Andrew went to London this year and hung out with his friend and favorite contemporary book designer, Coralie Bickford-Smith. Here is a picture of Coralie with some ice cream and a book store sign down the alleyway from a very good Kurdish restaurant.
Our friend and author of Hear Oars, Zachary Schomburg, was asked to curate at library at the 2018 Pickathon festival. He set up this little Two Plum zone, and sent us the pictures. Here they are!
We returned to the Portland Zine Symposium after a year away, and it was so good to be back! We shared some “vintage zines”– the AD LIB ZINE, which Andrew Barton and Aria Mikkola-Sears made from 2007-2010. Also tapes and friends zines, along with the usual Two Plum stock! A special thanks to Alex and Holly for holding down the table most of the afternoon!
We hosted the 5th large Two Plum Press reading at the new location of the Independent Publishing Resource Center on January 19th! The reading was both a celebration of 2017's Point of Entry and Hear Oars titles, and also a benefit for the center, which has survived a very difficult year.
Without the IPRC, Alex and I wouldn't be able to do this work! Happily, folks came out in droves and donated to the cause! Hajara Quinn, who is the Program Director at the IPRC, made a letterpress broadside of the first poem as a thank you to donors.
What a night! Ross Robbins read from his forthcoming Two Plum title The Three EPs, which will be accompanied by a reprint of All In Black Blood My Love Went Riding. Joshua James Amberson shared an incredible piece that won't appear in his forthcoming Two Plum title Everyday Mythologies, but which gave everyone a perfect teaser for his impeccable storytelling. Chris, Michelle, and Delphine all shared fantastic new pieces. Zachary gave a spellbinding reading of most of Hear Oars, done in reverse. The low rumble from the skate park overhead gently soundtracked the whole night. My best Jonathan Richman mix played during the social interludes. We ate good cookies and sipped donated rosé. What a night!
I made some gold and silver letterpress signage for the new location of the Independent Publishing Resource Center!
Also, an experience at the IPRC I really loved this fall: I saw this flier for a screening of a film about letterpress. The film was fantastic, and I was able to reconnect with Rebecca Gilbert and Eric Bogdonas of Stumptown Printers. They showed me around Stumptown Printers a couple of times in my early years in Portland. Once, when I went to see about an internship with them, and another to be interviewed for a profile piece I wrote for a sadly defunct print-blog run by the folks at Scout Books. For that same blog, I also interviewed Rebecca about her involvement in starting the IPRC. I see Eric regularly at the Every Sunday (now Every Wednesday) Square Dance. It was really great to tell them about Two Plum Press and how inspirational they were to the project's existence.
