Meet & Greet

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The Regional Assembly of Text is a marvelous place! Brandy and Rebecca were so friendly and generous—I am completely inspired by their store, products and approach to business. I've taken dozens of pictures, but you'll have to wait until the fall issue for those!

Thank you to everyone who stopped by; it was so nice to meet you all. This trip to Vancouver was really enjoyable—thank you for the warm reception!


(Photo of one of Brandy and Rebecca's greeting cards.)

Hers & His

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This Sunday's nytimes featured an article championing the American Short Story and some of its great writers. The famous, and well used, typewriters above are master machines belonging to Flannery O'Connor and Donald Barthelme. Click here to read the full article.

If you are an O'Connor fan like me you will be keen to get your hands on a copy of Brad Gooch's new biography, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor, exploring the unsung chapters and quiet complexities of this Southern spitfire's creative and personal life. I had no idea she only lived to the age of 38.

Joyce Carol Oates wrote a whipsmart review of Gooch's book in the wider context of O'Connor's literary legacy in the New York Review of Books. O'Connor's lifelong passion for peacocks (as celebrated on the book covers above) is measured alongside her unsentimental prose and biting wit: "She would of been a good woman -- if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." (From the title story in A Good Man Is Hard To Find, 1955.) To read an extended excerpt from this story, click here.

Typewriter Television

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You can probably guess that I'm a fan of the television series Mad Men, but Glen and I are also hooked on Fringe! (This paranormal appreciation must go back to my post-college years when friends would gather every Friday night to watch the X-files! We even composed a song, called "Foxy Mulder".) It has been a while since the previous episode of Fringe and the plot hangs on a typewritten manuscript. It is not often that a typewriter is integral to a tv story line. There's a new show tonight!

Typewriter collector Martin Howard

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There's an article in today's Globe and Mail about typewriter collecting: "Rescuing typewriters from the wild
For aficionados, spotting a Remington Standard or early Underwood is like finding a diamond in the rough."

Watch a video about Canada's prolific collector, Martin Howard on the Globe and Mail website. Visit his website for a wealth of imagery and information.

Love Letters typographic posters

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I've designed some romantic and optimistic posters for our upcoming show, Love Letters. These prints are available now in the online shop in time for Valentine's Day and upcoming engagements and weddings. The black, light grey and small hit of red would make a sophisticated and graphic addition to a bedroom or living room.

All work and no play...

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A fan of The Shining has published a book on Blurb that is an interpretation of the character's manuscript. Alison Flood reports for the Guardian:

New York artist Phil Buehler, who describes himself as "a big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King", has self-published a book credited to Torrance, repeating the phrase throughout but formatting each page differently, using the words to create different shapes from zigzags to spirals.

"The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."

He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.