Mutual aid, artist book publishing
OK Stamp Press commissions & publishes collaborative projects, writing & miscellany.
All proceeds invested in reader communities.
Upcoming
Happy Spring, book nerds. Meet us at Multiple Formats!
OK Stamp Press is driving down to Boston on March 20th to participate in this year’s Multiple Formats book fair! It’s been a couple of years since we were there, so this will be a nice reunion with kindred book makers, educators, and zine folks.
Multiple Formats part symposium and part book fair. March 20th and 21st take place at Boston Centre for the Arts, and the tabling day is 22nd March at Boston University School of Visual Arts.
We are tabling for mutual aid, as always, and we are ensuring donations land on both sides of the so-called 49th parallel. Amidst tarif threats, trade wars, and harmful legislation, local organizations and community groups are there to support. We will table our stock to support them in Boston, Montreal, and the towns we pass through on the way to the fair!
OK Stamp Press will distribute the below stock, including a reprint of Stephane Landry’s Flailing Through the Light. We will also launch our head- and heart-project, Letter Webs, which we have been working on slowly and steadily since our discussion panel at Volume, the Montreal Art Book Fair, in 2023. Friends of the press and extended connections have donated letters to accompany a transcript of the past conversation about sending letters to incarcerated friends and family and the logistics of navigating harmful, capitalist systems that feed off of the prison-industrial complex. We’re excited to bring this project to you, at last.
Can’t come to Boston? We’re coming to other fairs in the future! Meanwhile, you can reach us via IG on @okstamppress or via email: okstamppress [@] gmail.com
Past Events
Happy November, everyone,
And we know what that means: it’s Expozine month!
If you are in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal, come along this weekend to have a look at this great list of events and co-contributors.
Important information:
Expozine 2024
- Église Saint-Arsène, 1025 Bélanger, fully accessible with gender neutral bathrooms
- Saturday November 23: 12:00 to 19:00
- Sunday, November 24: 12:30 to 19:00 OK Stamp Press will be tabling on Saturday the 23rd, only.
In addition to our usual table of projects from our catalogue, including our most recent project As Ever, Miriam, with Faythe Levine, we will be selling copies of An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping! This is a beautiful, collaborative book conceived, edited, designed and published by Thick Press, based in the US. We will also have some poems to give out thanks to Stephane Landry, who is printing a second run of his book of poetry, Flailing Through the Light.
So please stop by to chat about mutual aid publishing, look at some lovely books, and see what other surprises we may have in store.
Image credit: @labricot
It’s October and Volume: the Montreal Art Book Fair is coming up! OK Stamp Press will be tabling on the weekend but also participating again in some of this year’s programming.
We are launching our epistolary book project with Faythe Levine, As Ever, Miriam, and presenting it alongside other art/ist book publishers in a panel hosted by Concordia University Press, taking place on 3 October. We have a lot to say about independent and slow publishing and a beautiful example in Faythe’s book.
Full event details via this link, with some basics below:
+ 3 October 2024, 2:00-3:30pm
+ 4TH Space, 1400 de Maisonneuve, Montreal, or via their event zoom+ panelists from: FOFA Gallery, Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery,
Concordia University Press,Centre for Expanded Poetics, yours truly.
Hope to see you there and talk about book things, which are all the things.
OK Stamp Press invites you to the launch of Stephane Landry’s collection of poetry, Flailing Through the Light.
📆 17 September 2024
⏱️ 17.00 – 18.30
📍 @cu4thspace, 1400 Maisonneuve Blvd W
🏙️ Tiohtia ke/Montreal
🧃 Light refreshments will be served
A crisp and vivid collection of over fifty poems, this is Stéphane Landry’s first volume of published works and OK Stamp Press’ first single-author collaboration. A Montréaler, based in Rosemont, Landry penned these poems during a period of transition in his life. Offering glimpses of masculinity, love, anger, despair, and beauty, each poem—often penned in a small notebook whilst going about daily life—carefully considers its linguistic indexes and form on the page. A known figure in Montreal’s music scene, we are pleased to bring his poetry to new and existing readers. Copies available at the launch or see our website to order.
Stéphane Landry is a former journalist and radio host. In addition to writing poetry, he also works as an educator in labour protocols, gets his fingers dusty digging for records, and drops crunchy music write-ups on Instagram as @plasticpalaceperson. He joined OK Stamp Press in 2022 as their occasional French-language editor and proofreader.
OK Stamp Press goes to the Poetry Festival!
Find us launching our first poetry collection and first solo author collaboration, Flailing Through the Light, by Stéphane Landry, at this year’s Festival de la poésie de Montréal! We will share a table with Montreal veterans Expozine at:
Marché de la poésie
Saturday 1st June 11:00 – 20:00
* meet the poet between 15:00 and 18:00 *
Sunday 2nd June 11:00 – 17:00
Location: the square just outside Mont Royal Metro (460 ave du Mont-Royal Est).
Landry is a Montréal-local who is constantly writing poems or fragments of observations in a small notebook. Flailing Through the Light is a vivid collection of over fifty poems from his archives, which capture a period of transition in his life. The poems offer glimpses of masculinity, love, anger, despair, and beauty, each considering its indexes and formatting on the page.
We will be distributing copies of Flailing Through the Light and other poetic OK Stamp Press things according to our mutual aid model. Landry chose to direct proceeds from his book to Open Door Books and Réseau d’information pour la réussite éducative (RIRE). Other OK Stamp Press projects will sell to support Palestinian solidarity efforts.
OK Stamp Press x Volume 6
We are excited to return to Volume, the Montreal Art Book Fair, for a second year in a row. Visit us and this fantastic list of co-exhibitors this weekend at Casa d’Italia, 505 Rue-Jean Talon E. OK Stamp Press will be there Saturday, only, 14 October 2023 from 12noon – 6pm EST. Free entry.
As you may know, we are a mutual aid project. All our books have suggested price-points, which guide donations to organisations, communities or individuals who need support. During the fair you can either make a donation using your phone, or we will collect your donation (cash or e-transfer) and send the sum to Palestinian civilian relief and local food banks in Tiohtia’ke/Montreal.
You can learn more about events associated with this year’s Volume fair here. We will be making updates from our IG feed: @okstamppress
OK Stamp Press x Volume 5
OK Stamp Press will be at Volume 5 Montreal Art Book Fair this year! Find our name amongst a stellar and kindred list of exhibitors. And visit us on Sunday, 2 October between 11am – 6pm EST at SAT in Montreal.
Not in town? Busy on Sunday? Come along to our programmed event on Thursday 29 September at 7pm EST (on zoom)! Details on the Volume 5 website. We’d love to welcome you to our round-table about letter writing and mutual aid. Join us, bring a letter, and consider sharing it during a collective reading (sign up for reading encouraged but not required).
We will surely be posting book fair moments on our IG: @okstamppress
OK Stamp Press is a fluctuating collective of folks who believe in creating inclusive spaces for sharing language, ideas and creative energy.
The baseline of this project is an annual publication conceived/or mentored by the core OK Stamp team and brought to dissemination-stage in exchange for evidence of donations to local charities in the reader-collector’s community. As such, OK Stamp always operates from a core of accountability for the land upon which it creates as well as that of its readers.
When time, energy, funding and desires align, OK Stamp is also a mentoring structure, a collective for words, and an education.
It focuses on supporting emerging writers, editors, writers, printers and designers gain experience in publishing and disseminating their work. Each project is a series of relationships that shape the final outcome to suit the needs of those involved and their constituencies. OK Stamp accomplishes a dual task: generating publishing records that open-up funding opportunities for contributors; bringing considered cultural work into your hands.
We use a mutual aid model for book and zine making that mobilises support in reader communities. All reader donations go to communities of their choice.
OK Stamp Press was initiated by maya rae oppenheimer in 2020.
M. Wright joined the press as co-director, in 2022. But really, she was involved all along.
Credit Roll
Our editors and content contributors
Our book designers, authors + editors
[see individual book projects for details and contact information]
Design Lab — Concordia University
For putting us in touch with our book designers, year after year.
maya rae oppenheimer (phd) is the founder and co-director of OK Stamp Press. She’s also a daughter, sister, aunt, plant-mother of Icelandic and Canary Islander descent who receives joy and financial remuneration as an arts writer/researcher/educator. She was born in Treaty 1 territory and spent over a decade living in London (UK). maya is now an uninvited guest on Kanien’kehá:ka territory where she preoccupies herself with writing as a social practice and the tangles of narratives that inform our worldviews. Experimental writing, performance, radical pedagogy, open-access publishing, DIY tactics and rogue archival gestures make up her tool-kit. maya joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University in September 2017 as Assistant Professor in Art History and is now active in the Department of Studio Arts.
M. Wright is co-director of OK Stamp Press. As a book designer and typographer, she has built a creative practice over the past 20 years that is rooted in collaborations with artists and cultural institutions, including museums, galleries, and academic publishers. Her book design work has received awards from the Type Directors Club, Print magazine, the American Association of Museums, the New York Book Show, the Chicago Book Clinic, and AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers. She is co-founder, with Kate Jarboe, of the queer-feminist art & design collective AK/OK, whose socially engaged artwork has been exhibited internationally. She is currently an affiliate associate professor at Concordia University, and holds an MFA in Visual Communication Design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an AB in Comparative Literature from Princeton University with a concentration in French literary translation.
Stéphane Landry joined OK Stamp Press in 2022 as their occasional French-language editor and proofreader. In addition to helping initiatives with their grammar – using his former journalist and radio-host chops – he also works as an educator in labour protocols, gets his fingers dusty digging for records, and drops crunchy music write-ups on Instagram. You can look forward to a poetry collection coming from Stéphane in the not too distant future. Follow him @plasticpalaceperson.
Catherine Toews provides digital & design support to OK Stamp Press. Tulip Tree Creative is Catherine’s one-woman design studio & small business, specializing in websites, branding & digital marketing for small businesses, creators and nonprofits. FLORA editions is the artistic branch of Tulip Tree Creative, a collection of archival quality art cards featuring Catherine’s botanical & portrait drawings.
Publications
To acquire one of our books, please:
- We are a mutual aid book project: we ask that you donate the recommended price of the book you want to a local charity, non-profit, or individual in your community that needs support. Once you have donated, please email us (okstamppress [@] gmail.com) with your name, address, and book title, and we will mail you the book(s)!
- If you are not sure where to donate, we are happy to share suggestions. We keep a list of consented recipients for each publication, put forward by our contributors.
- Keep an eye on the mail! And feel free to let us know what you think of the book or this project. We are always open to feedback and pitches.
As Ever, Miriam
“Partridge and Frink haven’t been entirely forgotten nor erased like so many others, but there is still a lack of visibility and understanding about their personal dynamics and professional impact… While doing my research, I found nearly every component in their papers compelling: more often than not, a single document prompted an entirely new string of questions…
“Since I initially thought I would be writing a version of their biographies or possibly a historical narrative, I was looking through as much content as possible. Over time, I realised that, for my own mental health, and in order to pull something shareable out of my research, it was necessary to create a smaller framework for myself. I flipped my vision from the macro to the micro.”— Faythe Levine “Introduction: A Habit of Curiosity,” As Ever, Miriam
$30 CAD/ $25 US + tax
We are currently sold out of International Stock, news coming soon for more US distribution!
To acquire a copy you have a few options:
+ in Canada: visit Drawn & Quarterly either in person or online; make a $30 CAD donation to a local organisation in your area, in your name, and then email okstamppress [@] gmail.com with your name and mailing address.
+ in the US: make a $25 US donation to Cactus+ or Kite’s Nest (Faythe’s donation picks) or a local organisation in your area, in your name, and then email okstamppress [@] gmail.com with your name and mailing address.
Please direct any ordering questions to maya at okstamppress [@] gmail.com.
Researched, transcribed, collected, and introduced by Faythe Levine, this book centres the relationship and lives of Charlotte Russell Partridge (1882–1975) and Miriam Frink (1892–1978). Based on extensive archival and secondary research involving books, magazines, newspapers, and interviews, Levine brings readers into the work of connecting archival traces to tell stories about past lives. The book presents a collection of epistolary sign-offs from Frink’s letters to Partridge across the decades of their working and personal relationship. Levine takes time to provide extensive footnotes that bring context to these brief but rich archival excerpts. She includes reflections on quotidian details, vernacular translations, historical references, photographs, and information about the pair’s contributions to the arts and art education in early to mid-20th century Milwaukee and beyond.
Levine’s text suits a methodical reader as well as a casual browser. Noteable, however, is her introduction that positions her personal and kindred relationship to the lives she encounters through her letter-based research. Levine is currently based in upstate New York but has spent twenty years of her adult life living and working in Wisconsin. She has a career engaging with archives and collections through a queer feminist lense that spans
decades.
As Ever, Miriam would interest readers connected to art education, queer archival methods, twentieth-century history, and anything related to correspondence and biography.
- Publication Date: October 2024
- Author: Faythe Levine
- Designer: M. Wright
- Editor: maya rae oppenheimer
- Printer: BookArt
- Distributed by OK Stamp Press
- Format: Perfect-bound softcover with gatefold pull-out, 122 pages
Flailing Through the Light
A crisp and vivid collection of over fifty poems, this is Stéphane Landry’s first volume of published works and OK Stamp Press’ first single-author collaboration. A Montréaler, based in Rosemont, Landry penned these poems during a period of transition in his life. Offering glimpses of masculinity, love, anger, despair, and beauty, each poem—often penned in a small notebook whilst going about daily life—carefully considers its linguistic indexes and form on the page. A known figure in Montreal’s music scene, we are pleased to bring his poetry to new and existing readers.
Stéphane Landry is a former journalist and radio host. In addition to writing poetry, he also works as an educator in labour protocols, gets his fingers dusty digging for records, and drops crunchy music write-ups on Instagram as @plasticpalaceperson. He joined OK Stamp Press in 2022 as their occasional French-language editor and proofreader.
Recommended minimum donation price:
$20 CAD
sold out, reprint pending
- Publication Date: May 2024
- Designer: M Wright + maya rae oppenheimer
- Printer: BookArt
- Editor: maya rae oppenheimer
- Conceived and distributed by OK Stamp Press
méli-mélo MAUREEN party mix
This project is what it says it is! A delicious mix of writing, images, and things in between. Developed in conversation with the MFA Program’s student association at Concordia University, this project accompanied the annual graduate student group exhibition “Maureen”. Each contributor has a different size and textured paper to accompany their work, and readers can browse the collection using different indexes: artist name, keyword, or a dip-in-and-out approach for party-mix enthusiasts. It’s all wrapped up in a suitably shimmering cover.
Recommended minimum donation price:
$25 CAD
Send documentation of a donation to a local cause of your choice along with a shipping address, and we will mail you a copy.
- Publication Date: 2023
- Designer: M. Wright
- Printer: ADC Communications
- Editor: maya rae oppenheimer
- Contributors: Émilie Allard, Pedro Barbáchano, Gabor Bata, Mylène Boisvert, Colin Canary, Gem Chang-Kue, Joni Cheung aka Snack Witch, Étienne de Massy, Kuh Del Rosario, Katia Gosselin, Seyedehzahra Hosseini, Christy Kunitzky, selina latour, Lindsay Lion Lord, Alli Melanson, Hei Lam Ng, Cassie Paine, Kelsey Dawn Pearson, Sabina Rak, Laurel Rennie, Daniel Rumbolt, Megan Tamara Stein
- Conceived and distributed OK Stamp Press and MFASASA
Epistolary Webs:
A Transcript of a Roundtable Conversation
Epistolary Webs: A Transcript of a Roundtable Conversation is a zine that circulates the perspectives shared at an event hosted by OK Stamp Press for Volume 5, in 2022. The contributing guests share their knowledge and perspectives on solidarity work with friends and community members. From how to correspond, advocate, and share stories with incarcerated people, this text is a learning resource and a generosity. The transcript will also feature in the upcoming Epistolary Webs book collection that features a range of donated letters and letter-shaped things from kindreds around the world (forthcoming December 2023).
Recommended minimum donation price:
$15 CAD
Send documentation of a donation to a local cause of your choice along with a shipping address, and we will mail you a copy.
- Publication Date: December 2022
- Designer: M. Wright
- Printer: OK Stamp Press
- Editor: maya rae oppenheimer
- Contributors: Mark Menjivar, Scott Odierno, Maggie Smith, maya rae oppenheimer, M. Wright
- Conceived and distributed by OK Stamp Press
drifts
A limited edition artist/writers’ book, drifts is designed to support the very action named in its title. Hand bound with unique foldouts, page cuts and spacious typography, the creative and critical writing is an eponymous invitation. Published in a non-hierarchical format, each engagement is akin to an invitation to consider positionality, relationships to land and city, and writing as a gesture of physical or embodied drifting. Handbound.
Recommended minimum donation price:
$35 CAD
Send documentation of a donation to a local cause of your choice along with a shipping address, and we will mail you a copy.
- Publication Date: May 2021
- Book Designers: Kassandra Lévesque-Wong; Antua Handal; Daniel Cortes
- Printer: Le groupe Quadriscan + handbound by designers and contributors
- Contributing Editors + Project Coordinators: Georgia Philips-Amos; Stephanie Hornstein; María Castañeda-Delgado
- Assistant Editor and Contributor: maya rae oppenheimer
- Design Mentor: M. Wright
- Contributors: Austin Henderson; Patricia Pérez Rabelo; Alexandra Nordstrom; Amelia Wong-Mersereau; Polina Lasenko; Jeanne Marceau; Jolee Smith; Laurence Charlebois; Noémie Fortin
- Showcased in the group exhibition: “The Space-Between,” Department of Design and Computation Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University (June 2021)
- Conceived and distributed by OK Stamp Press
Re-enactment Recipes
Re-enactment Recipes gathers essays, photographs, drawings and creative writing in the form of recipes. These are recipes in an expanded sense: imagined sets of instructions, lists, and conceptual ingredients enrich this book, which does more than cook your weekday meal. In its pages, twenty-two emerging writers and artists share instructions for meals remembered and commentary on food, community and nourishment.
Recommended minimum donation price:
$25 CAD
Send documentation of a donation to a local cause of your choice along with a shipping address, and we will mail you a copy.
- Publication Date: January 2020
- Book Designers: Lydia Carignan, Auguste Courvoisier, Justine Provost, Unna Regino
- Printer: Le groupe Quadriscan
- Editor and Contributor: maya rae oppenheimer
- Design Mentor: M. Wright
- Project Coordinator + Contributor: Elizabeth Sanders
- Contributors: Davika Khurana; Jeanne Gourd; Francine Chimpen-Carrillo; Liyang Shi; Noel Madrid; Tania Marques; Jolen Maclean; Jack Paisley; Victoria Gray; Kate Nugent; Daisy Duncan; Alaina Perez; Catherine Leblanc; Pashka Paskulin; Morgane Lecocq-Lemieux; Sophie Wonfor; Allison Figueroa-Rojas; Jessica Turcotte; Sony Cody; Helen Park; Doug Dumais
- 2019 winner of the Design + Community Engagement, Department of Design and Computation Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University
- Conceived and distributed by OK Stamp Press.
where to find us
In addition to distributing via our website, you can find OK Stamp Press projects in the following excellent spaces:
Libraries and archives
Consignment
We have a short list of independent and artist run centre bookshops who share our commitments to keeping reading a community-centred activity.
Annual fairs
We are always popping up in new places, but here are some regular fairs we attend.
- Expozine : 2022
- Volume Montreal Art Book Fair : 2022, 2023
- Festival de la poésie de Montréal : 2024
Get in touch.
For questions, project ideas, and musings, please send us an email.
To request a copy of one of our publications, please fill out our book order form and include documentation of a donation to a local cause of your choice along with a shipping address.