Fall Field Trip
Since the beginning of August, I've worked at W. W. Norton, a 90-year-old book publisher here in New York. A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail asking if I would be interested in attending a tour of paper mills in New England, on a trip sponsored by the Book Guild of NY. I was initially hesitant until I read the details: two weekdays off work, a bus trip through Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the middle of fall, an overnight stay, open bar and all meals for FREE. I'm so incredibly glad that I ignored my knee-jerk shut-in response of saying no to a trip with strangers because I ended up having a great time.
There were two fellow Nortonians (yes, that's what we call ourselves) on the trip, along with people from a variety of other publishing houses in New York. We left on Tuesday morning, and our first stop was lunch in Rhode Island. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to keep up my every-ten-minutes feeding schedule so I brought road trip snacks, but I never actually needed to break into my stash. We were so well fed that I actually began declining free snacks toward the end of the trip, and if you know me that might be hard to fathom.
We toured two Ecological Fibers facilities on Tuesday, one in Rhode Island and one in Massachusetts. They're actually a really interesting company, both in what they do (specialty paper manufacturing, embossing and finishing) and how they run their business (they have zero carbon footprint, use all water-based materials and have found ways to recycle everything). As a design and book nerd I found it all really fascinating, from the specialty colors that they produce (Tiffany, Cartier, Mont Blanc) to the variety of embossing patterns they have in their collection (nearly 200).
After the tours we checked into the super cute and New Englandy Wachusett Inn, where we all had our own rooms. Mine had an enormous bed, two TVs, two sinks, a kitchenette, fully stocked cabinets and a separate sitting room. It actually may have been one of the nicest rooms I've ever stayed in, and I felt as if I couldn't possibly do it justice by myself.
There was an open bar before dinner, where I stuck to Woodchuck cider because it felt like the fall thing to do. In the morning, I had a make-your-own waffle (which was actually made for me by a staff member?), which is really the best part of any hotel stay, in my fat opinion.
We boarded the bus again and headed to one more tour, at Dunn & Co., who introduced themselves as a the only "book hospital" in the world (their url is booktrauma.com). They're located in an amazing old factory building, and they do some pretty cool things with damaged or misprinted books. They do hardcover to paperback conversions, take weird smells out of books, de-warp covers, tip-in new pages and swap out bindings. Basically if you ever have a problem with a large quantity of books, you can send them to Dunn & Co. instead of scrapping them and starting all over again.
They shared some really innovative solutions to some crazy problems and it was really interesting to see it all in action. We saw hardcovers being ripped off books, additional pages being glued in and paperback covers being placed over the guts of excess hardcovers. I had no idea that a place like this existed, and the whole trip really gave me a greater appreciation for how much work and planning goes into the creation and production of a single book.
The fall scenery along I-95 was spectacular and we passed a lot of cute little towns that I'd love to go explore one day. I adore New York City, but I can imagine a time in the (distant) future when I'll welcome a move to New England, where I'll plant some mums, tie cornstalks to my porch columns and live happily ever after. Until then, I certainly won't consider passing up any free trips that way (or any way) ever again.