Welcome to Chickadee Chaps

Straight up: you’re gonzo for artisan cheese and craft beer, so why not pair it with small-batch, locally sourced literature?

Chickadee Chaps & Broads has cooked up Vermont Tapas-Lit: snack-sized books of intensely wonderful poetry all designed, letterpress printed, & sewn in tasteful limited editions.

Founded in 2011, our tiny micro-press specializes in locally grown and pressed poetry. And now that we’ve gotten the hang of bringing out annual editions of juried & illustrated, hand-printed poetry broadsides, we’re excited to publish this series of appetizer-sized books by Vermont authors.

First we baked and served our prototype chap: One Ton Crumb. Now we’re dishing up our first two official titles in the series.

However, Letterpress is not for the faint of heart—it is an art & craft. It involves proofreading upside down and backwards, twice, and measuring, and greasing all the working parts of the Vandercook, and printing every single page of every chap. By hand. Yep.

Why not just do an ebook and call it a day? Same reason you’re smearing that funky blue cheese on a cracker and washing it down with Heady Topper.

We believe in the artisanal process, in making something perfect to have and to hold; we believe in carefully crafted lit that fits in your pocket, a snack for moments when you need meaning to flavor your day, a sliver of cheeky wisdom, a smidgeon of sly insight, or just a hoo-daddy beautiful phrase.

The world has got enough schlock, ya? 

Time + the best ingredients + craft = we’ve made you something to savor.