But neither has any part of her years-long effort to hand-make every copy of her soon-to-be-released book of short stories Closer than Breathing.

"If Rinaldo [as she christened one particularly cantankerous printing press] were a person, he'd have been a capricious 60-year-old hypochondriac who used every indisposition as an excuse to thwart me," Sutton has said of one printing press that for a time loomed large over her life.

Sutton's regard for Rinaldo and the other presses she has used has mellowed since that moment of frustration.

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"I look back on all those things as a sort of odyssey, where each stage of the process and challenge I faced has been a part of this book's story," she said.

"I love that whole aspect of the book's experience and I don't have any regrets. I wouldn't change anything, even the challenges."

Sutton is now on the final stretch before a book launch and exhibition (titled Anatomy of a Book) on her process.

She is still to finish binding the last of the books but the trials of the letterpress printing process she breezily once thought would take months is now long behind her.

"When it's going well it's blissful; when it isn't, it's hell on earth," she told a friend during one of the low points.

Sutton decided to create 120 copies of her own bespoke, leather-bound book from scratch in 2016 using many old methods.

She learnt everything from scratch including how to typeset by hand, run printing presses, marble the inside pages and bind it all together.

Creating single pages has taken hours, sometimes weeks of learning and problem solving. Sutton has typically pulled 14 hour days while juggling work and other commitments.

Sutton is the first Australian author to attempt such an undertaking with an extended work of fiction, as far as she can tell.

"In a sense the book feels like my baby and I've been giving birth to it for almost seven years," she said.

"To actually hold the book in my hands is quite a surreal experience."

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There were times Sutton was almost broken by the long hours carefully creating each page, of wondering what tiny thing within a printing press had gone wrong this time, of crying in the bathroom.

Old printing presses are complex beasts full of gremlins ready to trip up those unfamiliar with their individual quirks, Sutton said.

The journey has changed her and shaped her life, tapping her into something resilient deep inside.

Sutton is yet to work out what she will do when she has bound the final copy of Closer than Breathing.

"I still feel a love for book making. It's been overwhelming and very challenging but the crafts, learning new skills and the experience of seeing the work come to fruition is really such an exciting process," she said.

The exhibition and book making demonstrations launch on Friday, March 10 at Dudley House in View Street. The book will officially launch at 2pm the next day at the same venue, during an event sponsored by Harcourt Valley Wines.

For more on Sutton's seven year labour of love, visit www.theharebrainedpress.com

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