Loved to Pieces article. Hand holding magazine.
This question is inspired by @besslovejoy.bsky.social’s fantastic story in the fall issue on tattered book treasures. www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/autumn...
Tell me your well loved book tales! I’m collecting options for our reader comments in the winter issue.
Some new reporting on the oldest cave art in North America, climate change & a community that doesn't want to return a human made lake to its natural state because it irrigates a golf course www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/10/31/p...
Guidelines for contributing to future issues are here, and I definitely encourage writers to explore what the magazine is about before pitching! If you don't have the funds to buy an issue, just send me an email and I can share information www.finebooksmagazine.com/writing
Cover of Fine Books & Collections magazine with a black and white photo of a woman standing among ruins
If you want to read all about why cemetery ledgers matter, the people keeping metal type making alive, the joys of collecting well-worn books, medieval fragmentology & much more, pick up the fall issue of @finebooks.bsky.social , edited by me! store.finebooksmagazine.com/autumn-2025/...
Pete's Mini Zine Fest: September 20, 2025, 2pm-7pm, Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn
If you want to lift your spirits by having a drink & perusing excellent zines, the Pete's Mini Zine Fest is tomorrow at Pete's Candy Store hosted by Quimby's! I'll be bringing my zines on cemeteries, manhole covers, spirit photography & more. www.instagram.com/p/DOtlLgVEZx...
Ex Libris of Pete Hamill in a book
Title page for Live at the Village Vanguard by Max Gordon with inscription by Gordon to Hamill
Delightful surprise to open a Brooklyn Public Library book & find it was once Pete Hamill’s! (And inscribed to him by Max Gordon of the Village Vanguard.) Love that this is just part of the circulating collection.
I don't think Lee Hays has got his due as compost burial pioneer, with his last wishes for his ashes to be mixed with a compost pile. He even wrote a farewell poem about it: "If I should die before I wake, / All my bone and sinew take: / Put them in the compost pile / To decompose a little while.
This is just a sampling, but especially grim & depressing are the ones pitching my own articles, this one about poisonous books, to me.
I remember getting two pitches from this "author" this year & naively responded to the first until there was a weird question about Paypal payments. But I feel like this is only the tip of what most editors are seeing of AI pitches, it's such a waste of time & burying everything else
#SundayReads: For more than half a millennium, the dance of death in European visual art has imagined a tango between the quick and the dead. @AllisonCMeier explores: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/our-mortal-waltz-the-dance-of-death-across-centuries
Some new reporting by me on the preservation of Black churches
Just want to celebrate that the NYPL Performing Arts Library has an incredible offering of album liner notes that you can examine in their research collections! Saved me a lot of time/money tracking things down.
Yeah! $200-600 depending on length/reporting needs.
I've spent much of this year on a Folk Art Museum project rethinking biographies for "outsider" artists & I'm proud these are now coming online! It was inspiring in this time of undervaluing human creativity to commune with those who made their own paths collection.folkartmuseum.org/search/meier
I’m always looking for new writers & ideas at allison@finebooksmagazine.com! Tell me your timely tales about rare books and ephemera
Hand holding a magazine titled Fine Books & Collections with a woman driving a car on the cover
The summer issue of @finebooks.bsky.social I edited is out, with tales of literary Portugal, people who love endpapers, poisonous books, Route 66 maps & more! Get a copy now in beautiful print www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue
That’s comic books editor Julius Schwartz buried in Queens! www.findagrave.com/memorial/837... I did indeed include him in my NYC epitaphs zine www.etsy.com/listing/1437...
Never not a weird time to promote projects these days but I am proud of this brand new Modernist NYC Map I authored for Blue Crow Media! Has over 50 sites for you to wander actoss the five boroughs bluecrowmedia.com/products/mod...
Did some reporting on very old house news
The Matta-Clark roses are now blooming!
I didn't intend for this account just to become a monthly bulletin board of happenings for me, but scrolling has taken a toll in these days...
This Thursday my online deep dive on cemetery symbols begins! We'll discover the ancient rites, memento mori meaning, and often overlooked art of how we express the afterlife on our graves. Join live or on your own time: www.morbidanatomy.org/classes/p/sp...
I also spent far too long last night figuring out how to have a working website menu on mobile so you can also find all my upcoming events, online and in person, through June here! allisoncmeier.com/cemetery-tou...
Cemetery walk season returns this weekend! I'm leading the spring tree wander at Green-Wood in Brooklyn, hopefully giving time to think about our connections to trees and death www.green-wood.com/event/buds-a...
From this weekend: the manhole covers of New Orleans!
As long as I’m around there will always be more weird storytelling events ahead!
Green square with text for the Goblin Market by Interesting Editions: March 21-30, with text from Christina Rossetti's poem
This Saturday night! I'm leaving my home to co-host a storytelling event at Chinatown Soup as part of the Goblin Market. Please join & bring any tales you would like to share of Uncanny Journeys. My zines will also be among the market's wares from March 21-30 www.eventbrite.com/e/goblin-mar...
If you want to join any of my spring cemetery happenings, in person in Brooklyn and Buffalo to talk trees and grave history, and online to talk symbolism, I have a new newsletter for you mailchi.mp/ab8d89c57e2d...
I love a glimpse of the human hand behind marvels!
