Welcome, friends, to Artists Book House!
Perhaps you have driven down Sheridan Road past the Harley Clarke Mansion and seen its windows alight with scenes of not-so-scary Halloween horrors. Maybe you have been drawn closer, to peek through the front door window as devilish décor materializes throughout the month of October. Possibly, you have asked yourself, “What is this mysterious Artists Book House?”*
Well friends, grab a stool and sit by the fire as I wax the finest linen thread of a magical tale you’ve ever heard!
Once upon a time, in a town near you, there was a large, empty mansion by a vast, dark lake. This house certainly looked the part of every gothic tale with its broken windows and overgrown weeds. The problem was, this house felt lonely, and wished for a haunting.
Sure, there were spiders and mice. Even a raccoon or two. But everyone knows spiders, mice, and raccoons aren’t good conversationalists.
Nearby, a coven of mysterious magicians, cunning conjurors, secretive sorcerers, wise wizards, and wicked witches grumbled amongst themselves. For, you see, their Academy of the Dark Arts (otherwise known as the Columbia College Center for Book and Paper) had vanished. Where would they gather to share and teach the secrets of their craft?
One dreadful spring day, one of the witches was flying around on her broom. Even though she was an expert flyer, she nearly crashed into a lighthouse when she saw the looming and shadowy mansion sitting next to the deep and dark lake. She had an idea. Why not create a new home for dreadful doings in the empty mansion?
The witch quickly set about gathering the 13 members of her coven. They all agreed that the mansion would make a great place to start their new Academy of the Dark Arts. In addition to offering the finest magical classes and workshops, there would be a café selling potions and a bookstore. In order not to scare their new neighbors, they decided to call their new home Artists Book House, because the townspeople weren’t very fond of witches.
They set about bewitching the hamlet with their magic—for while the coven was powerful in the arts of spell-casting, potions, incantations, and crafting spell books, they weren’t very good at casting money spells.
They placed an advertisement in the local newspaper which read:
Artists Book House
A crafty coven dedicated to all things bookish. It’s Magic!
• With a simple potion, learn to pull sheets of paper out of a cauldron!
• Make printed words, sentences, and paragraphs appear on paper!
• Perfect your spell-craft! Our witches teach all genres including:
Literary Fiction, Dark Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Memoir.
• Bind your own grimoire for writing down spells and incantations!
Soon the townsfolk appeared before the dilapidated mansion next to the abysmal lake. They hid behind bushes and peeked through the windows. What they saw delighted them. Indeed, you could say they were positively enchanted! And they all lived miserably ever after.
The End.
Now some of you will read this and think, This is a fairytale and nothing more.
And I would reply:
There is a dark mansion next to a vast lake in a town near you. And if you were to peep through the windows during the month of October, you would find the house was indeed haunted. Whether magic will be made inside its walls depends on you.
If you feel so bewitched, please donate here.
Frightfully yours,
Kenny Dreadful
*Artists Book House is a new organization devoted to the Book Arts: writing, reading, printing, bookbinding, papermaking, typography, calligraphy, poetry, fiction, memoir, artist’s books, publishing, comics, zines, and much, much more. It is a place where artists, writers, readers, and other thoughtful people gather to learn and create. Through education, exhibitions, publications, and events, Artists Book House expands our community. We promote the literary arts and the crafts of book making. We rejoice in the physical form of the book and embrace interdisciplinary approaches to the book arts. We are committed to conservation, understanding the history and craft of the book, and sharing knowledge. We celebrate diversity and are committed to empowering people to tell their stories, to transform their worlds into books.