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With its World Headquarters located at the old Abbie Riggle Place on Bear Creek Road, just one mile from downtown Wallowa, Oregon, Bear Creek Press is the largest publishing house on the southwest bank of the Wallowa River. Following is a rare inside look at our operations.

Our Workday

Work begins early in the layout room at Bear Creek Press, where the staff often celebrates "casual days" by donning the garb of sixteenth century Flemish peasants and dabbling in alchemy. In the background, employees' children are gently guided to our company's day-care center, there to be patiently instructed in the Three Virtues of the Book Arts: collating, binding, and trimming. Furthermore, to ensure a multiculturally-diverse, gender-neutral secular spiritualism based on liberal conservatism and conservative liberalism, the little darlings receive instruction in the book's evolution as well as its intelligent design.
The Bear Creek Press staff and their families gather in the dining hall for lunch, settling down to their typical noon meal of gruel and beer. Our editor-in-chief stands at left in red tunic and with bagpipes, ready to entertain his beloved employees by playing the only song he knows, Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen," to an always enthusiastic reception.
It's more bagpipes and beer at the 3:00 p.m. break, when Bear Creek Press employees enjoy the chance to kick up their heels and blow off some steam. Our fearless publisher is sitting at the table at left, hat pulled over his eyes to show that in spite of his extraordinary talents and achievements, he's just "one of the boys."
At the end of the workday, the Grand Poo-Bah Excelsior of Bear Creek Press, captured here in a rare informal photograph, waves a fond farewell to his adoring staff before starting on his way home upon a wine cask. His unusual mode of transportation not only helps him reduce his "carbon footprint," but also provides him with needed refreshment in case of emergencies.

Our Big Shots

Acquisitions Editor

In a rarely-seen photograph, a hopeful author offers his manuscript for the consideration of the Bear Creek Press Acquisitions Editor and Officer of Garbo Elegance and Tonsorial Perfection (whose name is Fred, though he prefers Fabio Fabuloso). Note to writers: Because Fred, er, Fabio, exercises complete control over initial acquisitions, it can be helpful to bribe him with the offer of a new hat, tunic, skirt, stockings, or shoes, all in basic black, of course. And whatever you do, don't refer to his dog (shown at his feet) as a "cat." Once Fabio accepts a manuscript, it goes to the Bored of Directors for final approval (see below).

Bored of Directors

Once a prospective manuscript is approved by the Acquisitions Editor, its next stop is the Bored of Directors, shown at left. The Directors are arranged according to their status, which is reflected in the styles and colors of their hats. (The goal is to dress like some part of an American or a French flag.) Even though A Big Cheese Director (known as the ABCD) occupies the high seat during meetings, the final decision on any manuscript ultimately rests with the man snoozing in the upper right corner, who is, obviously, the Most Bored of Directors.

Our Bookmakers

At Bear Creek Press, we make books the old-fashioned way. The scene at left is taken from our book farm, which uses a wheeled plow and an iron-toothed harrow to prepare the field for hand-sown book seeds. In addition, we use a three-field rotation, leaving a different one fallow each year. This is the same system developed on European feudal estates in the days of the reign of Charlemagne. Books are usually harvested four times per year, once per season. These are then listed as "Recent Releases" in our Book Catalog.

Our Pressmen

Here we see the happy employees of our press room slaving away, er, working diligently in setting type and printing pages. In this scene we see press foreman Kris Kringle putting the "squeeze" on a page, while his nine underlings -- Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph -- are busily engaged in minding their P's and Q's. Although Kris is classified a Free Worker and his crew consists of indentured servants, he has sworn an oath to spare them the lash, with the exception of Christmas Eve.

Our Grand Poobah!

Meet our beloved publisher, whose official title is Grand Poobah Excelsior, Publishing Potentate, and Celestial CEO, but who is known by his colleagues as "Grand Poo" or "Pooh Bear," and by his friends as just Bob.

"There could be nothing so important as a book can be."

Editor Max Perkins in a letter to author Thomas Wolfe