From August 27-September 2 I will be holding the first British/European sale of Alphabets merchandise. August Bank Holiday being a British madness (sorry, institution), this sale will apply only to orders from the British Isles and Europe. (Don’t worry, there’s going to be a Black Friday sale for those in the US who like that […]
The Mende Kikakui syllabary comes home to the village of Nyandeyama, which hasd kept it alive for decades. In early 2026, 156 stalwart people backed a Kickstarter campaign I called Bringing It Back Home. As I wrote on the campaign home page, “Most minority […]
A short course for poets, fiction writers, journalists, journal-keepers, travel writers, essayists, reviewers, and in fact pretty much anyone who puts pen to paper or finger to keyboard. The way to develop your writing, no matter what kind or genre of writer you are, is not to ask “How can I be a better writer?” […]
Dear friends, neighbours, colleagues, and followers: Thanks to my new partnership with the Sol Creative Foundry in Dry Drayton, a village just northwest of Cambridge, I’m going to be offering an exhibition of my Endangered Alphabets artwork and furniture and a wood lettercarving intensive workshop, both at the delightful Sol Creative space. My work […]
The latest episode in the increasingly unhinged behind-the-scenes account of a crowdfunding campaign. Running Kickstarter campaigns is like planting a garden. Each time you think, “This year I’ll get it right.” Instead, every year you simply make a different set of mistakes. In crowdfunding, unlike gardening, the faults and shortcomings are all my […]
The latest episode in my tragicomic behind-the-scenes account of life during a crowdfunding campaign. First loves and first Kickstarter campaigns are the same: clumsy, enthusiastic, uninformed, unforgettable. My first campaign set out to raise $8000 to travel around the world carving indigenous scripts. Think about that for a moment. Around the world, stopping […]
The latest episode in my tragicomic behind-the-scenes account of life during a crowdfunding campaign. As the AI debate rages, I started wondering about the Endangered Alphabets initiative that I’ll undertake if my current Kickstarter campaign is successful, and how it would be different with AI. My plan is to make ten carvings in endangered […]
The latest entry in my tragicomic behind-the-scenes account of life in a crowdfunding campaign. I may regret this entry, as it is both serious and political, but in this new chapter of my life I have vowed to be braver and more open. So here goes. In the middle of the night (when, […]
The latest in my tragicomic account of life behind the scenes during a crowdfunding campaign. Lying awake at five a.m. thinking about crowdfunding is not all bad. There I was, staring up into the darkness, when the muted buzz of my phone told me a Facebook message had just come in. And what a […]
This episode of my tragicomic account of life during a crowdfunding campaign connects with the themes in my new book By Hand, as I wondered whether I would do a better job of handling the stresses of a campaign if I wrote about them by hand rather than typing them on my laptop. One thing […]
