Another Freshman Profile

If Katrina's distressed or bored between classes, she'll come to the print shop to sort out her head. She's a constant presence during my work hours on Friday evenings. She sort of appears at the bookbinding station, cutting cloth, stitching signatures, plotting new designs, and when something excites her, she lets it burst out of her in a flow of chatter.

"Look at this stitch work," she'll say, waving an open instruction book in front of my nose. "Just look at it. Isn't it beautiful?" She usually sighs and looks back at it herself. "I need to know how. I have to try this."

Bookbinding is her greatest passion, and even though she's a Freshman, she has her education as a bookbinder laid out before her in a shimmering timeline. Katrina will spend her time at Washington College making the most of the print shop's resources - its binding studio and Mike himself - to build an ambitious portfolio. Then, she's off to graduate school specifically for bookbinding. She worries constantly about whether she'll get in, or if she'll be able to only bind books and not print. Typesetting interests her, but she has difficulty seeing the 12 pt fonts to manipulate them.

Mike's collection of instructional bookbinding books is vast. Katrina has already immersed herself in his library. Every Friday she finds another book to borrow, another technique to try, another design to absorb.

"If I returned all the books I have in my room right now," she asked me a few days ago, "do you think Mr. Kaylor'd let me borrow some books over Winter Break?"

As of last night, Katrina has put her latest ambitious plan on hold. Josh and Jim pounced on her last night with a proposal: they want her to hand bind at least one of the "Beanball" books, ideally to showcase with the other hand bound versions in One Story's display at the upcoming Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in January.

They've dished out creative freedom, but they want her to get the book feeling like baseball. Josh suggested stitching the cover in a baseball stitch. Katrina's contemplating white leather and how actual stitching or suggested stitching might curve across the cover.

The stitching idea reminds me of a book I saw at Oak Knoll. It's a book about the Black Sox called Ballet for Opening Day, made by Sherwin Beach Press. Every image was stitched into the book like a baseball, with much finer red thread on the cotton rag paper (plus Indiana corn husk specks).

I think Katrina can pull off an impressive cover that speaks specifically to "Beanball"'s feel as a short story, especially because it's not just a baseball story, it's got an air of darkness and mystery. And if she attempts stitching, she'll approach it in a completely different way than the pages of Ballet for Opening Day.

She's already got a baseball, borrowed from Mike, tucked away in her pocket for analysis. As soon as he handed it to her, she began turning it about in her hands, studying the thread, searching for a clue as to where it started or finished. She even ran up into the heart of the Lit House to find someone more familiar with baseball to see if they knew how baseballs were stitched.

When she realized she probably wouldn't be able to find the beginning because the manufacturers tucked the ends away so well, she began to think of the stitching as fluid and continuous. When I last saw her, she was spinning the ball in her soft hands, examining the way the stitching sat on the ball from various angles to find the best configurations for the front and cover of the book to give it graphic dimension.

That's something that Ballet for Opening Day's stitched pages don't quite have from their stitching, probably so that the stitching doesn't draw attention away from the etchings. Katrina's work can be as bold and focal as she'd like because she's dealing with the cover, which often has to sell the book.

I feel like I'm selling the college in saying this, but it amazes me that a freshman can get such an "amazing opportunity," as Katrina calls it, here. And not just Katrina: Mac and I are getting similarly exciting book printing experience and advice in helping Mr. Dissette. And the Lit House has offered to promote a project that Marian, Lindsay and I are attempting, one that I like to call "Top Secret Book Project."

I can't even imagine where Katrina's passion will get her if she can keep up with it.