Center for Book Arts is looking for writers

Center for Book Arts is looking for writers to answer how practical and creative considerations intersect with the vision for an artists’ book? How does that process change how we read and see it?

Deadline: 18 April 2022

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Center for Book Arts promotes active explorations of artistic practices related to the book as an art object. It is a nonprofit dedicated to uplifting and furthering the book art through education, preservation, exhibition, generation, and community building. Book Art Review is its plan to make book art criticism more visible and more valuable, and to engage with a diverse group of writers and readers.

ABOUT THE ROLE

CALL FOR PITCHES: BOOK ART REVIEW ISSUE 2

The path of publication from artists’ book conception to final form is an often convoluted one, involving welcome surprises as well as tradeoffs and compromises determined by budget, materials, creative ideas and other logistics. While those within the publishing industry are well aware of this process and the many people it involves (from editors, printers, binders, and the artist whose name appears on the cover), critics, readers, and even first-time-publisher artists, are often unaware of this labor of collective authorship and how those decisions shape the final form and its reception.

For this issue of BAR, we invite reviews and feature essays that explore the “Hidden Parts of Design and Publishing.” How do practical and creative considerations intersect with the vision for an artists’ book? How does that process change how we read and see it? From conceptual concerns of authorship and collaboration to the more “nitty-gritty” aspects of balancing budgets with concepts and the limitations of materials. With this topic, we hope to illuminate for critics and readers how artists’ books become artists’ books, including and not limited to what it means to author or make an artists’ book, and how different that can be between books. As always, we ask our writers to consider, Why is this a book? How does it work as a book? We invite pitches that draw analysis from these specific design choices.

For review pitches, please include:

Book details: artist/author, book title, publisher, and year. (A review may address a single book or a pair of books, examining and contrasting specific design, binding, or other production elements.)
Images of or links to images of the book
Summary of argument: What is your analysis, interest, or approach to this book? What element(s) of the design process (e.g. paper, binding, printing, inserts) will you be highlighting in your review?
Link to 1-2 previous writing samples/a note on your background or writing experience

For feature pitches, please include:

Outline how your essay relates to the theme
Suggest 2-4 books you will include

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN SUBMISSION

Include “ISSUE 2 PITCH” in the subject line by Monday April 18.
Write a short introduction about yourself
Include a paragraph highlighting your writing experience, relevant credentials and publication credits
Attach links to your strongest work or portfolio, and online profile.

COMPENSATION