BOOK RELEASE!

        Bittersweetness & Light has officially been released and is now available far and wide!  This collection of magical speculative fiction short stories, poems, and art is printed in a larger format than your average paperback, in full color, with decorations throughout and notes at the end.  From love potions to alien spores and from dream fish to a puzzled ghost, find magic that can be knitted, glimpsed from the kitchen window, or assembled from a flat-pack kit.  In twelve fantastical short stories, ten evocative poems, and dozens of whimsical relief block prints, this magical collection invites you to look for goodness, find joy, and share reasons for hope.

        To celebrate, today I’m sharing a few of the block prints included in the book.  I’ve chosen representatives of three different categories.  Up first is “After Rain,” which is included in the book as an illustration with the short story “The Rainlings.”  I made this rubber block print in 2022, before I wrote the short story.  The story was not based on the illustration, but it did spring from some of the same inspirations that had given rise to the block print.  Therefore, when I needed an illustration for the story, it was natural to go back to this piece - even though in the story the Rainlings are a little bigger and fit only one house per raindrop.

        Today’s second piece, on the other hand, was made explicitly to illustrate a poem included in the book, “Fire on the Wind.”  (The poem in this case is much older, but I never thought about illustrating it until putting together the book.)  Although this is a small piece, it’s fairly complicated.  The background is a reduction print with three layers (more on reduction prints here).  The dragon itself is a separate tiny block printed onto the background.  I experimented with two kinds of ink for this one: regular printing ink and also archival stamp pad ink.  The latter ended up being a bit of a problem and in several impressions the ink spread and became mushy-looking.  Because a reduction print destroys the block during the process, I can’t go back and print new impressions to replace the ones I’ve thrown out, so there are now simply a few holes in the edition.

        Finally I include today an example of a third kind of image I made for the book.  These were made to include in the book as illustrations for a poem, but unlike the other two shown today, they aren’t exactly real block prints.  Rather, they’re digital collages of elements cut from other block prints I've done.  Indeed, you should be able to recognize the background of the moon!  A few of the stories and poems needed illustrations that I didn’t think warranted a whole edition of actual block prints that probably wouldn’t have much of a market to sell on their own, and that’s when I use the digital method instead.

        So that’s a little behind-the-scenes of some of the art included in this book.  If you’re curious to read the whole thing, please check it out on amazon, Barnes & Noble, or directly from me.  Consider putting in a request with your local library and they might stock a copy.  And if you do read it and enjoy this book, please consider posting a review and telling any friends or family who might also enjoy it.  More than ever this world needs us to build the connections of sharing with each other the things that bring us joy, and I’d love to get this book launched in that spirit.

[Pictures: After Rain, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2022 (originals sold out);

Fire on the Wind, rubber block reduction print by AEGNydam, 2024 (Image from Nydam Prints);

Tiny Galaxy, Day and Night, digital collage of elements scanned from rubber block prints by AEGNydam, 2024 (Images from Bittersweetness & Light).]