Nancy Sharon Collins is the country’s leading expert on engraved social stationery and principle in her eponymous company, Nancy Sharon Collins, Stationer LLC. Here she oversees the creation of bespoke hand engraved writing papers, note cards, monograms, ciphers, and ephemera. Collins authored The Complete Engraver a guide to monograms, crests, ciphers, seals, and the etiquette and history of social stationery. She has contributed to and been the subject of popular media such as PRINT, Town & Country, Veranda, Vogue, The New York Times. Also, listen to the NPR interview with Mrs. Collins here.
She makes time for lectures and presentations nationally, such as the monogram talk she gave to a highly engaged crowd at Type Directors Club in New York City.
In addition to her day job working with engraved stationery clients, Collins partners with local cultural institutions in her hometown New Orleans. With Antenna Gallery, she produces Letters Read the ongoing series of live events in which local actors interpret personal letters written by culturally vital individuals from various times and Louisiana communities. Listen to recent podcasts of some readings here.
This year Letters Read partnered with Pitot House and co-promoted the Letters of Edgar Degas with Alliance Française de La Nouvelle-Orléans.
Proudly, the 2020 Letters Read season was funded under a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
With another local cultural institution, Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses Collins presented Monograms, Tagging and Tattoos.