Workshops Online Chapbooks and Artists' Books (Summer 2023)

Chapbooks and Artists' Books (Summer 2023)

This four-week, virtual workshop takes place on Zoom on Thursdays, August 3, 10, 17, and 24, from 6–8pm ET.

Complete Schedule:

August 3, 2023, 6:00–8:00pm ET
August 10, 2023, 6:00–8:00pm ET
August 17, 2023, 6:00–8:00pm ET
August 24, 2023, 6:00–8:00pm ET

Please Note: Registration for this workshop closes on July 27 at 11:59 pm.

About the Workshop:

This virtual class at Center for Book Arts is taught by instructor Amaranth Borsuk.

The artist’s book emerges as an art form at the turn of the twentieth century as limited-edition collaborative books created by poets and artists from the materials at hand. It has proliferated for many of the same reasons as the chapbook, a small book of poems produced in limited quantities and distributed cheaply or even free of charge—as a way of sharing work outside the main publishing and art world economy and as a DIY approach to connecting with other like-minded artists. This interdisciplinary writing workshop explores the juncture between writing and the hand-made book. Through experimental writing exercises and hands-on bookbinding tutorials, students will consider the way a poem's form and content might be put into fruitful dialogue. Participants in the course will learn several binding styles (saddle stitch, accordion, flag, etc.) and will attempt to write into and against these forms, perhaps creating new book structures of their own along the way.

Required Materials:

Bone/teflon folder
Light or heavy duty awl
Binder's needles
4-ply waxed linen thread of any color
X-acto #1
Small cutting mat
UHU glue
Pencil
Ruler or centering ruler
8.5x11" paper, grain short
8.5x11" cardstock for covers

About Amaranth Borsuk:

Amaranth Borsuk is a poet, scholar, and book artist working at the intersection of print and digital media. Her latest volume is The Book (MIT Press, 2018), a concise introduction to the book as object, content, idea, and interface. She is the author of the poetry collections Pomegranate Eater and Handiwork as well as three collaborative books of poems and the anthology The Book: 101 Definitions (Anteism, 2021). She teaches in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell where she currently directs the MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. amaranthborsuk.com

Virtual workshops at Center for Book Arts will be recorded and the recording will be provided for all registered participants after the class. Tuition for this class is $170.