NDSU students to print 10th annual chapbook on antique printing presses

Students in the Introduction to Publishing class at NDSU will be printing the cover of the tenth annual poetry chapbook for NDSU Press on an antique printing press at Bonanzaville on Saturday, Sept. 27.

The class is taught by Suzzanne Kelley, editor-in-chief of NDSU Press. This year’s class has 12 undergraduate students. They will be hand-feeding the covers into a Chandler and Price press from 1897 in The Hunter Times building in Bonanzaville’s pioneer village. Students will work in shifts from 10 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

The same students will travel to Braddock, North Dakota, to print the inside pages of the chapbook on antique presses at The Braddock News Letterpress Museum the weekend of Oct. 10-12.

This year’s winners of Poetry of the Plains and Prairies Award are co-authors Josh Gaines, Portland, Oregon, and Ben Clark, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for their manuscript “After the Floating Barn.”

“In our archives, we’ve found copies of, and photos of, chapbooks being letterpress published by poet and faculty member Richard Lyons in the 1950s and 1960s. Decades later, in 2016, NDSU Press returned to publishing chapbooks on letterpress equipment,” Kelley said. “Now, as we produce our tenth POPP Award publication, I’ve expanded the enterprise by taking my publishing students into North Dakota communities; by publishing state, regional and nationally located poets; and by providing national distribution for our prizewinning chapbooks.”

She continued, “The success of our project is the result of our collaborative arrangement between Bonanzaville and The Braddock News Letterpress Museum of the South Central Threshing Association and the dedication of Allan and Leah Burke, retired weekly newspaper publishers, who are the driving force behind the collection, preservation, and revitalization of letterpress printing. We also rely upon the generous nature and expertise of pressman Mike Frykman and the Iron Men (and women) of the threshing association.”

Beth Jansen, executive director of Bonanzaville, said she is pleased to welcome the students to the pioneer village.

“There is nothing better than to have students visit Bonanzaville to experience history through 19th Century technology,” Jansen said.

Introduction to Publishing is one of the required classes for NDSU’s Certificate in Publishing.