up close and personal with each typeface, at its original size as well as enlarged, doing its job on a period manuscript page. Whenever you can get to a special collections and see such early printed books in front of your very eyes, then go. When you can’t, pull Historical Types off the shelf and spend some enjoyable time pouring over this handy home reference of foundational styles of type. (Oak Knoll Press, 2012)

2. Five Hundred Years of Printing by S.H. Steinberg (revised by John Trevitt)

If you want a broader education in the history of Western printing, from Gutenberg to post-WWII, then settle in with this volume’s 250 pages of densely packed information. Originally published in 1955, the revised edition has been expanded and updated, including dozens of illustrations of manuscript pages through the ages. In addition to deft histories of printing and publishing technologies, Steinberg and Trevitt are interested in the economic and sociological aspects of the industry as well. They highlight and explore some of the cultural dimensions of book making, from the phenomena of bestsellers and censorship to the role of patrons and libraries. The authors also consider who “the reading public” is at any given time, noting the state of education, literacy, and book- and periodical-selling through the centuries. (Oak Knoll Press, 1996)

3. Twentieth Century Type Designers by Sebastian Carter

Ok, out of the dusty distant past and into the (relatively recent) present. In this volume, the book designer and printer Sebastian Carter profiles some of the best European and American type designers working from the early 20th century until this book was published in 1987. Frederic Goudy and William Addison Dwiggins are here, as well as Rudolf Koch, Victor Hammer, Jan van Krimpen, Joseph Blumenthal and many more — all of them men, of course, though there is one page devoted to Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. (You can begin exploring women type designers here and here.) At a few well-illustrated pages per entry, Carter gives us a relatively brief but informative survey of each designer, their history and influences, and a feel for what makes their design(s) unique. I find myself pulling this book off the shelf at regular intervals, while taking a break in the print shop, to dip into the interesting personalities and creativities highlighted herein. (Taplinger Publishing, 1987)

Well, that’s all for now, friends, as I gotta get back to setting some type ;-) Stay tuned for future installments of Book Looks, and in the meantime, be well and read on!

Emily

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Book Looks: Selections from the Press Library, Part 2

January 22, 2022

Books. It all begins and ends with books here at St Brigid Press.

Personally and professionally, my life has been significantly shaped by the encounters I’ve had with literature ~ I bet many of you have similar stories. Early in my continuing apprenticeship to traditional printing and book-making, kind friends and mentors in the craft directed me to essential volumes about letterpress, typography, printing history, and more. Those folks and the books they recommended got me started on the right foot, and I return again and again to their wisdom.

Over the years, through the generosity of others and through my own acquisitions, the library at St Brigid Press has grown into a rich repository of texts. I thought it might be fun for us all to take a brief look at some of these volumes ~ from type design to press maintenance, printer’s biographies to sewing books.

Here’s the second installment of “Book Looks” ~ short spotlights on some of my favorite volumes from the Press library. Enjoy! (If you missed the first Book Looks post, read it HERE.)

BOOK LOOKS, PART 2

A Short History of the Printed Word, by Warren Chappell & Robert Bringhurst

This is a good, concise introduction to the history of the origins and development of printing in the West. Warren Chappell’s original text from the early 1970s was revised and updated by Robert Bringhurst in the late 1990s to extend and expand the book’s scope. Beginning with the development of alphabets and cast type, Chappell and Bringhurst then give us a brisk, well-illustrated tour of the 15th-20th centuries: the innovations of type designers and typographers like Aldus Manutius, Simon de Colines, and Bruce Rogers; new techniques in printing illustrations from woodcuts to intaglio methods to electrotyping; and the rise and revolution of newspapers, periodicals, and, in the last chapter, digital production. This book helped me begin to get my head around the complex history of printing in the West, and introduced me to some of the brilliant people who forged new innovations in letterforms, book design, and production processes. Original edition of A Short History of the Printed Word was published in 1970; second edition published by Hartley & Marks, 1999.

2. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press & Protest in the 19th Century, by Jane Rhodes

One of the many delights of delving into traditional printing and bookmaking has been the discovery of the individuals and communities who built the presses, designed the type, made the books, and passed along the printed word. One of those individuals was Mary Ann Shadd Cary — the first Black female publisher in North America. Cary (1823-1893) grew up well-educated, in a family of free African-Americans in Delaware. Her family was very active in the antislavery movement and in the movement to relocate Blacks to places where slavery had been abolished. One of those relocation areas was what is now Ontario, Canada, and Mary Ann moved there with her brother, first establishing a school and then becoming a journalist and publisher. In 1853, Cary founded The Provincial Freeman, a newspaper “Devoted to anti-slavery, temperance, and general literature.” It also supported women’s suffrage, and it served the region’s African-Canadian community for 4 years. She traveled widely, wrote essays about racial and gender equality, and, after the Civil War and the death of her husband, she moved back to the United States and got a law degree from Howard University. Cary was an amazing woman blazing trails in publishing and civil rights in the 19th century. Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century by Jane Rhodes is published by Indiana University Press, 1998. If Rhodes’ full biography is not for you, then here’s a newspaper article that hits some of the highlights.

3. Against the Grain: Interviews with Maverick American Publishers, edited by Robert Dana

City Lights. Godine. Copper Canyon. New Directions. These now-legendary independent poetry publishing houses were started by likewise legendary personalities: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, David Godine, Sam Hamill & Tree Swenson, and James Laughlin. In the mid-1980s, the poet Robert Dana interviewed these and a few others who worked on the leading edge of small press publishing in 20th century America. It’s a fascinating read, ranging from the inky details of typesetting to the state of the then avant-garde. I particularly enjoyed “listening” to one of my letterpress heroes, the fine press typographer and designer Harry Duncan: “I print books for somebody who is going to discover the text of the book—poems, stories, and so on—with the same delight that I discover it as I am working on the book.” Against the Grain was published by the University of Iowa Press, 1986.

“There are only two ways to publish. One is to try to figure out what everyone else will like, which I’ve generally found to be totally unsuccessful, because nobody knows. And the other is to know what YOU like... So what I like is what I publish.”

— David Godine

Stay tuned for future installments of “Book Looks,” friends. In the meantime, be well and read on!

Emily

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Shelf Life: an interview with Emily Hancock

August 6, 2020

Hello, Friends,

What a fine time we had talking about printing and poetry with Kristin Adolfson! Thanks to all of you who tuned in to the live event this week. And a big bow of gratitude to our hosts ~ the Virginia Festival of the Book and the Virginia Center for the Book.

Did you miss it?? It's now freely available to watch!
https://www.facebook.com/vabookfest/videos/297255041699409/

Kristin and I chat about how I got started with traditional printing, the making of the latest book, and take a walking tour of the print shop.

Enjoy!

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Repairing What Breaks

July 7, 2020

Hello, Friends of the Press,

Sometimes, things break. Whether through long-use, misuse, abuse or neglect, or just plain time and tiredness. Last week a small-but-critical part on the 111-year-old cast-iron Golding Pearl press finally gave out: the chase clamp, which holds the chase (a metal frame which holds the type) in place against the press bed.

Circled in this photo is the chase clamp. With the aid of a spring, it pivots on a small metal pin, clamping the chase to the press bed.

Here you can see the chase clamp break ~ snapped in two right at the pin. Unfortunate, but not uncommon for these old pieces of cast-iron.

Sometimes, things can be fixed. I took the part over to a local welder to see if his expertise and tools could repair it. With a mixture of carefulness and long-experience, Stuart was able to bring the clamp back into working order, TIG welding the break with very hard nickel and then polishing it smooth. Thank you, Stuart!

You can see the bead of nickel where the part was welded back together. It now pivots easily around the pin. (You can also see a decades-earlier weld at the left-hand tip of the clamp.)

The next day, I reinstalled the clamp and inked the press up for a test drive. The part did its job perfectly, and I went on to print about 500 pages that afternoon!

Linji the shop dog was, as usual, unimpressed ;-)

It feels like there are some big things that are broken in our nation and world right now, and so many people are hurting. There are no easy fixes. The pandemic, centuries of racism and injustice, economic upheaval, and environmental degradation, are turning lives and livelihoods upside down. The suffering is real and deep. Our hearts and minds and hands must work with great carefulness and great courage to fully see, and compassionately meet, the needs of this moment, the needs of our brothers, sisters, and planet.

To help spread words of care and concern, solidarity and urgency, we are continuing to expand our line of The People's Postcards. This week, we debut declarations of Healthcare For All!

Like the Black Lives Matter postcards, these are pre-stamped ~ it's easy to pen a short note to your elected representatives and pop the card right in the mail.

The details:

Letterpress printed with antique wood type.
USPS postcard size 6" x 4.25"
Pre-stamped / postage-paid.
Packs of 10 ($10) and 25 ($25).
Proceeds donated to The Poor People's Campaign.

However you choose to join in, thank you all for your efforts towards a more just, loving, and equitable world. We're all in this together.

With gratitude,
Emily

Emily Hancock
St Brigid Press
Afton, Virginia

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In Conversation With Emily

May 6, 2020

This Spring I was delighted to be interviewed by the amazing Nicole Arnett Phillips of Typograph.her. Nicole is a designer, typographer, printer, and publisher based in New Zealand, and curates an indispensable monthly newsletter of “typographic musings.” Read our conversation about craft, creativity, and printing history: https://www.typographher.com/blog/2020/4/24/in-conversation-with-emily-hancock

“It is a uniquely intimate, valuable thing to hand-set poetry in metal type, letter-by-letter and space-by-space, to touch every textured page as my foot treadles the 125-year-old press, to sew every stitch tight, and then hand that book to someone who may be enlivened by it.”

— Emily Hancock

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The Ecology of Craft

April 28, 2020

In his book Smoke Proofs: Essays on Literary Publishing, Printing & Typography, Andrew Steeves talks about an “ecology of literature” — the writers, editors, printers, publishers, bookshops, readers, and more who connect and support each other in the complex web of print culture. There is a similar “ecology of craft,” a system of relationships that fosters—that makes possible—any made thing.

Even before this era of social distancing, I spent most days alone in my basement print shop, making books. With the heightened awareness brought by increased long-distance correspondence, and by having just completed a new chapbook of poems, I’ve been thinking even more than usual about all of the people whose work makes my work possible. This post spotlights some of them, from the type founders to the thread-makers, who are indispensable to bookmaking at St Brigid Press.

JUST OUR TYPE

One of our most essential and cherished connections is with the people who make the metal type we use to print with. Type metal, a carefully balanced alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, needs to be precisely cast if it’s to print precise letters. Thankfully, there are a number of foundries in operation today, in the US and around the world. Much of our type comes from a few trusted sources: Michael & Winifred Bixler in Skaneateles, NY, Patrick Reagh in Sebastopol, CA, and Rainer Gerstenberg in Germany. These folks are all fine printers as well as have a deep knowledge and dedication to the historic craft of typecasting. Some of the superior types they’ve cast fill the cases here at St Brigid Press: Centaur & Arrighi, Bembo, Goudy Old Style, Koch Antiqua. In addition, we have a good deal of older type from various sources, precious hand-me-downs we’re honored to keep in use.

WHOLE WORLDS OF PAPER

Sourcing beautiful papers with which to print beautiful words is a particular pleasure. And David Carruthers and his team at Saint Armand in Montréal have been supplying luscious sheets since 1979. We often use their thick handmade stock or machine-made stock for book jackets.

For text paper, we use Mohawk Superfine, French Rives, handmade Okawara, or others that are well-suited to the letterpress process. Our go-to paper sellers at Dolphin Papers in Franklin, Indiana, supply us with these, as well as with a kaleidoscope of Nepalese Lokta and Thai marbled sheets for decorative use. WARNING: Perusing pages and pages of fabulous paper is a serious rabbit-hole, and you may never emerge!

SEW IT UP

One of my early discoveries on this adventure was how much I enjoy hand-sewing. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all sewed (garments and quilts), but I did not have much experience in this craft until learning the rudiments of making a book. I began experimenting with various needles, threads, and awls, working out which tools worked best for my purposes. For most books, I use Richard Hemming & Sons Darner #3 needles with unwaxed Irish linen thread in either 12 or 18 weight, both from Talas in NY. For years I’ve used a well-made cradle from Jim Poelstra in California to hold the book blocks while punching sewing holes.

GETTING INKY

Ink for use in fine printing is another specialized component of the letterpress process. I favor oil-base ink, and have come to rely on the formulas of Hanco Ink Co (outside of Chicago, Illinois) which have very good color density and tack. For large areas of vibrant color, I use a lot of stiff opaque white added to a color base. This provides excellent ink coverage and solidity. Graphic Chemical and Hawthorn Printmaker Supplies also have very good inks.

Well, that’s a quick glimpse at some of the many folks, materials, and tools that serve the craft of printing and bookmaking. It takes a village—one that values, supports, and relies on each other. I am deeply grateful to all the people who make the stuff that makes making stuff possible.

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The Tools of the Trade

May 24, 2019

Dear Friends,

Some days, the centuries collapse into a present that is rich with possibility.

As I worked in the print shop this afternoon, I realized that that particular moment brought together people and their tools across an arc of time that stretched from 1850 to 2019, from Massachusetts to North Carolina, California to Virginia. I paused to let it all sink in.

Pictured here are multiple human tools, each with their own histories, hand-marks, and elegant uses.

The brand-new shiny metal type in the case was cast for me by printer and type founder Patrick Reagh in Sebastopol, California. The typeface is Goudy Old Style, which Frederic Goudy designed in 1915.

The text I’m setting is by Henry David Thoreau, from an entry in his journal in July, 1850, about cultivating one’s true work.

I’m typesetting from that text as displayed on my laptop, which is propped up by the shaft of my great-grandfather’s wooden scythe. The computer is new(ish) and sports a fingerprint-resistant metal case. The scythe is probably close to 150 years old—the wood smoothed by long-use, fissured by sweat and time.

Both my grandfathers were handcrafters who prized and cared well for the tools of their trades. My father’s father was a land surveyor, wood worker, and front porch whittler. My mother’s father was a carpenter, teacher, and army veteran. Both of them passed down to me a regard for the well-made, the joy and the worth of handwork, and also the pocket knives they each carried.

The Native American stone blade pictured above with my grandfathers' pocket knives (and my hand) may be a thousand years old or more. As a young girl, I watched it emerge from a red North Carolina clay furrow one afternoon, as my paternal grandfather drove the 1952 tractor down his garden’s rows. Someone had worked this land long, long before my family. Someone who made, used, and cared for their tools, too.

Now, I have the honor of doing the same.

From centuries-old implements to the latest digital tech, we wield powerful tools, friends. May we use them thoughtfully, and for a common good.

All my best,
Emily

Emily Hancock
St Brigid Press
Afton, Virginia

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A Michigan Journey

April 10, 2019

Last week I had the great pleasure of visiting poets and printers in Michigan, teaching a class on book making and traditional printing at Interlochen Arts Academy, and being present at the official launch of the newest chapbook from St Brigid Press—Seven River Prayers by Michael Delp. (There are only 5 chapbooks left, so if you’re interested, please see the webpage: www.stbrigidpress.net/books/seven-river-prayers )

*Pencil points to Interlochen, Michigan.*

The seed for the journey was planted months ago, when Mike Delp and I were conversing about the chapbook’s final stages. “Long-shot thought,” I wrote to him. “It would be pretty special to have some kind of book launch event. Or at least to try. What do you think the chances are that Interlochen Arts Academy or some other place you think is good would allow us to hold such an event?” From that wondering-out-loud, a whole wonderful week’s worth of traveling, connecting, and sharing evolved.

I left my Blue Ridge Virginia home on Sunday, March 31st, with a car-full of books, winter clothes, a tiny 1930s-era printing press, and an emergency tin chocked with my spouse’s homemade chocolate-chip cookies. I drove north-west through hours of snow showers. Eager to take a break from the highway, I got off the interstate in Ohio after seeing a sign for a natural area along the shores of Lake Erie east of Toledo. Around sunset, I pulled into Magee Marsh Wildlife Area (contiguous with Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge), and slowly drove the 1.5 mile park road.

The wetlands were teeming with birds. Red-winged blackbirds were chatting in the brush along the edges of the road, and I rolled the windows down to take in their husky whistles (the air temperature was around freezing, but I didn’t care—this was the soundtrack to Spring!). As I rounded a woodlot into an expanse of wetland, two Sandhill Cranes banked over my car and settled down somewhere out in the marsh. Hundreds of waterfowl paddled, dabbled, and preened along the waterways—Pied-billed Grebes, Buffleheads, Ring-necked Ducks, gorgeous Northern Shovelers, and so many more. I stopped to listen and watch. Looking down at the darkening water at the road’s edge, I saw bubbles break the surface, a stream of them popping up for a dozen yards. Soon, the large chocolate-brown head of an adult beaver emerged. It swam past me, not twenty feet away, intent on its evening rounds. After the quick shadow of a Harrier strafed my car, I looked up—away to the west two Bald Eagles were flying toward their enormous nest, high in a tree along the lake shore. Stunned to grateful silence by it all, I resumed the highway just as last light was flaring neon yellow and pink through a distant snow squall.

The next day, already low on cookies, I drove in blessedly bright sunshine across Michigan to Hudsonville, just to the west of Grand Rapids and not far from the shores of Lake Michigan. There, I finally met-in-person the poet whose chapbook I had the honor of publishing in 2018— J. L. Davis. We had first connected through, of all things, Twitter. A couple of years ago, my admiration for her crystalline short-form poetry led to a conversation about the possibility of creating letterpress edition of some of her work. Wildflowers Ending debuted last November (and there are only 12 copies left; if you’re interested, see the webpage here— stbrigidpress.net/books/wildflowers-ending ).

Jessica and her family generously put me up for the night last Monday, and we spent hours talking all things poetry-and-more over cups of ginger tea and, later, glasses of red wine. Like the beautiful oaks in her backyard, Jessica is an old soul; we traversed time and space, experience and emotion and creative expression, in our rich, wandering conversations. She’s as tuned to language and the heart as white pines are to wind and birdsong. Tuesday morning, I left their home filled with deep friendship, gratitude, and a baggie of delicious chocolate-chip muffins.

The road north lead into more snow. Due in Interlochen by late afternoon, I wanted to make a pilgrimage first to one of my early mentors in traditional fine press printing—Chad Pastotnik of Deep Wood Press. The ground began to whiten the further I went, until snow-plow piles of the dirty white stuff were banked higher than my head. I wound west and north of the small town of Mancelona until I found Chad’s place, tucked back in a grove of conifers along the swift Cedar River. Walking up to his shop across shoveled but icy walks, I inhaled the heady scent of the trees, the cold. A merganser floated past; a few chickadees announced me to the woods.

Opening the studio door at my knock, Chad ushered me into his world—ink and iron, lush papers and sharp tools, eagle eyes and exactitude. One of the most accomplished fine press printers on the planet, he has operated Deep Wood Press since 1991. I came across images of Chad’s work early on in my learning about traditional printing and bookmaking, and it was truly an honor to experience DWP first-hand. He has an excellent collection of hand-set type and Linotype matrices for book work, and prints mostly on a venerable old Vandercook 219. In the time he generously shared with me, we talked over equipment, inks, his stunning library of fine press books, the business of book arts, and some of the finer points of colophon construction. I left filled with new knowledge, inspiration, and more gratitude.

Winding my way southwest in the late afternoon cold drizzle, I glimpsed frozen Lake Michigan from Traverse City before dropping down to the world-renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts. I checked into the Stone Hotel on campus, where my second-story window looked out on frozen Green Lake. The sky and the ice were nearly the same pearl-grey color, with a green-black scar of coastline between. A few crows careened from the top of a pine and out across the expanse.

At 6pm that evening, I went downstairs to the hotel lobby, where Michael Delp was waiting for me. The connection and rapport I’d felt with him through social media and email was immediately incarnated with a hearty hug and a deep dive into conversation. He took us a few miles down the road to Bud’s Coffee Shop, a local hangout. Over burgers and coffee, we rambled all over the woods—poetry and the poets we’ve known, families and dogs, his 30 years of teaching and administrating at Interlochen, his passion for words and rivers. As with Jessica Davis, after so long in electronic communication it was fantastic to actually sit across a table from each other and talk. It felt like we’d just got started when it was time to head back to campus and try to get my brain unwound enough for sleep.

The next morning dawned bright and cold. Mike drove us a short ways east of campus to the spectacular little retreat he and his wife have on the banks of the Boardman River. We crunched down the slick slope of old snow to the fast-moving water—sunlight and eddies whorled across the surface. “It’s pretty high right now,” Mike said of the water level. “Usually I can walk across here to the other bank.” The small old cottage, renovated and enlarged over the years, held comfy furniture, fly rods, a wood stove, and a view of heaven. Before we left, I followed Mike up the steep grade through open stands of hemlock, poplar, and ash (the latter mostly decimated by the green ash borer beetle), stepping in his boot-prints for purchase in the crusted snow layer. Just a handful of miles as the crow flies from Interlochen, this place was a world away. And the beating heart of Mike and his family.

We headed back to campus in time for lunch with the Creative Writing Department Faculty. Mika Perrine, a friend and former student of Mike’s, is the Interim Director of the department, and the one who made it possible for me to come visit. She and Joe Sacksteder (the incoming Director, as of June 1st) and Bri Cavallaro and her husband Chase all welcomed me generously amid a cafeteria bustling with high-school boarding students carrying instrument cases and be-stickered laptops. The energy, intensity, and vigor of students and teachers alike was palpable. After an hour, this middle-aged introvert was excited and exhausted at the same time!

*Photo courtesy of The Writing House Instagram account.*

The master class on book arts that the department had invited me to do started at 3:30pm. By 3, the splendid Great Room of The Writing House was filling with students. After a bit of fiddling with the projector, Mika and Joe got my computer slideshow running, and I launched into a brief presentation on the history, immediacy, and vitality of traditional printing and publishing: “The Body of the Book: Toward an Embodied Ecology of Literature.” The students and faculty listened as I prattled on for a bit, until the talk drew to a close and it was time to get busy and actually make something.

I passed around baggies of paper, punching awl, needle, and thread. In a short while, these dedicated, accomplished authors (students and teachers alike) had made a couple of blank books to hold their new ideas and creations. As they finished, I invited each one up to the table where I’d set up the only printing press I can lift—a sweet old 1930s-era hobby press—and everyone pulled a keepsake print. Huzzah! What a delight to meet and work with these young folks and their teachers. What an honor to spread the gospel of handmade books and letterpress printing to the likes of these brilliant human beings!

Directly on the heels of the class was the official launch of Michael Delp’s Seven River Prayers. The students moved en masse from the tables where we made the booklets to front row seats near the lectern. Faculty, friends and family of Mike’s, and community members filled the other seats. Mika called us all to attention and shared Mike’s bio, then turned the proceedings over to him. An old hand with a gathering of literature-lovers, Mike held us rapt with his particular rhythm of reading—sharing a poem; sharing part of his process as a writer; a quote by Jim Harrison; sharing another poem; a quote by Thoreau; sharing about the making of the book; one more poem. Five minutes in, we were all converts to this force-of-nature poetic experience. Including, apparently, Mike’s own grandson—four month old Wilder, bouncing in his parents’ arms at the back of the room, gurgled and burbled at his Grandad reading poetry. The expression of love and joy on Mike’s face was transcendent.

After the reading, folks hung out for a bit and talked, got their copies of the chapbook signed, and came up to the St Brigid Press table to peruse the show-and-tell display of type and tools. I had left one of Mike’s poems composed in metal type, so that folks could see some of the process of traditional printing, and also took along 125-year-old wood type letters to heft in hand. There’s nothing like picking up and holding language in its three-dimensional forms.

Mike and his wonderful wife Claudia, Joe Sacksteder, and a couple of their dear friends and I went out for a delicious supper that evening. (My first taste of Lake Superior whitefish was terrific.) More engaging and inspiring conversation flowed, first over food and later over a celebratory glass of wine at Mike’s and Claudia’s sweet, dog- and book-filled home on the shore of Green Lake. When Mike dropped me back off at the hotel, I stood outside my car for a while, cleaning ink off the press under cold starry skies. As with each experience on this trip, when night fell and I crawled back into the hotel bed, I felt at the same time exhausted, elated, and full of profound gratitude.

*The 1930s-era traveling printing press.*

Next morning, there was only one thing left to do—head home. And I was ready! By 7:52am I pulled out of the campus parking lot and headed southeast, into a bitter cold but blessedly bright day. Around mid afternoon I reached the outskirts of Toledo, and decided to stop back by the wildlife refuge. Tree swallows were swooping and swirling over a pond near the entrance to the visitors center, and a Great Blue Heron and several Egrets stalked the edges. I drove the marsh road again, past clusters of waterfowl, to where it ended by the shoreline of Lake Erie. The fierce wind nearly blew me over as I approached the pounding, latte-colored lake edge on foot, crunching over low berms of empty shells . Seagulls winged by, west to east, unfazed by the gale. Turning back from the razor wind to the thin line of woods separating shore from marsh, I spied two Bald Eagle nests high in still-bare trees. Both were occupied, and I regarded with awe those parents hunkered against snow and cold, sheltering new life.

As I left the wildlife area and worked my way towards the interstate past fields of stubble, I must have seen a dozen more eagles. The day, and my energies, diminished as I left Ohio and pressed east into the ridges and valleys of western Pennsylvania, and I stopped for the night on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. The next morning broke with a cold rain, and I finished the long road-trip in soggy fog. It was all worth it, though, when I finally rolled up our driveway and was welcomed home into my spouse’s open arms and the pup’s ecstatic leaps.

What an amazing, 1757-mile journey—new places, new people, new experiences, and enduring friendships, memories, and deep gratitude.

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A Letterpress Lexicon, Part 4: Spacing Out

February 28, 2018

Hi, Friends of St Brigid Press!

Here is the long-awaited fourth installment in our occasional blog series ~ A Letterpress Lexicon ~ about the words and phrases that identify printing's particular tools and processes. Enjoy!

If you missed the first posts in this series, you can find them here:

Letterpress Lexicon Part 1
Letterpress Lexicon Part 2
Letterpress Lexicon Part 3

A Letterpress Lexicon Part 4 ~ Spacing Out

We space out daily here at the Press ~ all for a good cause. ;-)

You might already know that every single letter of the alphabet that we set and print here is a physical piece of metal or wood ~ a piece .918-inches tall, with the reverse image of the letter on the top, in relief.

Hand-set type:

Moveable type, which makes everything possible here at the Press. Here, the letters of the word "haiku" in metal.

Well, every single SPACE between every word and every line is also a physical piece of metal or wood. These pieces are made a little lower than the top of the letters, so that they do not pick up ink.

The forme:

In this photo, you can see all of the metal spacing material surrounding the metal letters. The spacing material is a bit lower in height, so it does not get ink on it, and comes in various sizes according to the size of the type (12-point, 24-point, etc.). The spacing *between* the lines of type is also metal, cut to length.

The spacing material is cast to a point-size matching the size of the type body being set ~ from tiny 6-point to giant (and heavy!) 72-point in our shop. Spacing is also cast in various standard widths, so the typesetter can put larger or smaller spaces between words, as desired. These widths range from multiples of an "em" (the square of the type body; for example, a 12-point-by-12-point square) to "thins" (brass and copper slivers to fill in the smallest gaps in a line).

Spacing material, in various standard point sizes and widths.

"A place for everything & everything in its place." Or space.

12-point size spacing material, from the widest ("2-em") to the thinnest ("copper thin").

48-point "Em" space ~ a big chunk of metal.

The thinnest spaces, made of brass and copper, fill out the tiniest gaps in a line.

In addition to letter spacing, strips of metal also need to be correctly sized and set between lines of type ("leading" or "linespacing"). This strip material comes in various widths and can be cut to various lengths (also called "slugs") ~ all tailored to ordering the printed page.

A rack of metal strips, or "slugs," in various lengths, to place between lines of type.

A vintage "slug cutter," to cut metal strip material to the desired length.

The whole point of spacing is to surround the letters and lines as snug as possible. A loose letter can print unevenly, and even become damaged.

The final step before printing is to surround the whole forme (the letters and spaces) with "furniture" ~ blocks of wood (sometimes metal) in various standard sizes that fill out the chase. Two quoins (a kind of lock) are placed in as well, and when turned with a key the quoins tighten everything together.