Bio.

Ray Zill is a printmaker, analog photographer, writer, and librarian living in Olympia, Washington. She first discovered letterpress printing in 2011 while enrolled in a college class taught by Bonnie O’Connell. Ray would walk from her job at the library to the letterpress studio most nights, where she would say late printing and binding her books.

After graduating with a bachelor's, Ray worked at libraries, archives, and museums with a focus on cataloging and digital preservation. She eventually moved to the West Coast and published her first artist book outside of school at the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC). She settled in Olympia, Washington, bought a press from Mare Blocker, and started a long-distance relationship with Community Print during the pandemic. Poet Ray Prints became her press name, and the rest is history.

Ray received a Bachelor of Education from University of Nebraska at Omaha (2013), a Master of Arts in Information Science and Learning Technology from University of Missouri (2016), and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Print Media from Pacific Northwest College of Art (exp. 2025). She lives in Olympia, Washington, with Kyle (the human) and Marc (the cat). She is an organizing member and teacher at Community Print and an active member of Puget Sound Book Artists. She is a librarian at The Evergreen State College where, among many other things, she looks after a unique collection of artist books.