Editor's Note

Building the Book

Last year, for my birthday, my husband surprised me with a tabletop letterpress. While plenty of these old-fashioned contraptions exist, it took him weeks of research to track down the right one. He finally found it on Shelter Island, at the eastern end of New York’s Long Island. After a three-hour drive followed by a ferry ride, he loaded the press—along with several trays of type and tubes of ink—into the car and headed back to our home on Staten Island. That night he unveiled the gift, and I sat on the living room floor for hours, handling the letters, fiddling with the handle, running my fingers over the plate. For a long time, I’d craved the experience of making the beloved objects that accompany me day to day. And I’d long known I wasn’t the only one.

There are hundreds of letterpress devotees in this country. Many of them belong to the thriving community of small, independent publishers we have highlighted every September for the past seven years. In this year’s issue, we present Building the Book, a special section that showcases six of those presses—Adastra Press in Easthampton, Massachusetts; Academy Chicago, Flood Editions, and Green Lantern Press in the Windy City; Fairy Tale Review Press in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Nightboat Books in New York City. We’ve topped it off with a rundown of ten presses looking for new work. Finally, don’t miss our handy guide to making your own chapbooks.

Our cover subject, best-selling poet Billy Collins, has plenty to say about how to connect with an audience in the profile “Dear Reader.” (For tips on pitching yourself to a reading series and delivering once you’re invited to read, take a look at Gabriel Cohen’s essay “A Special Beast.”) This issue also features “After the Flood,” which recounts the story of novelist David Rhodes, who as a rising literary star in the seventies suffered a tragedy that changed his life. Despite devastating setbacks, he never stopped writing, and his first novel in thirty years will be published this month by Milkweed Editions. It’s a tale of endurance that can inspire us all in our ongoing journeys, as we live our creative lives through books.

editor@pw.org