Author Virginia Mudd

DESERT ROSE PRESS

Late in 1985 I decided I wanted to make books. In previous years I had been involved in politics, education, catering, owning a restaurant, and a lot of biking. This making books idea emerged after the wonderful and completely fulfilling experience of writing and publishing my own story of biking across the United States with another woman in 1978 entitled Across America on the Yellow Brick Road.

I enrolled in the Book Arts program at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1987 to begin to learn my new craft. Following a year's study, I apprenticed with a leading Bay Area printer, and then a bookbinder before setting off with a moving van full of printing presses and equipment and other print shop necessities in northern New Mexico. While at Mills I gave a book report on Printing Poetry by a master printer, Clifford Burke, and was determined to get a signed copy. The short version of this wonderful story is that I got my book, I got a fabulous type collection and equipment from his own studio, AND the printer and I became married life partners.


Earth Day 1990 marked the beginning of Desert Rose Press. For more than fifteen years the printed works of the press—in the letterpress tradition as well as using modern printing techniques—in books, broadsides, and cards have expressed Clifford's and my passion for the craft of printing and bookmaking, and our greater vision of a healthy, peaceful Earth united in Spirit. Favorites pieces include The Heart Sutra, Desiderata and The Canticle of the Sun.