Rosemary Kirstein

The Con or Bust auction ends on Sunday May 3 at 4PM (I put my items up a little late…), so if you want to bid on any of the cool things over there, you have until then.

(And I forgot to mention — any of these can be autographed, if you like…)

First up:

A copy of the Brit edition of The Steerswoman.

The series now only exists in ebook form, but I have in my possession a number of hard copies from its print days.  This is the British edition of the first book.

Next up:

A nother copy of the Brit edition of The Steerswoman, but with a map of Rowan’s world, printed on handmade paper personally made by me and my personal hands.  I used to make paper by hand… it was fun but messy.  I haven’t done it in a while, but I still have some left from my previous production.  I find that the map looks cool on the rough-surfaced, deckle-edged white paper.  It’s printed on, not drawn by hand, but still looks nice.  It’s the map from Volume 4, The Language of Power, so contains some spoilers!

Next:

A copy of The Lost Steersman.

Again, hard copies of the books are hard to find, so if you want tangible non-e books, here’s your chance.

Then:

A copy of The Lost Steersman but with a little hand-bound blank journal.

It was while I was writing The Lost Steersman that I was also experimenting with paper-making.    I recycled printed drafts of the book into handmade paper, and  I intentionally left fragments of text visible in the finished pages, as random decorative inclusions.

There’s a little snail on the cover, edged in gold, in honor of the Little Snails, and the ribbon tie is old silk, in honor of Alemeth.

It’s a pretty thing, 20 pages.   The pages are rough-surfaced, and rather stiff.   They work well with colored pencil, fountain pen, dip pen, and felt tip. (Ballpoint does NOT work well!)  I include a couple of loose squares of the paper, so you can experiment with your writing and drawing implements.

Note to those of you south of the equator:  on this one, I pay for shipping anywhere in the world.   I can’t afford to do that for all the items — it’s crazily expensive.  But I thought I could manage it for one item, and this one is my favorite. I’ll use the least expensive method I can find, and it might take a while to reach you, but it will in the end. (If you’re from Down Under and you want one of the other books, maybe you have a northern pal I can mail it to, with whom you can make further arrangements on your own?)

And finally:

A hand-bound blank journal that I’ve decided to call “The Cloud Journal”.

None of this paper is handmade… but it’s just nice.

Cover is white and gray, reminiscent of clouds; end-papers are dark sliver-gray.  Darker than it looks in the photo — makes me think of starry nights.

The internal paper is what they call “parchment” when you buy it in the art store.

The embellishment on the cover was rescued from an old earring… so old that I  can’t recall if it really is abalone, mother of pearl and silver.   I’m pretty sure it is, but can’t swear to it.

So, that’s it, five items.

But don’t forget that Con or Bust has a lot of other offerings up for auction — books and handicrafts, and even manuscript critiques!   You should check them all out…

I’ve been making hand-bound blank journals for years. Back when I was writing The Lost Steersman, I got the idea to take it a step further, and tried making my own paper for the journals.

I made the paper out of recycled materials, and at that point, a lot of what I was recycling were printouts of early drafts of the The Lost Steersman.

At some point it occurred to me: instead of completely pulping the paper I was using, what if I kept some bits of shredded draft un-pulped? And let random words show up in the newly-made paper? How cool would that be?

Pretty cool, as it turned out.

But in the end, making my own paper was too time-consuming, and after a while I set it aside, and never used the pages I made.

The other day, I found them again. I wanted to do something special to donate to the Con or Bust auction, so Aha! said I.

Here’s the result:

click to embiggen

Ribbon is real silk, just like they make in Alemeth!

I love the way this turned out.

The book is 4 1/2 inches wide by 6 inches tall.    The shredded bits toss up random words within the paper.

mysterious fragments of words

I love the paper – it’s interestingly rumpled.    It works pretty well (if bumpily) with a fountain pen, but not well with a felt-tip.   I think a dip pen would work.   Ballpoint is not good at all. But colored pencils are very good — the paper has some bite to it.  I have not tried watercolors, but the paper has been treated to be not overly-absorbent.

What would YOU put in it?

So, hey — this could be yours.   Head over to the Con or Bust auction site and bid!

Also:  I’m including two loose squares of the same paper, so that you could test your writing implement or artistic medium before committing to marking the actual book.

And:  Bonus copy of The Lost Steersman itself!

All this for — well, you decide.

You can’t buy it here, you have to go to the Con or Bust Auction.

gold-trimmed little snail embellishment