Pear Slip

Matthew Hittinger's lovely chapbook, Pear Slip, arrived yesterday at the office. The book is beautifully made and perfect bound, with a full-color cover, and so it's a shame that the gutter margin is so narrow--this makes the left-hand margin of the right-hand pages virtually disappear into the book's centerfold, and is very irritating, because I'd rather not destroy the book in order to read it comfortably. A word to Spire Press: redesign your product!

That being said, it's a lovely collection. It's good to see Matthew getting some well-earned recognition, and I'm very happy to have ordered this chapbook.

Designing books is not easy. It's not that hard, really, but there are so many niggling little details to tweak and adjust. My first chapbook turned out well, as far as I can remember, but the second one had two typos (even though I'd corrected both in galleys). Ander Monson and New Michigan Press did a super job on the third one, but the fourth--well, just ignore the cover.

It's almost always something.