Who We Are

Rebecca Romney

Rebecca Romney was a bookseller and manager at Bauman Rare Books for eight years, then a principal at Honey & Wax Booksellers for three years before co-founding Type Punch Matrix in 2019. Since 2011 she has appeared as the rare book specialist on the History Channel’s show Pawn Stars;  she was also featured in the documentary The Booksellers, which premiered at the 2019 New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center. Rebecca is the author Printer’s Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History (HarperCollins; with JP Romney) and The Romance Novel in English: A Survey in Rare Books, 1769-1999; and she is the co-founder of the Honey & Wax Prize. Her work as a bookseller or writer has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, Variety, The Paris Review, and more. Rebecca is on the Council of the Bibliographical Society of America and on the board and faculty of the Antiquarian Book Seminars; and is a member of the Grolier Club, the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie (AIB), the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), the American Antiquarian Society, and the Baker Street Irregulars.

Brian Cassidy

Brian Cassidy was a manager and buyer for ten years at several independent bookstores before starting Brian Cassidy Bookseller in 2004, specializing in the Beats, the Mimeo Revolution, and countercultural movements. With Rebecca Romney, he co-founded Type Punch Matrix in 2019, and in 2020 BCB officially joined TPM. Brian teaches a class on the history and identification of 20th century duplicating technologies for Rare Book School, a subject on which he has lectured at NYU, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, and elsewhere. His work as a bookseller has been featured in the The New York Times, Village Voice, The Washington Post, Barron's, The Guardian, The Pitchfork Review, and more.

Embry Clark

Embry Clark spent thirteen years as a bookseller and manager at Bauman Rare Books. As a collector, she focuses on the illustrative arts. As a reader, she hoards poetry, true crime, queer romance, and non-fiction about interesting weirdos. Her degrees (from Beloit College and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas) are in poetry.

Cloud Guillén

Cloud Guillén is a bookseller and sequential artist with a BFA in Communication Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University. As a reader, she loves consuming history on Latinx mythology/culture, queer historical fantasy, webcomics (along with making her own!), and anything veering toward the occult. 

Zoë Selengut

Zoë Selengut has been in and out of the rare book trade for much of the last decade and a half, alternating with work in reproductive rights advocacy, financial fraud research, writing, and editorial consulting. She has an M.A. in Classics from the University of Washington and a piano.

Beza Wondie

Beza Wondie has worked in the book industry for ten years, with stretches in bookselling and publishing before landing in rare books. Her academic background is in Literary Studies (The New School) and Comparative Literature (King’s College London). Her desktop background is the standoff scene from The Muppet Movie (1979).