The Kessler Press Shop
N° 14Issue Fourteen · Quarterly
Magazine · Concept

the last letterpress in town

For fifty years, one shop has printed the wedding invitations, the funeral cards, and the small important things of a whole county. We spent a week in the ink.

In This Issue

Slow down. Look closer. The things worth keeping are made by hand.

A Photo Essay · From the Kessler Press Shop Floor
Fig. 1The shop, still open on a weekday morning.
Fig. 2Hand-setting a line of type, letter by letter.
Fig. 3Fifty years of trays, sorted by hand.
Table of Contents

In This Issue

01

The knife-maker who refuses to ship overnight

Tomas Kessler
The Craft
3,200 words
02

Ruth Ndiaye has repaired the same church organ for forty years

Dana Fowler
Profiles
2,800 words
03

In praise of things that outlive us

Eleanor Wray
Essays
2,100 words
04

The bakery that has never once changed its bread

Marcus Lind
The Table
2,400 words
05

Notes from a boatyard in the off-season

Priya Anand
Dispatches
1,600 words
06

What a 90-year-old fountain pen still does better

The Editors
The Archive
1,200 words
Issues

Back issues & the departments

A look inside the shop floor, the profiles, and the six departments that make up every issue.
About

Why Grain exists

The editors, the philosophy, and why we still print on paper.
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