Starting a press is probably the most empowering thing a writer can do. We want to help writers publish their own work and the work of the people they admire, and we think it's easier to do than you suspect.

Every season, we offer a tuition free workshop for writers, our Fine Press Publishing Seminar. It's a four day intensive workshops that introduces writers to the wonders of hand set lead type, letterpress printing, and self-publishing, and hopefully inspires them to start a press and use these techniques in what they produce.



Students spend four days with Barbara Henry, our local type and printing guru, learning the ins and outs of letterpress technology. They print an assortment of texts which are editioned and collected in a portfolio for each of them to take home. Students leave with a basic knowledge of the printing on a Vandercook, and hopefully the desire to continue on with their skills.





Students also hear from a variety of presenters active in the field; we've had a wide variety of printers and publishers come speak over the years. Ugly Duckling Presse, Booklyn Artists Alliance, Peter Kruty, Kyle Schlesinger, and Ryan Murphy are only some of the people who've shared their work with us recently. This recent session in November we invited Jon Beacham, of Hermitage Beacon. Jon learned how to set type in this very workshop, here at the Center, and has gone on to publish chapbooks of poetry and set up a workspace/bookstore/exhibition space for poetry and art in Beacon, NY. You can learn more about his work here. We were very happy to see what he 's been up to.

Also in attendance this weekend was Andy Birsh from Woodside Press, who shared with his us his vast knowledge of the history of type and the intricacies of monotype. Woodside Press is the proud purveyor of traditional letterpress technology in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the leading source for monotype in New York City. We were lucky he could squeeze a visit in to the Center during his holiday rush season!

If you are a writer interested in taking this workshop, there is an open call for entries three times a year. Guidelines are posted on our website for the Letterpress Printing and Fine Press Publishing Seminar For Emerging Writers on the page marked 'opportunities' . The next call for entries should be in January, for the next session scheduled for spring of 2009. Eight students are accepted into each session of the workshop.