It’s been some time now since the announcement of this project back in October of 2013 and the solicitation of name ideas. I wanted a name that “zinged” and though there were many responses both here and off the blog for suggestions none of them really hit me and after all these months I’ve decided to go with my first thoughts on the idea. I didn’t want to appear to be vainglorious of Deep Wood Press but in this age of SEO nonsense and our inundation of ephemeral media it just makes sense to go with the flow. So without further ado let me introduce the forthcoming

A Deep Wood Journal

In these months of silence on the subject progress has been made – my editorial partners on this project and I have been going over layout ideas, talking to some of our favorite writers and artists and working out a way that this can be done and not be overwhelmed by it – I’ve other books to print as well! I’ve talked to other publishers of such journals also, most recently in New York during the FPBA fair I had the good fortune of having a table next to John Randal and he was very helpful with some suggestions and experience based on his 31 issues of Matrix. We’ve decided to make this an annual publication and are working towards a tentative release date for this December or January 2015. I am working with a talented young designer to put together a web presence for the journal which will, hopefully, be online and have some content as well as subscription information. At this point we are not taking submissions but that will most likely change with time as I plan to be in this for the long haul. I will say that the author and artist list we have now will blow your socks off with the melding of prose, poetry and art in a luscious little finely printed gem. Aesthetics will be as important as content as far as I’m concerned.

It looks like a commenter back in October has won a prize as well but his avatar is currently not linking to an email so if Mark Mansfield is still reading this blog please contact me about your free copy of A Deep Wood Journal #1!

And finally, just so no one thinks I’m a complete slacker, here’s a little project that was cranked out last week for musician friend Seth Bernard. Not something I do on a regular basis here at DWP but since I’ve done his previous 2 albums and he’s such a good guy, comes to help the process along, plus we always have a good time and take the occasional break to strum a guitar – why not. With only a few days to design, layout and set the type I’m fairly pleased except for the broken serifs on the italic lower case “y”s on the front cover. The image on the right of the inside jacket is difficult to photograph because it is a metallic copper colored ink but in “real life” it comes off quite well and yes, that old wood engraving on the cover is getting quite a lot of extended use. All run through the old 1911 8×12 C&P platen press 4 times plus the foil stamp run – 2 solid days of printing for 1250 CD packages.

CD packaging