Ep. 248: Duncan Birmingham and Two Covers

Bookbinder of the Week:

Duncan Birmingham is a paper artist/engineer/pop-up book artist with a large number of very good tutorials on YouTube called the Pop-up Channel. His instructions are clear, repeated, and simple to follow for even the most complex designs. Or dullest students such as myself. After watching some of Colette Fu’s work, I slipped over to Mr Birmingham’s channel to learn how to make pop-ups. He was quite instructive, detailed, and complete. His channel is a good place to start if you find yourself wanting to make pop-up books.

Bookbinding

I managed to sew another book; this time The Priests of Hiroshima. I now have two sewed books. I glued on the spine paper and mull.

I also made two covers for two books but have not yet cased them in. I’m so lazy, eh?

I experimented with the width of the spine piece and the gap between the spine and the book board; always a problem for me.

Fiction

I spent a goodly number of hours doing two things in fiction: Reading Moby Dick and Writing Growing Slurry. The former influences the latter. Obviously, I mean, a book written 170 years ago can hardly be influenced by a book yet to be finished. 

Gina & Sliven are the two main characters. They meet in a coffee shop and discover a mutual ‘like’ for Moby Dick. 

As they talk about it — and each other — stories emerge from their past.

Sliven is a retired forensic accountant. I’m still working on what Gina might be.

I also discovered a novel I started, thought about but never got past the first two chapters, and forgot.

It’s a violent revenge story titled, so far, Sister Amelia, Assassin. Being a victim herself, Amelia sets out to right wrongs, punish the bad people, and find help for the victims. 

She is a character from my just completed and edited novel Heart of November. This is her spin-off novel, her sister novel, her sequel novel. Her chance to grab the spot light!

I hope I finish it.