St Brigid Press is a letterpress print shop in the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Virginia. Emily Hancock is proprietor and printer. St Brigid Press was born out of a passion for language: Emily Hancock has been reading and writing poetry since she was in elementary school, and worked as a bookseller for Stone Soup Books and Cafe in Waynesboro, Virginia for 6 years (where she still leads the monthly poetry gathering).
In the Autumn of 2011, that life-long love of classic and contemporary literature began to discover its unique expression through the handcrafts of traditional letterpress printing and bookbinding. As she slowly acquired antique printing presses, type, and equipment, she studied the centuries-old techniques with master printers, through deep reading in the field, and a Winter Residency in Letterpress at Penland School of Crafts.
