Half Letter Press

12/08/2024

We are running a sale on all orders. Get 15% off at checkout.

11/16/2024

Check us out in Chicago at Staple + Stitch today and tomorrow. 11 AM to 6 PM. Free!

11/11/2024

New challenges, new publications, new exhibit, new gathering around artist books in Chicago. https://mailchi.mp/halfletterpress/november_2024

10/23/2024

Got the news this morning when I woke up that Ken Dunn has died. Ken started one of the first recycling programs in the country and inspired countless folks like myself to think critically about the waste streams we participate in. Here are all the pages from a book that Ava Bromberg and I made 20 years ago, published by Whitewalls and still available through Half Letter Press. The contribution from Ken was narrated to Salem Collo-Julin who edited it for the book. As some of you know, I currently run my own food scrap composting and difficult to recycle recycling business in Fort Wayne. I would not be doing this work today if it had not been for Ken's work and mentorship.

10/21/2024

New in our webstore: BARRICADE by Josh MacPhee ($25 from www.halfletterpress.com)

The latest in Josh MacPhee’s long-running Pound the Pavement series ( #34!) is a stunner for both its design and content. The large format gives the images extra impact and it’s great to see so much of this protest documentation collected in one place.

From the author:

This book documents the student occupations in the Spring of 2024 through the lens of the barricades constructed at the encampments. 54 photographs of barricades from 10 different campuses are culled from social media, the press, and the occupiers themselves, and these images run alongside a running collection of texts about barricades and occupation pulled from text threads, interviews with occupiers, and historical texts about barricades. Together they narrate the struggle via the space between affect and effect.

09/29/2024

The exhibitor snack corner at the Pittsburgh Art Book Fair is something all book fairs should aspire to. Amazing, and it changed to savory lunch snacks in the afternoon yesterday.

09/29/2024

Pittsburgh! We’re at the Pittsburgh Art Book Fair from 10-5 today at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Free admission. A bunch of these titles are low stock and a few have sold out some come early and get it! This is a wonderful event with so many excellent publishers.

09/13/2024

Publications from our various imprints spotted in the wild at Tomorrow Today in Los Angeles. Great shop!

09/08/2024

Here at ZINEmercado until 6 pm at the Comfort Station in Chicago. Come and get it!

09/06/2024

Prisoners’ Inventions is coming to Los Angeles as part of a major new exhibition at Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library titled No Prior Art: Illustrations of Invention (September 14, 2024 - May 11, 2025). We'll also be at ZINEmercado in Chicago at the Comfort Station this Sunday from 11 AM - 6 PM. - https://mailchi.mp/halfletterpress/pi-los-angeles

08/13/2024

August 2024 Newsletter - Temporary Services and Jacqui Shine at Buddy this Saturday the 17th, and a $5.00 sale on many titles. https://mailchi.mp/halfletterpress/august_2024

08/04/2024

08/04/2024

have restocked the last few copies, of the first print run, of Brett Bloom's "You Are Compost", a Sonic Meditation. A new printing won't be available for a couple of months.

https://halfletterpress.com/you-are-compost/

About the publication:

Brett Bloom, co-founder of Half Letter Press, occasionally operates Breakdown Break Down Press. He is trained in Deep Listening through the Center for Deep Listening and composes Sonic Meditations, a tool developed by Pauline Oliveros and others. These meditations offer a powerful way to explore various phenomena or ideas through a process inspired by traditional meditation, yet they often take unexpected turns.

One of Bloom's Sonic Meditations, "You Are Compost," is dedicated to exploring the idea that human bodies are made from compost, constantly engage in composting processes, and ultimately return to the earth through composting. This meditation is designed to be easily facilitated with others with no prior Deep Listening experience.

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In addition to publishing, Bloom runs a professional composting business called Dirt Wain.

The booklet is printed on the Risograph, all the paper waste from its production was composted. Water used in making the booklet was offset by an expansion of a rain-garden and tiny prairie.

07/22/2024

Some crates that have been in our storage unit for a very long time are heading to Los Angeles this morning. We will have something wonderful to announce closer to the time.

06/05/2024

A new title that we are distributing: Toxic Shock by Bill Sassenberger. $20 from half letterpress.com

A new book from Fluke Publishing that is packed to the gills! A detailed personal window into an important DIY institution: the record label Toxic Shock and its store Toxic Ranch. Toxic Shock is presented as a chronology (though not always in chronological order) of the development of underground music in the US, anecdotes of running a record label and store, details of working with some of the great bands on the label (Hello to Italy’s Raw Power!) and a personal memoir covering the nearly 3 1/2 decades that Bill and his late wife Julianna worked on this enterprise. It’s a little chaotically organized but there’s a lot here, including many little scans of flyers, band photos and other ephemera.

05/30/2024

New Release: Jail On Wheels 📖 - We have collaborated with Jacqui Shine and Mariame Kaba once again and the result is this beautiful new booklet! Check out this and more in our new newsletter. https://mailchi.mp/halfletterpress/new-release-jail-on-wheels

05/13/2024

A Public Phenomena post from Seattle. Cute little planter boxes and decorative stumps and rocks, right? Not exactly. My host explained that people construct these to prevent unhoused people from setting up tents in front of their property. I saw a ton of them. Most of these were in the public way too. - Marc

05/12/2024

One of the great things at the Seattle Art Book Fair is this Climate Emergency Reading Room + Community Altar organized by ANEMONE and Alex Barsky. We contributed a lot of publications and it has been great to have a table across from it and watch people reading all day. A fun detail is that the sandwich board book displays were made from repurposed real estate developer signs. The project will continue after the fair as well.