Right now, the main "other project" in the Crafty Cards studio is the letterpress-printed zine Ker-bloom!. It has been featured in The Utne Reader, clamor, Morbid Curiosity, The Zine Yearbook, and the "Invisible Ink" radio show on KALW FM. It's available at Bound Together Bookstore (SF), City Lights (SF), Powell's Books (Portland), Needles & Pens (SF), Dog-Eared Books (SF), The Big Idea (Pittsburgh), RPS (Oakland), Reading Frenzy (Portland), The Long Haul Infoshop (Berkeley), Left Bank Books (Seattle), and through Little Black Cart, Whoop! Distro, Microcosm, and Parcell Press Distribution. The diligent and charming Booklyn Artists' Alliance has landed Ker-bloom! in public and private academic collections across the country, including UCLA and the New York MOMA. As if that wan't enough, Booklyn has also bound two volumes as brick-like hardcover books. We are also pleased as punch to be in the University of Michigan's Labadie Collection, one of the largest collections of radical literature and ephemera in the world. The San Francisco, Multnomah County, and Salt Lake City Public Libraries also have substantial Ker-bloom! collections.

Ker-bloom! is over eleven years old and one of the only letterpress-printed zines around. Each issue contains a personal essay that relates an event or situation (from epic to banal and everything in between) and how it relates to the bigger picture. So, there's usually some topic that's pretty evident by reading the story, and an underlying socio-political theme to think about. Topics over the past eleven years include: bicycles, love lost, substitute teaching, zine conferences, cancer, anarchism, and domestic violence.

All this autobiographical text is set letter by letter in lead type and printed on a Vandercook flat-bed printing press. Yep, that's right. Every word. Every letter. Every space. Each issue is printed in a numbered edition of 500 (give or take). Because of the labor-intensiveness of the endeavor, Ker-bloom! is rather small--- quarter-sheet size to be exact--- with eight pages of text. But don't be fooled--- what Ker-bloom! lacks in size it makes up for in passion.

Ker-bloom! comes out regularly every two months, like clockwork. You can order the most recent issue in the Crafty Cards on-line store. Due to Ker-bloom!'s collectibility and popularity, many back issues are no longer available. Seriously folks, some issues we only have our own copy left. The sets are sometimes the only way of getting some of the rare back issues.

I'll have a table at the North Side Artist Market December 1st from 10 to 2 at the Community Church at 120 Parkhurst, on the North Side of Pittsburgh. Come by and say hello!

I will also have a table at the I Made It Scary craft fair on December 8th, from 2-8 pm, at the Owl's Club on 8th Avenue, Homestead PA.