What It’s All About - Letter from a New Writer

In October 2006 I’d managed to get in contact with Lulu.com and convince them Indyish was worth paying attention to- they decided to send their Community peeps out to Montreal from North Carolina to join us for an Os/Indie publishing workshop we’d organized for Puces POP. I’d written them a letter just to let them know that I was a serious fan of their work, that I was recommending their services to indie artists all the time (still am - costs nothing, saves paper, how can you go wrong?) and that a big part of what I aimed to do with Indyish is to develop collaborative art material - like my prototype, the Consistent Variable Project Workbook 1.0 - using Lulu.com for printing. (This is still very much part of where we’re headed, fyi - we just got that small sponsorship from Celtx to produce a workbook and DVD about The Assembly, both of which will be printed and archived via Lulu.com; and making more of these weird workbook’s figures prominently in our recent Daniel Langlois Foundation grant application.)

Anyway, at Puces POP we shared our table with the Lulu’s and sat next to a woman who designed Tshirts with many different animated characters on them. Over the course of the weekend me, Elran, and Katie and Nick from Lulu all ended up chatting with her about our interest in supporting and connecting Independent artists, about writing and self-publishing, about our good experiences making books. Katie Jamison in particular I think shared a lot of her passion for what she does with Lulu with this designer, who’s name is Denise Kimball.

Last night I got home from a book talk to find I had received this letter from her:

Hi Risa,

How are you? Remember me from Puces Pop Montreal? I was at the table
beside you selling my drawings on t-shirts.

Well, thanks to you and your lulu people, I went home from the
sale that Sunday and started working on a book. I published it on
Lulu.com today! I’ve decided I love writing and it’s what I’m going
to do with the rest of my life. Thank you!! I wouldn’t have started
this kind of big project without finding out about you guys.

I hope you can go give my book a look. It’s called Twoniverse. It’s
an illustrated storybook for grownups and older kids.

Any hints you may have on promoting it on Lulu or elsewhere would be
much appreciated. I’m going to work hard at getting some press for it
and I’ll definitely link my website to it. I’m going to LA next month
and I’ll try to show it around as much as I can.

This is so exciting!

I hope all’s well and winter has been good to you!
Denise Kimball

www.divadog.com

How cool is that? And here’s the kicker - I’ve read a chunck of Twoniverse from the preview offered on the Lulu storefront and it’s actually good!! It’s funny, and bizarre, magical and end of the world-y but sharp, animated, surprising and funny. Check it out for yourself and think HUh! Never would have gotten made without an encounter with a certain set of intentions and good wishes and empowering systems.