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September 26 - 28, 2012
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OREGON DAYS OF CULTURE
5
By Ray Pitz
Pamplin Media Group
Lindsey Kugler was living in her car in
Vancouver, Wash., not long before she decid-
ed to sign up for a certificate in writing pro-
gram from Portland’s Independent Publish-
ing Research Center. She was low on money
and couldn’t find a job when she decided to
get back into the type of creative writing she
had concentrated on previously as a student
at Arizona State University.
The intense course she took at the center
— which since 1998 has provided a clearing-
house for authors and artists who need a
place to work and self-publish their zines,
comics, graphic novels, literary journals and
chapbooks — was just the encouragement
she needed to get started on a memoir.
Not only did she receive training on how to
cobble together a poignant story of the time
she spent with AmeriCorps in Texas helping
elderly people who were formerly homeless,
but she received the tools needed to self-pub-
lish her book at the center on Southeast Divi-
sion Street.
“I only made 30 copies and all of them are
gone,” Kugler, 25, said about “Here,” her
160-page book filled with vignettes and pho-
tos.
She hosted a reading at Powell’s City of
Books and one thing led to another with
“Here” coming out this fall compliments of
indie publisher University of Hell.
“I printed designed and did everything at
the IPRC,” she said. “I’m super-excited. It’s
like a dream come true and I owe it all to the
IPRC.”
A quick tour of the Independent Publish-
ing Research Center (IPRC for short) reveals
a cavernous enclave that formerly hosted a
solar panel warehouse.
Since its inception, the nonprofit center
has provided services to an estimated 27,000
writers and artists.
The brainchild of Chloe Eudaly, who runs
the Reading Frenzy bookstore, and Rebecca
Gilbert, who runs Stumptown Printers, the
IPRC moved into its new digs on Division
Street last spring, essentially tripling its floor
space.
Heading up the IPRC as executive director
since 2006 is Justin Hocking, who knows a
thing or two about publishing, having once
slogged it out in NewYork City’s commercial
publishing industry. Hocking said even in the
BigApple, Portland has a reputation for host-
ing scores of small local presses and as a hub
for do-it-yourself printing.
Part of the magic of the center comes from
the fact that much of the production is com-
pleted on five seasoned letter presses.
“They’re actually beautiful machines,”
Hocking says of the presses, most of which
appear to be more than 70 years old.
“We really try to sustain and preserve tra-
ditional printing practices,” said Hocking,
noting that the focus of the IPRC is to create
books that “look like objects of art.”
It’s not that the IPRC breeds Luddites by
any sense of the word. The shop also offers a
computer lab complete with laptops and sev-
eral photocopiers. There’s also a bookbinding
machine that will produce up to 30 books an
hour for a skilled do-it-yourself binder.
And the organization recently added a
screen-printing studio for book, zines and
poster production.
“We’re really excited about it,” said Hock-
ing, who holds a master of fine arts degree in
creative writing from Colorado State Univer-
sity. “It’s another huge step up for us.”
Originally located across the street from
Powell’s City of Books onWest Burnside, the
IPRC once contained not much more than a
photocopier, coffee maker and a couple of
work tables.
“We just had absolutely no room to grow,”
he said.
That resulted in a seven-month search for
a new location, spearheaded by Marykay
West, an IPRC board member and commer-
cial real estate broker who found the current
site.
Hocking said the newspace really surpass-
es his expectations and includes a
2,500-square-foot work space with high ceil-
ings. A glass-paneled door will soon provide
badly needed sunlight for the space, replac-
ing a sliding garage door.
“It’s the kind of thing we always fantasized
about having,” he said. “We’re really thrilled
about that.”
Hocking, who also is the co-founder of the
IPRC’s Certificate program in creative writ-
ing and independent publishing, will soon
have a book of his own published byGraywolf
Press.
With interest in self-publishing having
grown rapidly through the years, the IPRC
has a support staff interested in helping writ-
ers and designers realize their dreams.
“I think the opportunity the IPRC offers is
rare: to be able to workshop a writing/graph-
ic project and get access to the tools to put
that project into book form, all through self-
driven means,” said Michael D’Alessandro,
the center’s community resource coordinator
since 2011 and lead instructor in the IPRC’s
certificate program in creative writing and
independent publishing.
D’Alessandro, who also owns Bedouin
Books, teaches the certificate program in the
second semester where students work as a
team to publish a literary journal, basically
“becoming a mini printing house, taking the
process from start to finish, full-service.”
Over the years, generous grants have giv-
en the organization a shot in the arm, the
most recent being a $7,500 grant from the Or-
egon Cultural Trust.
“We’re really thrilled about the Cultural
Trust grant,” Hocking said. “It’s going to help
us purchase some new computers for the
lab.”
Themoney alsowill be used to support the
“Zine of theMonth” program, where a volun-
teer selects a favorite zine, chapbook or com-
ic and sends it out to about 75 subscribers.
Also funds will be used to pay a stipend to a
zine librarian to help archive the 7,000 zines,
comic books and chapbooks that fill the cen-
ter.
Visit IPRC.org for more information.
Justin Hocking (left), A.M. O’Malley (center) and Michael D’Alessando at the IPRC’s new headquarters.
PamPlin media grouP: CHristoPHer onstott
Independent Publishing and Research Center helps
authors, graphic artists self-publish their works
culture
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