Welcome to Show & Tell!

Dear Readers,

I've had this pretty low-key publishing project called Show & Tell Press for a few years now. I've been putting out my friend Sean's zine, Crap Hound and publishing the occasional one-off like Alien Boy. I also released this beautiful, limited edition print by Carson Ellis last year. I've been running it through my bookshop, Reading Frenzy. It's not that it's never occurred to me to start a website or blog, it's that there just hasn't been the time, or more accurately, I haven't found the time. Well, we've got more titles brewing this year than ever before and it's starting to feel like a separate venture that warrants its own identity and space. So here we are.

Show & Tell was one of my favorite things about my early elementary years. I caused occasional controversy by sneaking gold coins to school or showing all the 2nd graders the boobies on my Brazilian doll, but luckily I was allowed to continue to participate. Later I went on to excavate 100-year-old dumps and gather animal bones on the land surrounding my childhood home. My friends were not nearly as impressed with the pressed glass bottles and sheep's teeth as they were with my antique dolls and coins, but it didn't phase me -- these expeditions remain among my fondest childhood memories. Search and discovery had become an essential part of the process.

I've been able to fulfill this impulse for the past 15 years through Reading Frenzy -- a small, specialty shop devoted to independent, small press and self-published titles. I track down hundreds of new zine, comic and book titles down every year -- as well as dozens of artists whose work we exhibit -- and get to play show & tell with our patrons. Through the press I get to actually make things I love exist, which is a whole other level of excitement and fulfillment. You, dear reader, are an essential part as well. There's little point in having or showing if there's no one to share it with. You in turn can show & tell your friends and family the things you discover here. And I bet you have some neat things to share with me as well. I'm looking forward to it.

Your Faithful Proprietress,
Chloe