This workshop focuses on styles of bookbinding that are low-cost yet dynamic, and well suited for poetry chapbooks and portfolio books. Students will learn how to choose materials and create simple book structures that best highlight the content within their book.

The lessons will address the logistics of organizing poetry or artwork into a book form, explore the book as a vessel for information, and how material choices can inform how the book is read. While the workshop will create blank books, each style of binding will begin with standard 8.5” x 11” paper to allow your poetry or artistic content to be easily printed from a common inkjet or laser printer. 

Students will complete four sample books: Two pamphlet stitch varieties, a perfect bound book, and a more elaborate Japanese stab binding.

In addition to learning hand skills, the class will discuss the history of chapbooks, their role in publishing over time, and ways to share and sell chapbooks. If you have writing or images you would like to promote, this is a great workshop to jump start your self-publishing!