SoCo Book Festival Favorites: from Letterpress to Literacy, from Book Publishers to Book Mobiles

Teresa LeYung Ryan

I spent Saturday at the 12th Annual Sonoma County Book Festival in Santa Rosa's Courthouse Square. Book lovers young and old wandered along 4th Street from 10-4. Booths showcased local book sellers, self-published authors, indie publishers and small presses, as well as a public library sale. Several stages held professional panels, author talks and poetry readings.

Struck by the plethora of creativity in my county, I enjoyed chatting with people such as author/ photographer Thomas Cooper about his book Tankhouse: California's Redwood Water Towers From a Bygone Era. I ran into a former teaching colleague who connected me to a professional networking group; I got information from a local nonprofit to pitch a story to Petaluma Patch; I took pictures with fellow Redwood Writer, Teresa LeYung Ryan, writing coach and author of Love Made of Heart and Build Your Writer's Platform & Fanbase in 22 Days (ebook and print edition). Check out her blog's event recap.

Here are some of my favorites. If you couldn't make it to the festival, at least you can do a virtual tour:

Iota Press

Iota Press
"What draws you to letterpress?" the people at the booth asked as I browsed. The aesthetic, the antiquity, the physicality of each printed letter. Based in Sebastopol, Erick Johnson offers custom printing, as well as workshops in typesetting and letterpress. His Iota Quarterly ($30/year) features "poetry, yarns or graphics." The animated way he speaks clearly demonstrates his enthusiasm for the artful arrangement of words on paper. From his website: "I have an interest in the graphic powers of type and ink fused with literary art."