Carolyn Porter is a “graphic designer, typography geek, and founder of the graphic design company Porterfolio,” but you may know her as the author of Marcel’s Letters: A Font and the Search for One Man’s Fate. This memoir recounts Carolyn Porter’s journey through designing a font and her quest for answers about Marcel Heuzé, the World War II forced laborer whose handwriting inspired the font. Marcel’s Letters was nominated as a 2018 finalist in the Minnesota Book Awards and won a gold medal award in the category of Memoir/Biography at the Military Writers Society of America’s 2018 Medal Awards in South Carolina. On November 6, the paperback version of Marcel’s Letters was released, and I had the chance to interview Carolyn Porter for Swenson Book Development regarding this exciting news. Audrey Arnold: I can imagine that this journey from writing to publication to paperback release and beyond has been quite the whirlwind ride for you. How have you managed to balance everything? Carolyn Porter: I meet with a lot of book clubs, and I find it laughable when people greet me like some sort of celebrity. I remind them I’m just me. I still live in a small 1950s rambler in White Bear Lake. I still work full time as a freelance graphic designer. I still take my dog for a daily walk around the neighborhood (sometimes in my pajamas). My biggest client hasn’t read the book yet. I find that refreshing, actually. On a day-to-day basis we talk about…

Publishing Gone Local: Part 1 Ithaca is a town where ‘going’ local has been all the rage for decades. In fact,  Ithaca has gone local, and it’s easy to feel a sense of self-reliance in this community. Whether you find it at The Piggery, or the Finger Lakes Wine Center, or the “Local Authors” series at Buffalo Street Books, appreciation abounds for all things Ithaca made. There’s even a cool store on State Street called IthacaMade. One of the most exciting components of Ithaca’s lively local scene is the number of small and independent book publishers that call Ithaca home. Cornell University Press, Owl Gorge, Ithaca Press, Clandestine Press, Larson Publishing, McBooks, and Snow Lion. These publishers specialize in areas that draw from all aspects of Ithaca: the famous natural beauty, the environmental awareness, the prolific artistic and scientific output, and the vibrant spiritual community. Cornell University Press is awe-inspiring, and the “about us” on their website does little to dispel the mythical image of this press. It was established in 1869 – the first university press to be established in the United States – and it currently resides in Sage House on Cornell’s campus, “where the staff keeps company with the house’s carved bats and stained-glass birds.” A scholarly publisher in many disciplines, Cornell University Press publishes 120 new nonfiction titles per year. In addition, the press also has two imprints: Comstock Publishing, which specializes in life sciences and natural history, and ILR Press, with books in labor and employment relations, the health…

Through the years, I’ve had a lot of experience using Canva to create flyers, signs, social media materials, bookmarks, and even playlist covers—almost entirely with a free Canva account with no subscription. Sure, there are more options available with a paid subscription, but even with a free account, Canva is still a valuable tool with a ton of resources and design templates. It’s amazing what you can create without spending anything. This year, in helping with the publicity for Jill Swenson’s memoir releasing in June, The Land of Everlasting Sky, I took on a new challenge of learning how to use Canva to create a book trailer. Making video content is not something I have done before, let alone creating a trailer from scratch. But after reading and watching several tutorials online, I found Canva makes the process fairly accessible. In the end, I’m happy with what I was able to create on a free Canva account with no previous video-making experience. And I’d like to share some of the insight and advice I picked up from this process so that maybe you, too, can create your own book trailer with Canva. The Script The first step in making a book trailer is to come up with a script. Basically, the script should be a short book description of no more than five sentences. To do this, I pulled lines and inspiration from the existing cover blurb and marketing materials for The Land of Everlasting Sky but then edited it…