In February 2024 I started the Complete Letterpress Course at Hot Bed Press in Salford. I’ve wanted to learn letterpress for years—my maternal grandfather was a letterpress printer and I’ve also felt drawn to it because of the history of female printers—but I’d never been able to make that happen. I handprinted my first pamphlet, Twenty-Four Miles Up, on a Risograph and loved the whole process; while I had a studio in the Print Mill in Macclesfield I learnt various forms of printing—screen printing, mono print, collagraph—from my colleagues there.
I heard about the Hot Bed Course from stall-holders at the Small Publishers Fair in London in October 2023 (thank you Katherine of double butted and Pat of Nomad Letterpress) and it was just the right time to finally pursue this item on my bucket list. Our tutor is David Armes of Red Plate Press who is carefully and patiently leading and guiding us through the process and encouraging us to develop our own interests and style. I plan to use my new skills to produce cards and poetry pamphlets and random printed stuff for Moormaid Press. But let’s see what develops…
