Fortune Cookies. (First edition. 20-copy edition)

Fortune Cookies. (First edition. 20-copy edition)

Craig Jobson designer/printer, Lynn Sloan writer

Lark Sparrow Press

2019

Fortune Cookies Production Notes This 72-page, 5.5" x 12" collection of seven flash fiction stories was written by Lynn Sloan, and printed by book designer Craig Jobson at Lark Sparrow Press in Evanston, Illinois, copyright 2021. Each story highlights how a woman’s chance taken today, can be tomorrow’s unexpected fate. The completed book required over 26,000 pieces of hand-set Plantin and Univers typography and, 2,600 hand-printed pages using a Vandercook letterpress. Each book contains seven embossed images, 21 spot illustrations, handmade end sheets, 2nd color drop caps for each story, seven onset fortunes per book, and exposed-sewing-over-tapes-open-spine binding. Ten copies have digitally engraved bamboo covers. The book was in production for nearly three years.

The book began over coffee at a local cafe in Evanston, Illinois between two Columbia College Chicago colleagues. Lynn Sloan taught photography while writing short stories and novels. Craig Jobson taught “Publication Design” and “The History of Typography.” It was a combination of unusual talents that produced a book that will most likely be seen in special collection libraries and the shelves of fine press book collectors.

Craig Jobson