I’ve often cited Rocky Stinehour as the prime encourager for my writing the biography of W. A. Dwiggins. Back in 2003, while Rocky and I were sitting at his picnic table in Lunenburg, Vermont, I complained that Dwiggins’s life and work warranted at least...
Photo credit: Chester Gryski I’m on a book tour of sorts. In March I spoke in Kentville (Nova Scotia), Toronto, and San Francisco. In April and May I’ll be speaking in Massachussetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and New York. There will be Dwiggins books...
Improvisation is certainly at the heart of good practice for a jazz musician or actor. But it also can be a boon to my work in design and photography. When I set out to show two sets of book spines on the endpapers of my Dwiggins biography — revealing them to the...
It’s always a deep pleasure for me to embed quiet messaging into a project — something that readers will notice on their own. I’ve written about the biplane on Mount Washington, but here are a couple of other examples. The Vibroplex is a hand-operated telegraph...
The process of printing a book might not be glamorous, but it is fascinating. Boxes of paper, presses, color adjustments and approvals. Constant vigilance and attention to the tiniest details. First we need some paper. For the Dwiggins biography, we worked with Sappi...
The appearance of a biplane on the Mount Washington photo mural was a combination of luck and patience. When I set out to make a backlit color mural that would enable people to see the view from the summit, I decided to present a 180-degree view that began looking due...
