Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Meeting a pen pal + mobile Letterpress

Pen pals meet!

So you may have seen my recent post about Alex Myers's reading in Brooklyn last Friday. It was a fantastic reading and a great trip, made even more special because I got to meet a pen pal ALL THE WAY FROM NEW ZEALAND! The lovely Erin Fae is in NYC for the summer to work on The Press Cycle Project: Letterpress on Three Wheels, an amazing traveling letterpress project to bring this special paperful joy to the masses.

Erin braved utterly torrential rain to make it to the reading - we were all half soaked, joking that we had swum there - and Alex took this photo of the two of us after the reading. I wish we had taken more, I wish I could have brought my awesome Letter Writers Alliance bag but I was afraid it would get soaked, I wish the photo of me were better... it is a testament of my love and appreciation for Erin that I post this photo in the first place, because I think she looks gorgeous and I am not so pleased with the photo of myself. BUT! Cross-continental pen pal meetings must be lauded as much as possible, and documented properly. So, voila!

I would also like to share with you Erin's fabulous Press Cycle Project, because even if you are not in NYC, you can still share the joy. (And if you ARE in NYC - may you encounter one of her magical spontaneous cycle-powered printings!) You can read more about it on her Kickstarter page, plus watch the cool studio, but here's the gist: she's building a mobile studio to teach people about letterpress printing, and will make prints on the go. I am a backer, and if you're a letterpress or paper lover (and really, if you're not - why are you reading this?), I'd encourage you to consider supporting her special endeavor... or at the very least, keep up to date on the project via @PressCycle on Twitter.

Her project only has 3 days left on Kickstarter, so don't wait - do it now!