CHESTERTOWN, MD—The husband and
wife behind Idiot Books are anything but idiots, of course. Writer Matthew
Swanson and illustrator Robbi Behr are smart, clever and wildly creative, and
those attributes will be on display when they visit Washington College for a
free, public talk on Tuesday, October 2. Their presentation, “Six Years In the Black: Running a Small Press,
Blurring the Lines Between Life and Art, and the Virtues of Creative
Impatience,” will begin at 4:30 p.m. at the College’s Rose
O’Neill Literary House, 407 Washington Avenue.
Swanson and Behr left their
big-city jobs in Baltimore and moved to Chestertown to launch a small,
independent press in 2006. Living and working out of a renovated barn, they create
mostly satirical, illustrated books on a wide range of topics from parenting to
politics, mostly for a group of subscribers.
Their work has been praised
by national media that include the New York Times, USA Today, New
York magazine, and Slate.com. Building
on their success with picture books for
grownups, they recently launched a children’s series,
Bobbledy Books, which will deliver books and songs to the hip younger set.
