December bundle - American Amateur Press Association

Back in May, I joined the American Amateur Press Association, “a nationwide non-profit organization of amateur journalists founded in 1936. The purpose of the association is the promotion of amateur journalism and fellowship of amateur writers, editors, printers, and publishers; and the circulation of their work among the membership.”

Even though I’ve worked professionally as a reporter and columnist — for a daily general circulation newspaper in Massachusetts, a weekly business newspaper in Arizona and a couple of stringer gigs — most of my journalism career has been self-published websites/blogs and print newspapers.

For a lot of reasons: some family-related, some mental health-related and some ethics-related. (I’m mostly interest in investigative, accountability-driven political reporting, which has fallen out of favor at corporatized media in the last few decades, in part due to the rise of the Internet and the loss of advertising revenue.)

So, I was excited to learn about and then join this group of people who self-publish, using computers and electronic printers, but also using letterpress printing presses, and then share their work with each other each month in a monthly “bundle.” The bundle is a 6” by 9” envelope, stuffed with small publications — newsletters, postcards, bookmarks, calendars — delivered by the US Post Office.

When the Official Mailer sent out a call a few months ago asking for a replacement after she had put in six years on the job, I volunteered.

This month of December is my first month on duty, laying out the stacks, stuffing and sealing the envelopes, sticking on address labels and stamps and mailing them out.

---