Process of Chapbooks: for Farr’s

Each chapbook is its own path to read, or write, or publish.

There are a lot of stages to publishing a chapbook. Most, if not all, are invisible from the outside.

This fall I’ve been making Crime & Ornament by Tamsyn Farr, her debut chapbook.

Most of the calendar-time was finding/lucking into writing that resonates.

Then there’s convincing an author to publish with me, working with them to do any edits, design ideas.

Publishing a chapbook starts with encountering a mind.

There’s a lot of poetry in the world that can take any shape or position. Authorial summary, imagist embroidery, foregrounding feelings or ironed down lessons, or poet voice’s uniform containment, unshaped lashing, formal, anarchist, anti-hierarchy, storytelling, language-y foregrounded.

Here was a mind questioning and admitting how things don’t quite reconcile. There’s the considered footstep of word choice, and risk of embedded emotions but an exploring mind as if talking to itself not performing an established script. This is a mind that can be self-deprecating. Observant, humble, vivid, self-questioning, That is an exciting brain. 

At an open mic, Tamsyn’s poem (and I don’t recall which, it being a couple years ago) stood out in glittering neon sparkle of aha. What is this alert mind here? Hm, hm, think I might need to meet this person.

Could I see more poems?

These poems reflect a world of citizens I want to live in, to make more of. These are poems I can hear and feel. Ideas and posture relative to the world that make sense to me. Ones that take risk, that can sit with thoughts not all categorically pre-filed for the reader.

So, I got the poems, which I will then sit on as a dragon’s hoard. Read, rest, reread.

I look at line length, poem width and length, consider the potential size of container. Next or simultaneously: Looking at the poems as a critic, call out what is particularly fabulous and goosebump-making. Let it sit, reconsider.

Meanwhile I consider paper types, end paper mood-matches, cover stock options. What sort of cover image would complement the poems? Brainstorm that. Look and draw and make images. That’s a fun imagining stage.

While waiting considering paper stock, reconsider fonts. Doing a few layouts. Give suggestions for edits. Dialogue. Sending a proof of concept for approval and edits.

What is hardest for my brain— the cursing bit— is the first part of hands-on.

I’ve made dozens of titles under phafours press and a few others for other presses. I love the design aspect. The making a physical frame object to distribute the ideas…

Ach, but the precision of measuring. What tools do I have that would complement the ideas? Okay, let’s do that. Feels lush.

Running pages through the printer, collating a mockup to ensure the page order is right. Almost. Fixing the digital.

Where are binder clips? Where did I put that stack of cover stock? (In book pile. Yesterday sense makes no sense.) Why is the guillotine not where I expect. Check calendar. Check clock.

Get back the edits, see the heightened tightened points. Feel oddly proudly parental of author.

Enter the changes. Reprint a copy that is for gutters and margins.

Start printing final. Sudden arrival: toner artifacts of stripes. (Grabbing hair.) Fixing that.

Trimming covers, mis-trimming paper, despairing.

Printing another measured mockup with holes for binding. Getting a new toner cartridge.

Reprinting. Realizing the gutters are still wrong. There’s a page 3 typo only visible on paper, and a page number inconsistently placed. Fixing.

A final prototype to test binding and glue/tape options of photos. Send progress to author.

Some glue works for cover but wrinkles the interior pages.

Test if adding shiny polka dot stickers on the back cover is a good idea. (It is. An ornament that is subtle texture treat for fingers.) (Dog hovers as supervisor.)

Starting the final pages of print and then again but pages facing correctly for double-sided. Think, brain, think. I’ve done dozens of titles but brain nor hand-memory doesn’t do spatial.  

Ack! Ran out of paper when stores are closed. Waiting for them to reopen. Awl is damaged. More of a hammer really. New plan. Block of wood, drill, 3mm bit, and binder clips to make holes for stab binding.

Reprinting because it’s the same paper weight and brightness but a different colour cast. Bone folder mislaid. Find it as a book mark. Continuing. 

Collating, end papers and covers. Trimming interior to measure. Yay, mucked up no copies.

Binding the final prototype.

Then binding the lot. (Look ma, no blood. ) Made two patterns of Japanese stab binding. Left them under a weight to press flat.

Next? Make promo posts to an array of social media about book and book fair. (Instagram, bluesky, Patreon, own blog, author site, local newsgroup, FB Ottawa poets and writers.).

Finished the chapbook a week later than intended but days ahead of need for the fair. Where they will be $15 each. (With copies reserved for entry to contests.)

Still to come, letter to the author of thanks, giving her the author copies, add copies to box to take to the fair, letting book meet the world.