Literary Nonfiction. Book Arts. Poetry History & Criticism. Conducted over the course of four decades, HANGING QUOTES is a landmark oral history project comprised of nineteen interviews with pioneer book artists, typographers, and poets. Alastair Johnston's thoughtful questions evoke fascinating new stories and information from luminaries as diverse as Nicolas Barker and Robert Creeley. He discusses the transition from cast metal to digital type with the prime movers in the field: Matthew Carter, Sumner Stone, and Fred Smeijers; and he takes stock of the field of artists' books in wide-ranging conversations with Sandra Kirshenbaum and Joan and Nathan Lyons, while his groundbreaking interviews with Dave Haselwood, Holbrook Teter, Bob Hawley, Walter Hamady, and Graham Mackintosh shed new light on the history of the book in the 20th century.

Author City: BERKELEY, CA USA

Alastair Johnston moved to Berkeley, California, in the mid- 1970s and founded Poltroon Press with the artist Frances Butler. He is the author of Alphabets to Order (British Library, 2000) and co-editor of William Loy's Nineteenth-century American Designers & Engravers of Type (Oak Knoll, 2009) as well as three bibliographies of San Francisco Bay Area small presses: Auerhahn, White Rabbit, and Zephyrus Image.

Reviews and Other Links
Stephen J. Gertz @ Booktryst