Corvus Editions

Contr'un

Black and Red Feminism from 19th Century France

April 5, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m gathering material for a fairly major foray into the works of 19th century French feminists, including completing the translations of some of the responses to Proudhon. But every major foray has to start with some exploratory expeditions, and I’ve gathered up a first selection of work by Jeanne Deroin and Andre Leo to plug the project at the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair this weekend. Most of the material has appeared on this blog before, but this is the first time I’ve collected the various pieces. Read and distribute. Print and sell if you like. Pamphlet edition Pdf for onscreen […]
Contr'un

An update and a call

December 27, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m taking the next month or so to write (The Mutualist #2, and “The Anarchism of Approximations”), and to consolidate the lessons of the last year into some kind of routine, both for Corvus Editions and for my scholarly work. Over the next week, much of the Corvus shop will come down, to be replaced with improved content, reflective of the new print catalog I’m currently assembling. It looks like 2011 will start for me, with a new (part-time, unpaid) job, as curator and bookkeeper for a small cooperative retail space in Portland, within which Corvus and a number of […]
Corvus Editions

Corvus Editions: The Mission

November 27, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Corvus Editions is in the throes of yet another reinvention — something the current book trade makes necessary on a remarkably frequent basis — and this page will soon be updated to cover the movement of the project into the realm of print-on-demand publishing. But, for now, this last reimagining of the project will do nicely as an introduction to its goals and philosophy. Corvus Editions publishes memorable, if often forgotten, works of literature, history and philosophy, in attractive, sturdy, affordable hand-bound editions, made from recycled and reused materials. It is a micro-publishing enterprise, committed to supporting other microenterprises—particularly those […]
Contr'un

Corvus Editions interview at Making Change

October 5, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Corvus Editions is among the projects featured on the Making Change blog, which covers Etsy artists “who create with a political/environmental/social agenda,” and I’m sending some of my bottle-cap pins down to the Making Change store in Santa Monica, California. It’s an interesting adjustment, trying to make my projects intelligible in a world of brief “artist’s statements” craft categories, but it’s clear that in order for Corvus to survive, it’s going to be as important to reach people who are concerned with the survival of “real books,” as it is to promote the project in political circles. Much of my recent […]
Contr'un

For the well-adorned radical…

August 3, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
There are several bookfairs coming up, and while books and pamphlets are cool and all, it’s a well-known fact that the business really runs on buttons, stickers and t-shirts. As an ever-so-slight bucking of the trend, to repurpose a class of items I manage to collect in some quantity, and to fit the Corvus Editions aesthetic a bit better, I’ve opted to start the trinket-ing with a line of carefully antiqued bottle-cap pendants (which ordinarily keep craft fairs running). You can check out the first fifteen designs at the Corvus store.
Corvus Editions

Corvine Call: Hartmann the Anarchist

August 2, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
As promised, I’ve put together an edition of E. Douglas Fawcett’s Hartmann the Anarchist: handbound hardcovers, 4.25″ x 10.25″, printed on recycled farm-waste paper and covered in repurposed upholstery samples. Adding hardcover titles to the catalog has been a much-delayed milestone. (I still owe one friend a book ordered before there was a Corvus Editions.)  But one of the things about microenterprises is that they impose their own pace. In a one-person show, sometimes the next logical step turns out to involve a cascade of complications, and there’s generally nobody to help pick up the slack. In this case, the […]
Contr'un

Corvus Editions, the First 150 (+)

May 9, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Corvus Editions catalog passed the 150-title mark sometime over the weekend. Here’s the current list: LeftLiberty 1: The Unfinished Business of Liberty LeftLiberty 2: The Gift Economy of Property Mutualist 1: Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule The High Tide of Mutualism Songbird 1: Whisper Song of the Catbird Shawn P. Wilbur, Futurist Synthesis Shawn P. Wilbur, Dromologies/Pornologies Shawn P. Wilbur, What Means this Art Strike? Henry Addis, Essays on the Social Problem Stephen Pearl Andrews, Revisal of Kant’s Categories E. Armand, Mini-Manual of the Individualist Anarchist Louisa Sarah Bevington, An Anarchist Manifesto Ernest Howard Crosby, Golden Rules Jones, […]
come-outerism

Corvine Call #5: Devils, Details, Come-Outers and Non-Resistants

May 3, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
May is “Organize and Update Month” at Corvus Editions, in preparation for the summer book and paper fairs. There are four new pamphlets from the Non-Resistance and Come-Outer movement available now from Corvus Editions. Over the last few months, I have prepared a lot more material than I have uploaded and offered for sale, mostly because there has been a lot of behind-the-scenes organizing that needed to be done before operations could become anything like routine. I’ve resourced all my paper, in order to emphasize tree-free and post-consumer materials. I’ve added a couple of new formats—and have a couple more […]
Contr'un

DIY: Paper

April 13, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
As part of the process of developing my workflow for Corvus, I’ve been trying to find the best way to handle the fairly considerable amount of scrap paper which is generated by the publishing process. Printing errors, test printings, failed experiments, unused corners and ends–all of this stuff piles up, and there is a lot more of it as I start to experiment with handbinding and with formats other than the 8.5×5.5 pamphlet. I’m fortunate to have very good recycling options here, so presumably nothing need go to waste. But an awful lot of what is piling up in the […]
Contr'un

Taking Wing…Once Again

April 11, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
It’s been an up-and-down ride for Corvus Editions, in its first, exploratory year. But a combination of my growing confidence in the general soundness of the project and my growing dissatisfaction with the options have finally pushed me to “quit the day job” at Borders, and give Corvus another year—this time as a full-time business. I know things have been rather quiet on that front, as I’ve been reinventing myself and the business in a variety of ways. But I’ve been working steadily at new pamphlets, attending book-fairs, finding new supplier and honing some new skills. I expect the full […]