In 2018, I started looking at colleges. One of the colleges I focused on was the College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University (CSB+SJU) in St. Joseph, Minnesota. CSB+SJU was never high on my list, as it is my mother’s alma mater and was the college my sister attended. As an independent person, I did not want to attend a school where my name would be linked to my sister’s, and we would be compared. However, during my tour, my admissions officer offhandedly mentioned the Welle Book Arts Studio. This was the first time book arts had been brought to my attention. After that meeting, I researched the studio and the classes offered. I added a book arts program to the pro list for college and marked the absence of a book arts program as a con on all other schools. Ultimately, it was the book arts and German minors offered at CSB+SJU that made my decision.
I was one of two graduates with a minor in book arts in 2025. Through the program, I learned printmaking, letterpress, graphic design, completed an exhibit as part of my internship requirement, and sat in a few papermaking classes that went until 11:00 pm. After the papermaking classes, I was soaked, cold, and had to trudge through the winter snow back to my apartment, but I had never been happier. I would spend late nights in the letterpress studio, goofing off with the type and printing random posters.
One of my first posters of my favorite German phrase, “You have a Slappable Face.” Photo by Kathryn Schug
I took my first book arts class during the spring semester of my sophomore year. The class, Introduction to Letterpress & Design, was incredible. We were thrown into letterpress right away, given free rein of the studio and type cases. Playing with letter placement on the Vandercook pressbed was exciting. Letterpress was the first art form I felt I was good at and could claim I was “artistic.”
Sophomore year was also when I took my first college-level creative writing class and learned there was more to poetry than strict rhyming schemes and iambic pentameter. I learned about Acrostic, Ghazal, Villanelle, Free Verse, and many more types of poetry. My favorite poems to write are Free Verse, but especially poems that play with the page. Rearranging letters and words, I immediately saw the connection to letterpress. It was easier for me to take the words I wanted in my poem and rearrange them on a pressbed. I did not have to fight the automatic capitalization or layout restraints in Word; I could freely place my words where and how I wanted them.
Spread from my artist book Hi Low. Photo by Kathryn Schug
Artist books became my main focus in book arts. Every aspect of my artist books would deepen the meaning of my words, and I enjoyed having complete control over my creative project. For my final semester of college, an advanced section of the letterpress class was created for the two students receiving a book arts minor in 2025. We were given free rein over our projects and worked with our professor to create our curriculum. For my final project, I created my third artist book with three of my poems. It was a special project to me as it was the first time I wrote about living with Type 1 Diabetes. It was the hardest project I did at the time, both emotionally and in terms of scale, but it is the artist book I am proudest of.
Halfway through the project, I was notified that two of my poems had been selected for publication by theMid-Atlantic Review for their “Amplifying Disabled Voices” section. The book became so much more special to me. I love looking at my artist book, Hi Low, as it holds my first published poems. One of the poems, “32,” was printed in the Mid-Atlantic Review 2025 anthology just a few months ago.
The link between creative writing and artist books is my favorite part of book arts, and both work together to keep me inspired.
Kathryn Schug (she/her) is a writer and book artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She works as a Historic Interpreter/Youth Specialist at the Edina Historical Society. As a recent book arts minor graduate, Schug is exploring affordable ways to practice book arts at home.
