Publishers, Schmublishers

Who needs a corporation to publish your stuff when you have one of these guys?



The type cabinet used to belong to JRL's mom, and the little press on top is my (40th) birthday present. For those who care about such things, it's a Kelsey Excelsior Mercury Model 5-8. Careful readers of this blog might remember when, several months ago, I read Rhonda Byrne's The Secret and decided to ask the universe for a letterpress. Well, it worked! However, if I'd thought to ask JR's friend Terry from Aurora -- a guy who does letterpress stuff for a living -- where to get one, it would have happened a lot sooner. Duh! Reading The Secret made me dumb. (Thank you, Terry.)

The press will only print 5 X 7 pages, so this is a good time to start writing short short stories. A few days ago I got Flash Fiction Forward, an anthology of 80 very short stories, and I'm really enjoying it. I think I have an idea how to write them: you need to know how you're going to end from the very first word. The story is about getting there as efficiently as possible. I wrote a bunch of short shorts a few years ago but they all felt kind of pointless -- probably they didn't have a point. This time I'll make sure I know the ending when I start and see if that makes a difference.

Does anyone else have any short-short writing secrets? Maybe I should just ask the universe for ideas.

The Universe is Going to Give Me a Letterpress

Boy, do I want my own letterpress.







That's pretty much all I have to say tonight. People are doing incredible stuff with letterpress these days, and I'm jealous as hell. A few years ago I tried taking a class at the Wells Book Arts Center but my timing was bad -- I almost immediately got pregnant and couldn't stand the smell of the solvents or the long drive up the lake.

Holy moly: this site actually sells fonts! Shoot, who needs links; the internets is lousy with beautiful pictures of small press work.

It seems to me that hand-printing is the perfect marriage of craftiness and bookishness. At the bookstore recently I thumbed through a copy of The Secret and discovered that all I have to do if I want my own letterpress is think hard about getting one, and the universe will send one to me, stat.

That, I can do.