Words and Art: A Collaboration

I was lucky to be able to talk about collaborating with illustrator AJ Reinhart on my newest publication Peck and Pock: A Graphic Poem at Spalding's MFA Residency last month, but we were just two of seven panelists talking about the collaborations between artists and writers. Printmaker Mary Lou Hess discussed  her collaborations with two other writers on the panel: Mary Lou and Dianne Aprile created The Eye Is Not Enough, a hand-letter press book that includes a beautiful long essay by Dianne with accompanying original full-color prints by Mary Lou; she also provided prints for current Kentucky Poet Laureate Maureen Morehead's A Sense of Time Left. Both of those books were printed at Larkspur Press, the hand-letter press of Gray Zeitz in Monterey, Kentucky.  I don't know a writer in Kentucky who wouldn't jump at the chance to have Gray publish a book. If you don't know about Gray's work, next time you are in a Kentucky bookstore, ask someone to point you in the direction of Gray's books. It's a pleasure to hold any of his books in your hands.

After 911, writer Richard Goodman used his bike to get through many of the blocked streets around the collapsed Trade Center towers and The Bicycle Diaries, a record of his witness right after the attack, was published to mark the tenth year memoriam. Richard collaborated with renown artist Gaylord Shanilac on the beautiful book, which features remarkable engravings of New York by Gaylord.

Here are some photos of that event. Thanks to my colleague fiction writer Jody Lisberger for taking and sending them.

Gaylord Shanilac, Richard Goodman, AJ Reinhart, Kathleen Driskell
Gaylord Shanilac, Richard Goodman, AJ Reinhart, Kathleenn Driskell
 Dianne Aprile, Mary Lou Hess, Maureen Morehead
A great audience of Spalding MFA Students

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