Mike Sims: Hey Julia, feels good, doesn’t it, to be launching the second set of Handbooks with such an illustrious set of authors and illustrators? It’s been an interesting combination of long-laid plans working beautifully, some serendipitously – plus some opportunistic scouting-out as our deadlines neared. Is that how it seems to you? Julia Bird: …
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There are Blown Rose workshops and events on the horizon – come and join us at Handbook Making Workshop – Westminster Quaker Meeting House, Thursday 28 August A 90 minute session using your writings, found text, mark making and collage to make your own Handbook-style concertina book. Hosted by Write & Shine as part of …
Julia: Look, I’m waving my mittens at you frantically. What’s going on? Mike: I know exactly what’s going on because of our ‘language of gloves’ game, which was a big hit in our recent Keats-related event at the excellent Hastings Book Festival in September. By the Regency era, slinky-glove-semaphore had developed into a fantastically elaborate …
(We’ve just been to the Lake District to perform ‘A Joy Forever: Keats, Wordsworth and other loaded encounters’ at Rydal Mount) Julia: So, about those ‘monstrous breakfasts’ … Mike: Well, you found that phrase in Keats’ letters. Which we took to mean expansive (we had monstrous great breakfasts every morning of our Lakes stay at …
We’re taking our new book A Joy Forever: a walk out with John Keats on tour. As well as the title of our book, A Joy Forever is the name of our Keats-themed reading series in which we take a playful and social approach to the life and writing of the poet. We’ve performed at Keats House in Hampstead, the Keats …
I enjoyed my one term of school metalwork. Wielding a rasp as long as my 11 year old arm, I made a wobbly spinner, an enamelled copper pendant and a tiny tin man to balance on your outstretched finger. It’s been a long while since the teacher, Mr Russell, set up a solder-blistered portable tv …
It’s close work, letterpress. Boggling slightly, we sat hunched over a drawer of Garamond, havering over which tiny brass moulds to queue up in the chase, to reproduce our text. Don’t drop letters, they’ll never be found. Don’t pick a wrong one. Don’t put a wrong choice back in the wrong cell. We then moved …
A wrong turn driving to Suffolk once landed us in Essex, and the resulting conversation ultimately inspired Julia’s pamphlet Now You Can Look We have googledoc gigabytes of similar accidental ideas that will one day lead to the next books or the next events. When time and money allow, this is where we’ll tell you about them.