🧛♂️ Dracula 🧛♂️ book stuff, and something ✨✨ new ✨✨
Hello! This is the very-infrequent newsletter from Studio Kirkland.
Who?
We are Matt & Erika; Studio Kirkland is our little house brand that covers the different creative projects our family tackles. You probably signed up for this because you also follow Dracula Daily; and if you don’t recall this or if you want to get off the merry-go-round, there’s an unsubscribe link at the very bottom of this email.
Today we’ve got news about a ✨ new project ✨ and some 🧛♂️ Dracula 🧛♂️ book stuff.
First up.
Today marks the launch of a very IRL project that we’ve had in the works for months: Local Crush.
You know those pressed penny machines that you find in tourist traps, where you put in 51 cents, crank a big handle, and get a stamped, elongated penny back?
We made one.
Local Crush is a migratory souvenir penny press in downtown Lawrence, Kansas - that celebrates some of our favorite downtown businesses. If you don’t know Lawrence, it’s a hip little town just west of Kansas City - famous for its music scene, the university, and its thriving original downtown. (We love it so much we relocated our software company here!)
Each month, the penny press will move to a new location in downtown Lawrence. You can visit it and collect a souvenir penny that features the host store. We’ll move the press each month for a total of 12 locations, so you can collect 12 custom penny designs over the course of a year. Plus, we’re giving all the quarters to local charities. That’s:
12 locations
12 souvenir pennies
all showcasing independent businesses in our town
and all the 🪙🪙🪙🪙🪙s go to local nonprofits.
In August we're at Mass Street Soda - a delightful bottle shop that only sells individual bottles of soda (and some candy). You can find hundreds of root beers, sarsaparillas, suspicious “fruit” flavors, and also that weird cola you had once on a road trip and ever since you’ve wondered if it even still exists. It’s always full of kids shopping for something new, and there’s even a novelty section where you are explicitly warned ‘These are Legit Gross: Buy it for the Label Not the Taste.’ This warning is true, by the way, and should be flaunted at your own risk. We recently tried Corn, Dirt, and Ranch Dressing flavored sodas, and they were all truly disgusting.
So anyway: find the press there and get your souvenir penny with the limited-time-only design for Mass Street Soda! And this month, every quarter you put into the machine is going to O'Connell Children's Shelter.
Is this going to make us any money? Definitely not. Is it a fun reason to buy a penny press? Definitely yes.
If you’re in Lawrence, come find the press at Mass Street Soda. If you’re not… come visit! Either way, you can see more about the project and follow along at localcrush.club.
Dracula Daily news!
OK, you might know Matt runs an email newsletter called Dracula Daily. This year we’re making Dracula Daily as a printed book, and that book comes out in September. It’s happening! Soon!
Preorder goodies
Thousands of you preordered the book already (THANK YOU). If you did and you sent Matt your info via the preorder goodies form back in June, he sent you some little thank-you gifts in the mail too! Those should have started showing up in your mailboxes over the last few weeks.
Book Launch events?
Dracula Daily IRL Events! To celebrate the launch of the Dracula Daily book, Matt’s doing a few in-person events. I’ll do a talk about the project and show some slides, do signings or Q&As, who knows!? I’ll follow up with more info as this plan shapes up, but we’ve got a few places planned out:
Lawrence • Boulder • Portland • New York • DC • Boston • St Louis
If you’re around these places in late September / October ~ish… I’d love to meet you in person! We’ll send another email with an official schedule once everything is locked down, and add details on draculadaily.com.
Thanks
That’s it - we’ll email again at infrequent intervals when we’ve got more project news.
- Studio Kirkland