In 2002, I was a high school student on a four-day retreat with my creative writing class where we took walks in the woods, did lakeside writing exercises and learned how to make handmade paper. Our teacher led us through the various steps, making a wet pulp of recycled materials, flattening it on a mesh screen and decorating with leaves and scraps. I thought it was so neat and quaint but eventually useless because the bumpy sheet was too thick to write on.

Almost a decade later, it turns out there’s a burgeoning movement of artists and writers making handmade and/or hand-bound books and paper as a response to the digital book world...