Commission from Cold Moon Press

This is professional networking in action: a friend of a friend of mine (the lovely Annie) has a press (as in independent publishing company, not printing press) called Cold Moon Press. And it has a few books under its belt now. They publish fantasy, speculative fiction, horror: what some would call genre fiction, and what I would call fun reading. And I love their tagline: 

"In the light of a winter's night, you'll find Cold Moon Press.
Read tales of the suspenseful, the magical, the chilling.
Curl up under a warm blanket, brew a cup of tea, 
and save the longest nights of the year for our books."

Recently, Cold Moon Press contacted me to consult about a possible project: excerpt booklets for distributing at small press conferences and the like. She wanted something with more visual impact than the laser-printed, staple-bound work that she'd seen handed out by other presses. My reply was that letterpress printing, hand-binding and quality materials make all the difference. Because they do.

Carved linoleum printing block
So Cold Moon Press has commissioned me to print and bind these excerpt booklets/catalogs of the books they currently offer. I am so excited! The first step was to figure out how to print their logo. Laser printing is the last resort. Photopolymer plates can get expensive. So I decided to try my hand at carving another linocut. I think they add a bit more character to the printing process and the finished product, and they are the least expensive route to letterpress printing a custom image. CMP's logo was designed and drawn by one of the press's leading authors, Vonnie Winslow Crist. And, lucky for me, it was a black and white image with a (fairly) simple design. Although I must admit, the tree branches and roots gave me a pretty hard time. This is certainly the most complex image that I have attempted to carve so far. But I am happy with the results. And, more importantly, CMP is! So, with that ready to go and the text to be printed in hand, it's time to start setting some type.


Comments

  1. SallyMay 16, 2012 at 12:16 AM

    Wow! Your linoleum print is fabulous, Lindsay! In addition to your artist's eye, you must have some really good tools.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lindsay L.May 16, 2012 at 8:38 AM

    Thank you so much, Sally! I love my Speedball linocutter. Maybe when I have a few more linoleum blocks under my belt, I'll start calling her Ol' Trusty.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Imago" on Hannibal season finale

Image
While watching the eagerly-awaited season 2 finale of Hannibal (one of my absolute favorite TV shows of the moment), I was happily surprised when a vocabulary lesson emerged mid-conversation between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. — "Do you know what an imago is, Will?" — "It's a flying insect." — "It's the last stage of a transformation." — "When you become who you will be?" — "It's also a term from the dead religion of psychoanalysis. An imago is an image of a loved one, buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives." — "An ideal." — "The concept of an ideal." Of course this term, in both of its definitions, has some great significance for me. It is a word I didn't even know until I stumbled across it in my dictionary browsing and knew immediately that this is the title of my chapbook . It was perfect. So when it snuck up on me again in my favorite TV show, in
Read more

There are birds here

Image
We are now in the full porch-swing of summer, which means Summer Poetry Salons at my beloved Lit House. In celebration of the second salon of the summer on June 24 (tomorrow!), I was given the unbelievably fun task of designing and printing a letterpress broadside for Jamaal May's poem "There Are Birds Here,"  a love song for Detroit. As much I loved this poem on my first reading (and second and third), it was a particularly difficult design challenge. Don't get me wrong — there are so many ways  to illustrate this poem because it is so packed with images. But to illustrate it in a way that actually adds to the text, that builds on the complex foundation set down by the poet — that is the challenge to be met. That is the challenge we always aim to meet at the Literary House Press .   So that means no birds and no buildings. For me, those are the two most obvious, but least important images in this poem. Those details are just the shell around the actual poem
Read more

On the end of a year & a decade: 2019

Image
In this last month of the year, I've had five poems accepted by three different literary journals and two new reviews of my book appear in The Cincinnati Review  and Harbor Review . I also completed the letterpress printing of the Rossetti Prize broadside for American Literary Review , designs for four more digital broadsides , and the initial edits & contributor proofs for Cherry Tree 's sixth issue. Whew! It's been an amazing and overwhelming and utterly fulfilling year ; and I'm riding into the new year on 2019's coattails.  Also featuring the gorgeous handmade scarf that Jehanne Dubrow wove for me this past year. One of my favorite December inventories will always be reflecting on a year's worth of personal accomplishments and progress. By the time the end of the year arrives, it's so easy to forget all that happened just a few short months ago. Making a list has a way of bringing it all into perspective. Here's my roundup for the yea
Read more