Andrew Steeves on designing books at Gaspereau Press

Canada has an impressive tradition of producing great printer- publishers. Three of our best are Stan Bevington, Tim Inkster, and Andrew Steeves. Ancient interviews with all three can be found here on The Biblio File website.   The one with Andrew took place a dozen years ago so I figured it was time to clock another. I drove down to Kentville, Nova Scotia last month, where Andrew lives and works, and sat down with him again right next to the place where the wall cordoning off his office used to sit (it came down about a decade ago), inches away from where our previous talk too place.   Andrew bills himself as a writer, editor, typographer, letterpress printer and literary publisher. Over the past two decades he's won more than 50 citations for excellence in book design from Canada's Alcuin Society. His essay collection Smoke Proofs: Essays on Literary Publishing, Printing and Typography appeared in 2014.   We talk here mostly about the specifics of book design and how Andrew makes books that very beautifully and aptly express their contents;  we also discuss the challenge of selecting titles; the use pilcrows, the importance in life of paying attention, and much more.