Call for Participation:
The Broadside Project
What Matters: Broadsides from Alaska is a collection of editioned broadsides created by Northwoods
Book Arts Guild (NBG) in partnership with 49 Writers and The Folk School Fairbanks (TFS). Each
broadside combines poetry with visual imagery and text printed on fine paper using a letterpress or
cylinder press. The project will be completed, documented in a catalog published by Northwoods
Press, and ready for exhibition in 2028.
WHAT IS A BROADSIDE?
A broadside is a single sheet of paper printed on one side, integrating text and image. Broadsides
are the historic forerunners of newspapers, advertisements, song sheets, and manifestos, each
printed quickly and cheaply in order to achieve widespread and timely distribution. One would
typically find broadsides tacked onto walls, fences, bulletin boards – almost any vertical surface – in
public spaces. Today the humble broadside has become a vibrant form of expression. As fine art
prints, usually editioned, they are often created collaboratively by poets and artists with great
attention to the combined processes of printing the text and integrating the image.
The Broadside Project
What Matters: Broadsides from Alaska, launched at the January 2026 Program Meeting. The project
will take place over the following (approximately) 3 years with members joining the project and
creating their broadsides during the first 2 years, and completing their editions, publishing a catalog,
and preparing for exhibition during the project’s third year.
The title for this project, What Matters: Broadsides from Alaska, invites poets and artists to consider
topics and imagery pertinent to our home state of Alaska. The skills of artist, poet, designer, and
printer are needed on each Broadside Team; this may be as few as two participants, or more
depending on desired levels of participation and complexity of the design. Each team will create an
edition of 36 broadsides.
Images created for the broadsides may encompass a range of techniques, including relief printing,
pochoir, collagraph, linocut, painting, collage, etc. Photographs, digital printing, and AI-generated
images are not permitted.
Printing the texts also offers choices. Texts may be handset for letterpress printing or digitally
formatted for making polymer plates at Boxcar Press. They will be printed either at our NBG
letterpress shop or at the Folk School print shop.
A global statement at the bottom will identify each broadside with this project. Broadsides will be
numbered and hand-signed by both poet (when possible) and artist.
Project participants will work individually, as teams, and together as SIGs to learn about the many
aspects of this project. This may include:
• SIG meetings focused on designing layout, image making, font and point size decisions,
setting text (hand setting or polymer plates produced by Boxcar Press)
• workshop offerings (for a fee) specific to image-making techniques and printing
possibilities at NBG and TFS
• individual consultations
From the completed editions of 36 broadsides, artists and poets will each receive two copies at the
end of the project. Broadside teams will decide how to distribute artist proofs. Three sets of each
broadside will be encased and archived by NBG, with sets offered to UAF’s Rasmuson Library, and
The Poetry Center at the University of Arizona; the remaining copies will be sold with proceeds going
to NBG.
Poets and artists will contribute a participation fee of $40 each to help cover expenses. Major
support, however, will be funded through an appeal for patrons to cover the greater costs of fine
printing papers, inks and other printing supplies, individual backing and packaging for final
broadsides, casement construction for three archived sets, and the catalog.
There will be opportunities to share the progress of The Broadside Project with the greater NBG and
49 Writers communities through NBG newsletters and program meetings. The finished collection will
be celebrated in 2028 at the University of Alaska Museum of the North as part of their In Our Own
Perspectives series of exhibitions.
The Broadside Project officially launched on March 31, 2026. From that point forward participants are
welcome to join the project anytime through June 2027. Deadline for completion of broadsides and
artist statements is October 15, 2027. Packaging and catalog production will take place in November
and December 2027.
For more detailed information:
Broadside Guidelines
Poetry Submission Guidelines
Info Sheet: What Matters
49 Writers Flier
