The Wind in the Willows – onto the next book already!

11 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by Deep Wood Press in CODEX, Future Projects, James Dissette, Kenneth Grahame, Letterpress, Mad Parrot Press, PR and Media releases, The Wind in the Willows, Vladimir Zimakov

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illustration, James Dissette, Kenneth Grahame, literature, Mad Parrot Press, The Wind in the Willows, Vladimir Zimakov

I spent a couple days before and after Oak Knoll Fest with my partner James Dissette in Mad Parrot Press (formerly Chester River Press) brainstorming our next projects and making plans. I’ll keep you all updated as things move forward with The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame but we have established size, layout and many other aspects of the book.

We settled on typesetting the book in 14pt Centaur and Arrighi – finally a good excuse to use these exquisite typefaces which we have both admired for years but never quite had the right project for. David Carruthers of Papeterie Saint-Armand in Montreal will be making our custom stock and will most likely be making all of my paper for Deep Wood Press from here forward. Vladimir Zimakov is already onboard illustrating with his glorious linocuts and we will have a couple page spreads to show off in February, 2019 during the CODEX show in Berkeley. This will be a big book, a page size of 11.25 x 14″ (28.5 x 35.5cm) is planned and preliminary layout puts the book at around 116 pages not including front or back matter. Edition size will likely be around 60-70 books.

We’re still toying with the idea of having some sort of introduction at the foreword of the book but, really, who needs introduction to such a classic tale? Still, J.K. Rowling, if you’re reading this – we’d love to work with you!

We’ve also decided to move forward with The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster but that book will now come after we complete work on The Wind in the Willows.

I will have my other Kafka project, The Hunter Gracchus, completed for CODEX as well but I will save those details for a future post.

Back to the bindery — I’ve orders to fill!

“The Path” now completed

09 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Deep Wood Press in Books, Letterpress, PR and Media releases, The Path

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arts, Fine Press, fine press books, illustration, Letterpress, linoleum cuts

Center Spread

As promised, here I present to you the first new book for 2013.

The Path

Half title page

Title Page

Final page

Inside back cover

Sigrid performing

Sigrid signs the books

The Path was a dream Sigrid had of having beautiful children and when shared with friends it quickly evolved into the children being songs and signified to her that it was about making and nurturing songs and the life of songwriting. Aside from the chorus the tale is told as an exact retelling although she relates “in the dream I was told that the bed comes from Guatemala and I just couldn’t fit that in gracefully. I love my dreams but that one was amazingly linear, complete and detailed. I put the last part, about “each of us have light” in because I worried about my audience feeling down about themselves. I wanted them to feel included in the dream and in the experience.”

When I heard this first it was around the proverbial north woods fire ring where several talented friends were taking their turns with guitars until the early morning hours. I was moved by the tune – it describes my own family here on the stream all so well. It didn’t take much effort to persuade Sigrid to allow me to turn it into a book. Keeping true to the original form, Sigrid has gone back into the studio and recorded this new track and it comes with the book. In the back cover there is a pocket with a download card from cdbaby so you too can enjoy this lovely magical lullaby as well.

The text is hand set in ATF Freehand type with Lydian Bold for display sizes and is printed on Hahnemuhle Schiller paper in 7 colors. The regular edition is set at 100 copies and they are bound in a limp binding of “Dark Roast” made by Paperworks Studio, a special commissioned paper I had made just for this project made of reclaimed cotton rag and spiced with fair trade coffee grounds (nicely buffered for your great great grand children’s future enjoyment.) There are also a set of three books that were printed on some quite vintage Fabriano Umbria stock I’d been saving which will be turned into presentation bindings in due time.

It’s now available to purchase on my website for $150.00 and can be found here:

http://deepwoodpress.com/books.html