Book making in Seattle (from left counterclockwise): Matt Trease, Rob Lewis, Sharon Thesen, Dan Clarkson, Adelia MacWilliam, Paul Nelson and Ursula Vaira.

How it starts

First, you need a band of people who love reading, who love words, who’ve always been a little bit outside the normie group, and who don’t care about making lots of money. I’m not sure which of these aspects is the most important, maybe the last one. Probably they’re all needed.

Then one of this tribe of oddballs — usually called a writer — needs to find a topic that has completely, I mean absolutely, captivated them; so much so that they’ve neglected meals, lovers, kids, and the laundry. Also helpful is if this topic — whatever it happens to be, and it could be anything — has lots of information all scattered to the four winds; in libraries here and there; in newspapers in different languages; trapped in people’s memories (people who live in remote places is the best); in official records locked in drawers and file cabinets; unofficial records left in books and pockets, even hidden in shoeboxes in attics or under the bed.

This is how it starts — an idea, then research. For example, with our own amazing Seattleite Eric Larson. If you don’t know his historic non-fiction like “Dead Wake,” about the sinking of the Lusitania, you have an amazing treat ahead of you. Not everyone begins with research, of course. Some people don’t need or want to look anything up; they just find a piece of blank paper and start pouring words onto it.

Eventually though every obsessed writer after peering into various niches and corners where relevant (and even fascinatingly irrelevant) information exists, actually sits down and begins to gather his or her thoughts and record them with pen and paper; pencil and tablet; typewriter; chalk and cave walls; or computer.

At this stage in the process, there is still time to turn back. All is not lost. This misguided person could still throw in the towel, go back to normal life, and reacquainted him- or herself with the dog and the husband, partner, or the children (though some will have by now grown and gone off to college, etc.).

However, if the towel is not thrown in, the aforementioned writer — who thinks he or she has gathered up and organized enough information that might be of interest to someone else — might actually go forward tremblingly with a manuscript. Then the real problems begin.

Find a publisher

What does a writer do with this bit of our human story committed to paper? Ha! The next step will be to find someone else who either has the same topic-obsession or who finds it interesting or captivating enough to consider that what the writer has written is worth publishing. (Unless one self-publishes, also treacherous.) This second person will also be out of the ordinary, often someone who loves both words on paper and paper itself. Preferably someone who knows how to spell and who owns a press or has a publishing business. (They will be considered in their own special category of slightly nuts.)

A cogent reader will by now realize I am not talking about major publishing venues like Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster, or Harper Collins. I am not talking about murder mysteries, coffee table books, or hot romance novels. The books I’m talking about making are something unique and generally made by hand in small batches like cookies.

Sharon Thesen, ‘Olson & Love’

I am talking about writing and book-making because this weekend I was one in a group of writers and readers celebrating the publication of a small important text that has never been published before. (Some of you may remember that I was in a band of roving poets reading at Time Enough Books several weeks ago. This is the same gang.) The chapbook, “Olson & Love,” was originally a lecture about poet Charles Olson delivered at the Gloucester Writers Center in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 2022 by Canadian scholar and writer Sharon Thesen (info on Sharon here: tinyurl.com/6m5ke5by). This is only the second book published by our new venture Watershed Press (tinyurl.com/msd2e6tj).

How could this possibly have any relevance to us on our little Peninsula? I mean really. Those of us on the north end hardly know what goes on in Seaview, let alone being interested in someone from that rather large country to our north writing about a dead poet. Cate, what are you thinking?

Here’s what I’m thinking. First of all, we need poetry now more than ever. Poetry is not a luxury. It may be one of the highest uses of language to reveal and guide the human soul. Second, we need beauty. And this little chapbook we published with the embossed cover, hand-stitched pages, dark sea blue flysheet and deckle-edged cover is beautiful.

Thirdly, Charles Olson is known for a branch of poetics thought that in the literary world was revolutionary; but Sharon’s essay reveals that his thinking was developed in correspondence with a lover, Frances Boldereff. Her contribution has been hidden from view. Sharon talks about why Boldereff’s voice was disregarded and how their love affair was critical to the development of a new way of thinking about poetry and writing.

It’s a reminder that we need all viewpoints in the world if we want to have any chance of getting humanity out of the corner we’ve painted ourselves into — with climate change, wars and humanitarian disasters raging on many continents, drought and fires, health crises, and the collapse of democratic values. We need systems of thought and ideas drawn from all cultures and peoples — especially those most readily ignored — and we certainly can’t continue to disregard the contribution of half of the population.

Gather your kin and do something

But perhaps the most important lesson of this tiny book we created, celebrated and launched this weekend at the Columbia City Gallery in Seattle is this: some of us got together and did something worthwhile. It will have a minuscule audience in the grand scheme of things. It won’t be appreciated by everyone. It won’t change the world. But it changed us!

After the writing, the editing, proofing and publishing, we actually did make the book. We actually did gather up and lovingly fold and score the pages, punch holes through them, cut the cotton thread, thread the needles, stitch the pages, and tie them up with a square knot.

We gathered face to face from our different home places. We shared meals. We laughed and listened to each other, told stories about ourselves and the literary world we love. We created a small but powerful bubble of energy amidst the chaos and gloom projected in the news and all around us. We cast out the demons and working together created a stunning object.

That has had an inestimable effect on each of us. We intend to do it again.

• • •

In this same vein of people working together, last week the Ocean Park Neighborhood Watch Group met — 79 people strong — at the OP Fire House community room. Sheriff Daniel Garcia and Deputy Sheriff Cosmo Cozby were both there and spoke with neighbors about their concerns: car prowls, drug houses, theft, etc. And there are now over 600 people on the watch group Facebook site (Ocean Park Neighborhood Watch). FB moderator Joe Garrett reminds folks that the neighborhood zip code 98640 is the primary one, though there are people from Nahcotta, Klipsan and surrounding areas who are welcome to join.

Mark your calendars: the next meeting will be March 16 from 11 a.m. to noon at the Ocean Park Firehouse community room. This meeting will focus on services available to the neighborhood provided by our fire department.

Stand up, get together, make something happen.