Oak Knoll - Initial Response, Part I

At 8:30 a.m. I stumbled out of my suite to meet Mike Kaylor and Marian, a fellow student in the Advanced Workshop, just outside, in Mike's truck. The cabin of said truck was crammed with boxes of poster tubes, John Barth books, and a massive poster display book. I managed to fit in the back seat with all the merchandise (barely), and after a brief stop for sustenance, we were on our way.

We reached New Castle, Delaware by 10 a.m., despite a detour in Frog, DE (mostly because it has a fun name). New Castle itself is a small river town that is very much like Chestertown in its obsession with brick, its historical buildings, and its steamy weather. The morning waffled between rain and sun, and instead left us with overcast skies and heady humidity.

After organizing our third of a display table in the basement of St Peter's, we meandered along the crumpled brick-paved sidewalks to the Oak Knoll Bookstore. The books occupy two of three floors in a brick row house [EDIT: As Shereen from Oak Knoll corrected me, it is "in the old Opera House created by the Masons," which explains the grand staircase. It's a unique building, the tallest in town. See Shereen's comment below for more about this building's history].

After poking around for more than an hour, Marian and I poked did not even reach the back of the first room. We tore ourselves away from the tooled and gilded bindings of typography manuals and murder mystery bibliographies with considerable reluctance.

At 12:00 p.m., the exhibition room was brimming with exhibitors and visitors, all cozied in beneath blocks of fluorescent lights. Marian and I manned the table first and fielded questions about the Print Shop and Press. Generally, our visitors, especially our fellow exhibitors, were thrilled to see college students with an active interest in letterpress.

At 2:00, The Book Guys interviewed Mike about the Literary House Print Shop and his interests in letterpress printing! The Book Guys is a radio show hosted by Allan Stypeck and Mike Cuthbert. In Maryland, it airs on WBJC-FM 91.5 on Sundays from 8:00-9:00 p.m. They had a table set up with all their mysterious equipment so they could record two hours worth of programming to cover the Oak Knoll Fest and the key players in the letterpress and book arts renaissance.

Thrillingly enough, Mike was kind enough to mention this blog in his interview! If he makes it on air, that's fantastic advertising - and it might even get to NPR. Keep your ears perked if you're an NPR listener...