Goose Hill

Being a library assistant and a general bibliophile, I have heard many lamentations concerning the rise of electronic reading devices: Kindles , Nooks , etc. (I myself own a Pandigital Novel ). I don't believe that the development of new technology necessarily means the extinction of the older way. In some cases this has been true, of course: cassette tapes replaced by compact discs replaced by MP3s, etc. But books? This is a technology that has been around long enough to be removed from fad status, hasn't it? Hundreds of years, people. Medieval monks were making books! Personally, my own lamentation has been the steady decrease in the quality of bookbinding in this last century. Working in a library, I see the newest James Patterson hardback come back after only two or three uses, and the binding is already falling apart. No, this is not because of patron abuse. I have seen it happen over and over. Sadly, this is the result of a cheap glue job and not one sewn page. Not that ...

It's not very easy to get noticed on Etsy. It's hawking your wares, unique and valuable as you might think them to be, in the biggest street fair in the world. How do people find you among everyone else? How do you find them? I've been on Etsy for nearly six months now and I haven't really got much to show for it yet. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. But out of the blue yesterday, two different Etsy sellers picked my broadsides to feature in their hand-picked treasuries. It's quite an honor to be singled out like that by a fellow artist/crafter. It's a great feeling to be recognized. My "Poetic License" broadside was featured in SageLetterpress 's "Letterpress Love" treasury : And then, a few hours later, my "Library Etiquette" broadside was featured in LindsayDud's Pretty Cool Stuff Emporium 's "Bookworm" treasury : So check out these lovely treasuries! One of the keys to getting noticed, I think, is n...

Klatt makes many whimsical connections in his verse, giving this collection an atmosphere of playfulness. His poem “Liquefaction” is a particularly fun and memorable example. Sometimes these bundles of lighthearted images allude to something deeper or darker, but in many of these poems, they are just what they seem: a lover of words at play, a gathering of “inklings.” L.S. Klatt's Cloud of Ink won the 2011 Iowa Poetry Prize. I give it 3 stars. Also, Happy National Poetry Month, everyone!

You must be aware, at this point, that I have an ongoing love affair with words and the physical making of them. I love my Remington Rand manual typewriter with all its clicking and clacking as I write. A friend directed me to this wonderful slideshow of "Famous Authors and their Typewriters" and now I must share it with you as well. Enjoy!

Monday I re-photographed all of my Etsy items to date. These photos are much more flattering! And more dynamic, I think, as well. Take a look .

Not having a press of my own, makes it quite difficult to maintain my title as a Lady of Letterpress. I'm trying to save up for a smallish press, but life in the meantime gets expensive and exhausting; and it looks like saving the couple thousand I'll need for a press and all the start-up materials might take quite a while. So instead, I've been trying to occupy myself with letterpress- related projects that I can make at home. Most recently, I've been making printer's aprons using one old pair of jeans, one ugly neck tie, and one shoelace. I ha ve a habit of saving my old jeans for salvage after they've developed holes in unseemly places (no pun intended!). And now these battered has-beens have a new purpose! I used the legs for the body of the apron: cut them off the abdomen, then sliced each leg open (along one of the seams) and sewed both legs together to make a four-paneled rectangle. For the torso area of the apron, I grabbed each of the upper two o...

Lately, I've been working on some ways to spiff up my Etsy shop (launched in October of last year). Most of my listings will expire next month and before I renew them, I plan to take all new and better pictures of my broadsides, book, and typewriter cozies. But yesterday, I created a new and better banner for Thread Lock Press, of which I feel a bit proud: The photos in this banner were all taken by me of course. I was inspired to rework it after taking a good long look at the antique door knobs in my new rental house. They were an absolute perfect fit! I just strung some embroidery thread through the (fairly wide) keyhole and started experimenting with angles of perception, focusing on the keyhole and thread. My favorites ended up being the shots looking up at the door knob. They reminded me of Alice Kingsley after she's drunk the shrinking potion upon falling down the rabbit hole.