On April 24th, a few members of the ZPlatt 2015 staff, including myself, took a trip to
Montréal, Canada to visit Pixa Printing, where this year’s issue is currently flying out of the
printers to be delivered straight to your hands. We took a tour of the place, seeing all of the
different methods of printing from offset to digital, and learned from some printing professionals
about exactly how they make ZPlatt into a physical book. We even saw some extra cool stuff,
like the way they make perforated pages, and giant rolls of paper (I mean, huge). It was
essentially a printing wonderland. On top of the tour of Pixa Printing, we also did a book crawl
of Montréal, hitting all of the coolest used and new book stores like the Argo and Cheap Thrills.
And, if that wasn’t cool enough, we also ended up being given free Starbucks drinks thanks to a
cash register malfunction!
After the literary hype of the Montréal trip, we’ve been busily preparing for our launch
party. We’re preparing games to play like literary mad libs, or “Platt Libs.” There will be food,
and we’re encouraging this year’s contributors to read their work! Please join us this Friday, May
8th in the Cardinal Lounge for a celebration of all of our hard work, and the hard work of
everyone who has contributed their work and supported us along the way. If you like good
writing, art, games, food, or fun, you’re more than welcome!
–Michelle LaRosa
Michelle LaRosa is a senior English Language Arts major at SUNY Plattsburgh. She is a writer of fiction and poetry, and she is on the poetry staff of ZPlatt this year. She’s beyond excited to see the final copy of the magazine this Friday!