Printing the Covers for Ghost Box Evolution in Cadillac, Michigan

In mid-June we gathered in Boston to letterpress the covers of this year's winning chapbook, Rosie Forrest's Ghost Box Evolution in Cadillac, Michigan. This year we printed at a new location: Union Press in Union Square, Somerville, enjoying the amazing help of Union Press’ Eli Epstein. Over two warm New England days, we mixed ink, set type, and cranked out over 400 beautiful 2-color covers on a Vandercook press.

Highlights this year included working with a large piece of artwork with both empty and ink-filled spaces (the broken windows at grace the cover), and creating a rust-red ink to complement the olive tones of the paper and artwork ink. Though many of Forrest’s stories feature teenagers, there’s a feeling of unease and decay in the background of most of these stories, so we wanted the cover colors and artwork to reflect that rusty, broken atmosphere. The covers came out great and the finished books look amazing, complete with rust-colored endpapers. The book launches August 5, and ordering is available now.

Here are some photos of this year’s printing process:

The beautiful print shop at Union Press

The green ink and artwork on press

Inks ready for mixing

Not a crime scene—rust-red ink in the making

So many to print!

Rust-red ink on press creating finished cover

The finished cover

The printing crew at the Vandercook with the finished cover! From left: Kathleen Rooney, Abby Beckel, Rebecca Saraceno, Eli Epstein. Photo by Katie White.

Huge thanks to Eli Epstein of Union Press for his help, expertise, and use of Union Press' equipment and inks. Special thanks as well to Maria DiPasquale for her help printing on day 1 and Katie White for her help printing on day 2!

The finished chapbook is now printed and bound and ready to read. Order your copy of this limited edition contest-winning chapbook!

Printing the Covers for The Imagination of Lewis Carroll

In late June we made our annual trip to The Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass. to letterpress the covers of this year's winning chapbook, William Todd Seabrook's The Imagination of Lewis Carroll. For two glorious New England summer days, we donned printing aprons and cranked out 400 2-color covers on the Vandercook press under the fluorescent lights of the Museum. Our letterpress printing days are two of our favorite days of the year, and this year was no exception.

Highlights this year included experimenting with printing on dark royal blue felt paper and using gold metallic ink for the first time. Chess and the red king feature prominently in Seabrook's book, a fictionalized and fabulist biography of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll. So we wanted to highlight the king by making it the only red one among the chess pieces. This led to some tricky measuring when we printed with the gold ink on Day 2, but the end result was definitely worth it! The covers came out beautifully and the finished books look amazing, complete with Stardream gold endpapers. The book launches August 7, and preordering is available now.

Here are some photos and a video of this year's printing process:

Day 1: Inking the press with hand-mixed red ink

Day 1: With the first color printed, the covers are laid out to dry by the hundreds

Day 2: The gold metallic ink!

Day 2: The gold ink on press

RMP intern Maria DiPasquale helms the Vandercook, with designer Rebecca Saraceno

Day 2 printing crew with finished covers: Heather Butterfield, Katey Corrigan, Abby Beckel, Rebecca Saraceno, Maria DiPasquale, and newest printer-in-training Emilia!

Day 2: Finished covers drying everywhere

The finished cover!

Special thanks to Katey Corrigan and Frank Romano of the Museum of Printing for their help and support, and as always, to the Museum for the use of it amazing presses!

Order your copy of the printed and bound version of The Imagination of Lewis Carroll here!

Printing the Covers for The Kind of Girl

It's that time of year again! When we leave our desks and put on our printing aprons to letterpress the covers of our contest-winning chapbook! On June 11 and 12, Kathleen and I joined our head designer and letterpress printer extraordinaire Rebecca Saraceno in North Andover, Massachusetts, to print covers for Kim Henderson's The Kind of Girl. This was our seventh year printing at the amazing Museum of Printing—thanks again to them for their support and use of their Vandercook presses!

In seven years we've tried a number of exciting letterpress techniques, including using metallic inks, wood type, hand-carved artwork, and an array of paper shapes, textures, and colors. The new challenges we took on this year were using linen paper (Silvertone, by Neenah Paper) and using both ink colors on the artwork by employing an overlay technique. It was an exciting and busy couple of days and we can't wait for you to see the finished covers, available wrapped around Kim Henderson's equally gorgeous stories! Preorder is available now and the book launches August 5!

Here are some photos and videos of this year's cover printing:


Rebecca printing the first color ink (silver) on the Vandercook.

The silver ink and artwork on press

Special thanks to RMP designer Heather Butterfield and RMP intern Becca Pollock for their help on the 11th!

Dry and ready for the next ink color

Rebecca printing the second color—purple!

Kathleen, Rebecca, and me (Abby) with in-progress and finished covers

Here's a tour of the finished covers drying all over among the Museum's amazing presses

The finished cover!

Reserve your copy of Kim Henderson's The Kind of Girl here!

Letterpressing Shampoo Horns Covers

Here at Rose Metal Press we love the summer. Summer is flash fiction chapbook time, when we leave our computers behind for a few days and get our hands dirty letterpressing each and every one of the 350 limited edition covers of our latest chapbook contest winner.

This year's winner is the amazing Shampoo Horns, by Aaron Teel, a book that also revels in summer—one particular hot, dirty, electric summer in Texas, revealed in 19 short short stories.

On June 11th and 13th, we headed out to the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass. with our head designer (and letterpress extraordinaire) Rebecca Saraceno to print the 2-color covers on a Vandercook letterpress. Letterpress is amazing: noisy, imperfect, perfect, precise, imprecise, beautiful, and worth every bit of the work!

Here are some photos and videos of the process.    

We used these 3 inks to mix the orange and red colors we printed on the covers

This firecracker magnesium die cut was created from an illustration by Liane Behrens

The orange ink and die cut on press

The covers going through the press for first round of ink—the orange!

The text type in the lock-up waiting for the red ink!

A finished cover coming off the press with red inked type

Rebecca printing a finished cover

Finished Shampoo Horns covers drying—each one printed by hand

Shampoo Horns launches on August 15 and is now available for preorder! We only print 350 limited edition chapbooks, so it's a good idea to reserve early! Order here.

The Making of Betty Superman!

Today is the official release of Tiff Holland's Betty Superman, winner of our 5th annual short short chapbook contest, judged by Kim Chinquee. Betty Superman can be yours by ordering here!

As with all of our chapbook winners, we printed the covers for Betty Superman by hand on a Vandercook letterpress at the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass. For two amazing days in early June, we cranked out 350 covers—twice, once with red ink and the smoking hand, and again with the metallic silver ink and text.

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how the Betty Superman covers were created:
First we printed the smoking hand linoleum cut that designer Rebecca Saraceno (left, running the press) carved in red ink on the red paper. Also pictured is Rose Metal Press co-founder Kathleen Rooney,
who was at that time laying all the newly printed one-color covers out to dry. We all wo-manned the Vandercook printing press throughout the day.

Once the red ink dried it was time to set the type for the text and print the metallic silver ink!
Here is Rose Metal Press co-founder Abby Beckel printing the silver text on the formerly one-color covers.
Here's a finished Betty Superman coming off of the metal type we pulled and set by hand.
And the finished covers out to dry all over the Museum.
Check out this video of Betty Superman on press!



Once the covers were printed, the lovely folks at Red Sun Press in Jamaica Plain, Mass. printed the interiors and did the handwork to bind those interiors with our letterpress covers and very cool metallic midnight blue endsheets and create the finished chapbook!

The book itself is beautiful, but more importantly Tiff Holland's stories are amazing—contest judge Kim Chinquee writes of Betty Superman: “From beginning to end, Holland’s stories layer, offering colorful pictures that speak to one another, developing the angst and sympathy of the relationships between these family members into a complete whole. Each time I read this collection, I find more to love."

Buy your limited edition (only 300 in print) chapbook of Betty Superman now!

How Some People Make a Chapbook

We're thrilled to announce the release of Sean Lovelace's chapbook How Some People Like Their Eggs, the winner of our third annual short short chapbook contest. More details about the book are here.

Our fabulous chief book designer Rebecca Saraceno and I letterpressed the covers of How Some People Like Their Eggs at The Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass. This has become a fun annual tradition for the winning chapbook cover.

Here's how we do it:
First we set the type. This foundry type is called Stymie.

Then we cut the paper down to size using this giant paper cutter.

Once we had cover-size sheets, we used a manual Vandercook press to roll out 350 covers printed with the first color (black).

Then we put each cover back through the Vandercook to print the second color (yellow) and set them out to dry on every possible flat surface. Rebecca carved the silverware linoleum cuts herself.

After a 14-hour day of printing each cover by hand, we celebrated the beautiful covers with exhaustion and a flat tire on 93. But it was worth it to have each cover carefully and lovingly made to house Sean's amazing stories! Special thanks to The Museum of Printing for the use of their equipment and to Red Sun Press for carefully collating and binding the printed interior and the covers and endpapers we supplied. The chapbooks are produced in a limited 300 copy run, so order yours here today!

Order Geoffrey Forsyth's IN THE LAND OF THE FREE

Rose Metal Press is pleased to present the winner of our Second Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest: Geoffrey Forsyth's IN THE LAND OF THE FREE. His limited edition chapbook, selected by judge Robert Shapard, will be published on July 1st, 2008 and is available for pre-order now!

“Although the collection deals with dismay, disappointment, and death, it is a symposium on love […] In the Land of the Free makes me see how a short short story chapbook can be a great thing.” —Robert Shapard, editor of Sudden Fiction

At once sad and comical, always a little magical and strange, Forsyth’s young characters stumble towards maturity In The Land Of The Free. From the night a baby is born onto a cutting board in his mother’s kitchen, to the day a rhinoceros mysteriously escapes from the zoo, to the morning a young man wakes to find his mud-covered relatives back from the grave, Forsyth’s ten very short fictions aim to capture the elusive nature of our relationships in geographies wholly recognizable to all of us. Through hallways and houses in the suburbs, through graveyards and wooded nooks, through bars and high school parking lots, Forsyth brings his youngsters to the heart of the American moment, where the pursuit of freedom inevitably begins.

Order your copy today!