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Forging Mastery
by John Al
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When
one hears the name Norman Mailer, any number of his works or quips or
rumors might come to mind. If you’re old enough, perhaps mention of the
author three months removed from what would’ve been his 100th birthday reminds you of other treasured American relics like Dick Cavett or James Jones. For me, it’s Harlot’s Ghost, a personal recommendation from Dr. J. Michael Lennon, author of Mailer’s Last Days: New and Selected Remembrances of a Life in Literature. Dr. Lennon had suggested it after a brief discussion we’d had about our favorite classic espionage novels. Harlot’s Ghost,
complete with a conclusion promising a part two that was never able to
ensnare Mailer’s time, will always be my favorite. And according to his
critics, it will always be Mr. Mailer’s longest.
When Christine Medley, proprietor of Scranton, Pennsylvania’s regionally renown Workshop and letterpress operator of Crow Design Studios,
hears the name Norman Mailer, she thinks “two M’s, two N’s, two A’s,
two R’s…that means I only have one font to choose from out of my
collection of the one-inch blocks. Unless I want to try getting away
with an upside-down W for a third M somewhere else and a V with a
makeshift cross to make another A.” Such is the curse of someone
disciplined enough to become a master of their craft.
One Netflix subscriber after another wanders into her store, the décor a
paper and ink Genius Bar that moonlights as a laboratory, where the
confetti and champagne from the Workshop’s 10th anniversary are
still a recent memory. Much like the Apple IIe kept the lights on at
their Cupertino headquarters while more fervent innovations were
pursued, eyes and wallets remain wide open in covetous awe at the
various gospels of NBC’s The Office littering the prints on the
walls of her Scranton shop. And for those who don’t spend their free
time streaming mockumentaries from a previous vicennial, the familiar
landmark advertisements of Ladies Home Journal continue to perform their marketing magic as the demand for prints bearing their most famous images never wanes.
While her bills are paid in the background thanks to Scranton’s most
notorious fictional company, an undeniable passion punctures the
foreground immediately as we discuss Christine’s favorite elements of
the job, like the thrill of the hunt and solving the logistics puzzles
that a rigid artistry like letterpress presents over and over again.
Like most successful artists, she’d rather humbly praise the influences
of others, like Amos Kennedy Jr., or the invaluable efforts of the Ladies of Letterpress, instead of highlighting her Instagram or Facebook or the arrangements of flawlessly rendered prints surrounding her as we speak.
Norman Mailer, mentor to some and master to all, has spawned a
generation of flattery in the form of artistic enthusiasts whose
unparalleled achievements are forged through seeking their own
orientation and accrued acumen. Christine, like every expert I’ve ever
met, forged her mastery by keeping her mentorship as diverse as
possible. While Norman Mailer may or may not have inspired her
letterpress triumphs, there’s no denying her grandfather pointed her in
the right direction and sent her down a path that only the patiently
persistent can follow. What began with a passionate grandfather’s one
man press in the 1930s soon became the stomping grounds of a curious
granddaughter bearing witness to the family business before culminating
in the twelve identical broadside shrines to Norman Mailer that now
exist for purchase, thanks to Dr. Lennon’s Mailer’s Last Days and Christine Medley’s mastery of a timeless art, further evidenced by her instructional guide, Printmaking: How to Print Anything on Everything.
Glance beyond the bestsellers at the Workshop looking at the broadside book art for Mailer’s Last Days,
and every reader has no choice but to relive every anecdote evoked in
bountiful vividness by Dr. J. Michael Lennon’s latest epic ode to one of
America’s greatest novelists. Whether you’re enticed by the
generation-bridging celebrity of Muhammad Ali and Graham Greene or
you’re the type to cherish the more obscure high-water marks of pop
culture like Gore Vidal and Ezra Pound, Dr. Lennon’s words and the
Workshop’s broadside limited edition prints are the perfect marriage for
capturing the essence and mythos of the 20th century’s literary ebbs and flows.
Now, fair warning, purchasing one of these limited edition broadsides
isn’t going to make you feel rich. (And at only $30.00, I’m pretty sure
they’re not going to make Etruscan Press rich either.) Their
presentation is to remind you of the most valuable thing you already
own, much like Mailer’s Last Days coldly reminds us of Mr.
Mailer’s mortality. And that asset happens to be the cornerstone
resource that fortified the Workshop’s pristine reputation. That asset
is time and its influence permeates throughout
the Workshop in the wrought iron presses older than Norman Mailer
himself and the broadside prints that require the most tedious of
adjustments and discerning of eyes. Etruscan Press considers it an honor
and a privilege that Crow Design Studios devoted so much of their most
precious commodity to all twelve of these ink doused
talismans.
While every human is dealt that identical hand of 24 hours per day, it
seems our species’ very best and brightest somehow find a way to extract
just a few extra minutes out of their daily rations. One can look no
further than Norman Mailer for the embodiment of this symptom of
success, a man whose prolific body of work is so cherished and targeted
that a biographical epilogue soaking with anecdotes like Mailer’s Last Days is as unique for its unwavering consumer demand as it is for its envious unchallenged position in the marketplace.
We hope our subscribers enjoy reading Dr. Lennon’s work as much as we enjoyed preparing it for you.
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John Al is a spy novelist from Pennsylvania about to receive his
M.F.A. from Wilkes University's Maslow Family Graduate Program in
Creative Writing. That is all we here at Etruscan Press are
authorized to declassify about him. There have been substantiated rumors
that he is colorblind. We’ve already said too much.
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New Releases from Etruscan
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We are pleased to welcome Aaron Poochigian’s Mr. Either/Or: All the Rage and our fourth Tribus, Fates, a collection of poetry by Ann Pedone, Katherine Soniat, and D. M. Spitzer, to the Etruscan Press family.
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A sequel to Mr. Either/Or (Etruscan Press, 2017), Poochigian’s Mr. Either/Or: All the Rage
verse-novel features “you” the reader as a secret agent in Manhattan in
which poetic rhythms cue and accompany action-scenes. “You” and your
girlfriend Li-ling Levine save the world from villains fighting for
anarchy and the end of the human race.
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In Fates, three poets—Pedone, Soniat,
and Spitzer—weave destinies by reopening stories we have been carrying
with us to explore the limits and possibilities of form, testing the
poetic line.
Pedone’s The Medea Notebooks reimagines and reworks the ancient Greek story as three “Medeas”: the character from the Euripides play, the 20th century
opera singer Maria Callas (who played Medea on stage and in film),
and the poet herself. In these lyric portrayals of marriage and
murder, sex and infidelity, the book explores and complicates our
understanding of love, female sexual desire, and betrayal.
Soniat’s ekphrastic collection, Starfish Wash-Up, also claims a
myth as its starting point—here in the form of a painting of Telemachus
kneeling by the Aegean seashore—and along with that archetypal Lost Son
and so many modern-day children, we search the horizon for our missing
parent, a search that expands to include the wreckage of, and loss of,
the very planet that offered us our first home.
In its queering translation of an Old Testament text from the Septuagint, D. M. Spitzer’s overflow of an unknown self: a song of songs performs an act of interpretive violence, shattering the heteronormative version of the Song and arraying its shards into eight cantos of trans-moments that ask us whose love, which lovers, the Song celebrates, while transfiguring the Song’s full-throated praise of embodied, human love.
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American Mother by
Colum McCann with Diane Foley
Forthcoming from Etruscan Press – March 2024
by Jessica Van Orden
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As the rejuvenating spring winds begin to revive the city’s energies
once more, Etruscan Press has been long abuzz with the energy of their
forthcoming title, American Mother, a work of creative nonfiction that shares “the story of a mother, a son, and the moral courage that changed the world.”
American Mother is set to be published on March 5, 2024, and
even amid its pre-production, it stands prominent in its notable
capacity for faith and hope. For, through its captivating vulnerability,
a voice emerges that truly makes the reader stop and consider a shared
humanity in the face of near unintelligible grief.
Following the story of Diane M. Foley, American Mother invites
its readers into the depths of loss after her son, James Foley, was held
hostage and murdered by ISIS in 2014 for his role as a conflict
journalist. Author Colum McCann, National Book Award winner, eloquently
weaves together his and Diane’s distinct voices in a manner that evokes
an undercurrent of James Foley’s work and moral courage. Their story is
one that calls us on a journey of resilience in the face of breaking,
and the painful work of healing, so that the greater voice may remain.
Recognized by many for his incisive and vivid voice, Colum’s intention
with the story is plain, as he has brought forth James Foley’s “spirit”
in a truly enduring way through Diane’s eyes.
More than this, in telling her story, Colum and Diane’s work engenders a
deep empathetic humanity that further fosters a means of action. The
story emphasizes the importance of voice and connection, as Diane
endeavors to wield her grief and healing as a means of good. It is an
understanding and work that they both have long forged in their
nonprofit organizations: the power of a shared voice for those who do
not yet have access to, or have been stripped of, theirs. American Mother
promises to prove an extension of that voice, as the rare story that is
uniquely suited to settle within the hearts of those who experience
it.
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Jessica Van Orden earned an A.A. in English Literature and a
Specialized Diploma in Library Technical Services from Northampton
Community College. She is currently completing her B.A. in English
Literature with Wilkes University, where she serves as an intern with
Etruscan Press. She is the Editor-in-Chief, Layout Coordinator, and
Contributor to the Inkwell Quarterly Publication at Wilkes University.
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About Etruscan Press:
Housed at Wilkes University and partnering with Youngstown State
University, Etruscan is a non-profit literary press working to produce
and promote books that nurture the dialogue among genres, cultures, and
voices.
For the latest Etruscan events, please visit our website.
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