In a nutshell, the Festival was a super good time. I attended a full day of ridiculously delicious historical lectures on chapbooks (I was especially smitten with Michael Ryan, Director of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University, in a tidy bowtie and with his epic perspective on the traveling bookman of yore).
A second literary panel featured the impressive scholarship of the young curator Kevin Young and the legendary poet and director of Naropa University's Summer Writing Program, Anne Waldman, who informed me that there is a HOWL movie in post-production! And just who, pray tell, will be cast to play Shig Murao?!
Day two of the festival was an opportunity to mosey down to the New York Center for Book Arts and partake in an most excellent bookbinding class, taught by the very talented and generous Susan Mills.
Take a good look at this rad homemade, collapsable binding cradle she gave each workshop participant, fashioned from good old fashioned cardboard. I actually met Susan for the first time in the spring at the 2nd annual Codex Book Fair
A few more shots of the Book Arts Center, before I move on to the Asian American Writers Workshop!
Platens. This is the exact same model of letterpress that I first trained on with the Arts & Crafts Press.
Bless your cotton socks, Jane Mead Timken. What is that whimsical, tuxedo stripey font?
An army of Vandercooks