So I’m folded up inside my tool chest like an origami Sasquatch with the lid closed (don’t ask), and I can hear Roy Underhill come into the “The Woodwright’s Shop” to begin the episode.
His voice is muffled through the 7/8”-thick pine, but I can hear him introduce the program.
“And… darn it,” Roy says. “Four seconds in to the show and I cut myself.”
Somehow Roy has brushed against one of my panel saws, and the blood is trickling out. He begins the program again without the aid of a bandage. So I got a souvenir: Two drops of St. Roy’s blood on the inside of my tool chest.
I will start the bidding at $50 per drop of certified Roy Underhill blood.
This post might not seem like it’s about woodworking. But really, it is.
For almost 10 years, I worked with Linda Watts, who was the art director for Popular Woodworking Magazine and the ill-fated Woodworking Magazine. She came to us on the recommendation of Nick Engler, who had hired her for his company, Bookworks. It was Bookworks that published the Workshop Companion series of books, which were crazy runaway bestsellers in the how-to category of books.
Before that, Linda had been the founding designer for Hands On! magazine at Shopsmith.
Which is to say that no one I know has more experience with woodworking publishing than Linda Watts. She was publishing woodworking magazines and books when I was still in (ahem) puberty.
And I know why she has been in the business for so long. She is pure backbone – my highest compliment. (What does that make me? The spleen, I think.)
In publishing, it’s always the designers who have to make up for the late authors and the slow editors, photographers and illustrators. In the 10 years I worked with Linda, we never missed a press deadline as far as I know. And the reason was that Linda would work like a demon to ensure every story was laid out, looked good and was press-ready.
When I twice said I wanted to redesign the magazine, Linda didn’t blink or even raise her eyebrows. She just did it – without the help of expensive outside consultants. And every time she reworked her previous design work, she managed to make it look even better.
She is impeccably organized and neat – as is her design work. My cubicle was next to hers for many years, and I always felt like the Oscar Madison to her Felix Unger.
But most of all, Linda was always unflappable. She took withering criticism without as much as a twitch. She never complained about her work load, the fact that editors rarely met deadlines or our questionable grammar (she’s a damn-good copy editor, too).
So today was a hard day for all of us who know Linda.
F+W Media Inc. laid her off during a company reorganization. Her last day is Friday, so a bunch of Popular Woodworking employees and alums took her out to lunch today. Through most of the lunch the group kept up with some lighthearted chatter. But as we neared the end of the meal, the table fell silent for Linda to speak.
She couldn’t. She started a couple times and managed to say: “When I moved down here you guys became my family. I feel like I’m losing my family.”
My drive home from that lunch was tough. I can’t believe that someone as skilled and easy to work with could ever be laid-off, dismissed or fired. If it weren’t for Linda, Popular Woodworking Magazine would not be the fine publication that it is today. It might not have actually come out seven times a year if it weren’t for Linda’s hard work. And it definitely wouldn’t have looked as good.
So thank you, Linda. You will be missed at the artistic helm of Popular Woodworking Magazine.
But this story does have a hopeful ending. I think you can look for Linda Watts’s name on several upcoming Lost Art Press books.
— Christopher Schwarz
From left: David Thiel, Megan Fitzpatrick, Kara Gebhart-Uhl, Linda Watts, Brian Roeth, Al Parrish, Steve Shanesy, Bob Lang and Glen Huey
I love black walnut (Juglans nigra), but walnut does not love us.
Sure, we all know that walnut is bad for horses – stables will not accept the shavings for bedding. Plus, walnut sawdust is not so good for mulch or bedding for plants.
It can be used with malice. I know a furniture maker who makes cooking spoons with walnut for customers – a gift! – who have been extreme pains in his tukus. Walnut can have laxative properties when it comes in contact with food.
Me, I dislike walnut from the inside. My insides.
Some time during the summer I got some nasty walnut splinters in my left hand. I don’t remember the trauma, but the surgeon had the proof. The walnut got under my skin and a bunch of scar tissue formed around the fragments.
A hand surgeon took out the splinters and scar tissue on Wednesday. Now I have to learn to cut dovetails with a massive splint and bandage around my finger. Stupid walnut.
If you want to make good money writing woodworking books, you don’t need a lot of skills, tools or primo wood. You don’t need to know a lot of joinery or be a particularly good finisher. You don’t even really need a workshop.
During my 14 years at F+W Publications, I did a long stint as a contributing editor to the now-dead Woodworkers Book Club. As part of the job I had to read about 70 woodworking books every year and review them for the club’s bulletin. And I learned an awful lot about what makes a woodworking book sell by poring over the monthly financials.
Beautiful furniture projects do not sell. Books on building your skills don’t sell much. Books about wood and its properties – no sale. Books on hand work? Nope.
The woodworking books that make real money are birdhouse books. They outsell other kinds of woodworking books about three-to-one.
While this surprised me at first, it makes a lot of sense. Birdhouse books appeal to the non-woodworker, the dead-nuts beginner, the Boy Scout troop leader and the birder, to name a few. And they appeal to me as well.
I’ve seen a lot of crazy birdhouse books. Sure, there are lots of books out there that try to build houses actually intended for birds that pay attention to wood selection, house placement, opening size, etc. And then there are the ones that look like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater or a giant uterus.
I’ve always wanted to write a birdhouse book – one of the crazy ones, of course. My first inclination was to build birdhouses while channeling a famous furniture-maker:
“James Krenov Crafts Houses for Birds” – All the birdhouses would be chests on a stand, have gorgeous dovetails and be made from olive wood. And they would be too nice to put outside.
“G%$#@& Birdhouses by Gary Knox Bennett” – All the birdhouses would be covered in bent nails and roach clips.
“Sam Maloof, Birdhouse Builder” – All the birdhouses would be rocking chairs.
And so on.
Well one night my wife, Lucy, and I had a little too much wine to drink at dinner and we started brainstorming ideas for the most ridiculous birdhouse book we could think of.
The title: Killer Birdhouses The concept: Birdhouses made to look like things that normally kill birds. The projects: Birdhouses in the shape of a…
Blender
Frying pan
Sliding-glass Door
Oscillating Table Fan
Cat Mouth
Shotgun
Jet Engine
Stump and a Hatchet
Worms with a Cannon (my favorite!)
ICBM
Oven
Bucket of KFC Chicken
That reminds me, I need to get Lucy a fresh box of wine. We need to come up with some more book ideas.
Sometimes looks can be deceiving. Megan Fitzpatrick, the managing editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, says she’s a 14-year-old boy trapped in the body of a 43-year-old-woman.
Wait, I shouldn’t tell that story.
Sometimes looks can be deceiving. To the outside world, Megan sometimes looks like the “I Can Do That” spokeswoman. It’s true that she’s probably built more “I Can Do That” projects than anyone. But that’s not because those are the only things she can build.
Close observers of the magazine know that she has built some big case pieces with lots of hand-cut dovetails, cove moulding and inset doors and drawers. But only the people who work with her know the whole story.
Megan is one of the more ambitious woodworkers I know. She always picks projects above her skill level in some way and then pesters seeks out the knowledge to build them. That’s how she learned dovetailing, inlay, sharpening, you name it.
While that might not sound so unusual, she also is ruthless persistent about learning everything about a topic. When she wanted to learn dovetails, I think she asked everyone in the office at Popular Woodworking Magazine to teach her separately. Then she’d compare the techniques and forge her own path.
In December, Megan decided to build a spice box with line-and-berry inlay as a gift for her mother. You can read the harrowing tale here. Bottom line: I hope Megan will be able to show off more of her highbrow skills – other than iambic pentameter – in the coming years.
It’s easy in this male-dominated business for some people to see women in the craft as window dressing, as has been the case on certain home-improvement television shows (I’m looking at you, Dean). Don’t buy into that with Megan, or you are liable to get a roundhouse kick in the ear.
