Gray Zeitz
Zeitz standing in front of his July corn patch.
As a student at the University of Kentucky, Gray Zeitz started his own magazine, Handsel. The first issue was printed on a press that was held together with rubber bands. It contained writing by Zeitz’ teacher Wendell Berry, and by his friends and fellow students Jonathan Greene and Richard Taylor. Eight or so issues later, Zeitz decided he was done with magazines, but he knew he wanted to print books by Kentucky writers.
After a year in Lexington, Zeitz dropped out of college, moved to the country, and started raising a garden. Eventually, he bought a place on Sawdridge Creek, near Monterey, Kentucky, where he lives to this day. There, he raised tobacco, baby calves, and chickens, and kept printing. He also labored on other farms in the area, which helped pay the bills, and helped build relationships with local people. He founded Larkspur Press, and began publishing handmade, affordable letterpress books, mostly by Kentucky poets.
In deciding what to publish, a critical consideration is not whether the book will make money. It’s whether Zeitz likes it well enough to maintain his interest in the book for the time it will take to make it; to hand-set each letter of the type; hand-feed each page into a C&P press; and hand-sew each binding. “It has to be something I know I’ll like for at least two or three years, so it has to draw my interest that much.”
Listen to Gray Zeitz talk about the importance of writing with a sense of place.
These three monkeys rest on a windowsill at Larkspur Press, where Zeitz publishes handmade, affordable letterpress books, mostly by Kentucky poets.