winter offerings from High Ground

This afternoon, I realized that it was time to think about the holidays. Actually I’ve been thinking that way for some time as I work away on a “craft” to give family and friends this year and which I can’t say any more about because some of those people read this blog. (I put craft into quotation marks because it’s something very homemade and a bit dubious.)

Last year, confined to the home and land we call High Ground, which is also the name of the small press we operate, printing limited edition broadsheets and the occasional chapbook, I looked around and thought it would be nice to offer up books to potential readers to give as Christmas gifts. This year, with supply chain issues causing delays and shortages in so many areas of commercial life, it seems a good idea to do something similar. Like many writers, I have supplies of many of my books; when I give readings or presentations, people often want to buy the book(s) in question afterwards. Sometimes booksellers on site can provide this service but often I’m on my own. So anyway, I do have boxes of books stored in our print shop, home of our 19th century Chandler&Price platen press, and am happy to make this offer. (And of course this is not to undermine the great work done by independent booksellers. But I can sign these for you wherever you are!)

For a selection of my trade books, including Euclid’s Orchard, Winter Wren, The Age of Water Lilies, The Weight of the Heart, Inishbream, Patrin, A Man in a Distant Field, and Red Laredo Boots, the deal is this: buy one at cover price and receive a second book of your choice for 50% off. Postage will be charged at cost.

The other special offering we have this year is our Companions Series limited edition sets of broadsheets. This series features poems by contemporary poets written in response to poems they have chosen by other poets, printed face to face on classic laid papers using High Ground’s treadle-driven Chandler & Price platen press. Most of the contributors’ poems make their first appearances in print in the Series. Sheets are signed and numbered by the contributors in limited editions of 60. Approximately 40 signed and numbered sets are available for purchase. Each Companions Series set includes 12 broadsheets (more information on broadsheets here), with additional title sheet and folder.

BUY our Companions Series of letterpress broadsheets at $150 for the set of 12 with title sheet, colophon and folder. . .

and get a copy of John Pass’s Twinned Towers chapbook, beautifully printed letterpress by Anik See under her Fox Run Press imprint, regularly priced at $75, FREE. (Again, postage charged at cost.)

Visit our High Ground page for more information about our letterpress publications. If you see anything there that catches your fancy, just ask about it. Sometimes we have very limited copies of books and ephemera available for sale.

I know it’s early to be talking about that upcoming winter holiday but the days, weeks, months pass quickly, and Canada Post can be slow in December. You can leave a comment here and I’ll respond or else you can email me (theresakishkan (at) gmail.com) and we can work out details. And I have to say, setting out books to photograph on blue cloth this afternoon made me suddenly eager to make a quilt with the length of French cotton Manon’s friend bought for me this summer in Avignon –she was in a shop and with the wonders of WhatsApp showed me various prints, which was almost like being in France myself. Almost… — and the length of Japanese cotton I’ve had in my trunk for years. That’s what I’ll be doing as we head into winter. Dreaming of France, cutting blue cotton, sewing the dream into stars and cabins.