Millwater Publishing

   Around twenty years ago a group of North Carolina farriers were attending an event at which a horseshoeing school owner (with more than a smidgen of patent medicine salesman in his nature) was participating in an educational clinic for an audience of horseowners.  His core message, that regular attention from a competent farrier is very important to a horse's welfare, was a good one.  But the pseudo-technical doublespeak he used while attempting to make his point had the farriers quietly commenting among themselves that it was probably a good thing for him that the horseowners didn't have any kind of a handy farrier terminology dictionary to enable them to figure out the nonsense the guru was reeling-off.

   One of these NC working farriers was also a writer, whose hoofcare and horsemanship articles had been published in national horse magazines such as Western Horseman, Equus, HorseWorld USA, The Paint Horse Journal, The Western Horse, and ANVIL Magazine.  He also had a regular column in the regional American Pioneer Equine News, was the Farrier Advisor to the national HorsePlay Magazine, and was the sysop of the Farrier Section of the CompuServe Horse Forum (back in the days before the World-Wide Web rendered such services moot).  It occurred to this fellow that there really ought to be a dictionary of farrier terms, both to help horseowners understand the basics of farriery, and to aid farriers in understanding one-another and the increasing amount of technical information they were being exposed to.

   So, starting with an obsolete (even for those days) Commodore computer, a daisy-wheel printer, stacks of farrier texts dating back 150 years, and input from many farriers across the country, the first modern farrier lexicon, The Pocket Dictionary of Farrier Terms, was assembled.  And MILLWATER PUBLISHING was launched to publish it in 1994.

   In those days, "cut and paste" involved actual scissors and glue.  And a print run meant producing photo-ready masters and mock-ups, taking them to a printers, and returning later to pick-up crates and crates of books to store in a stock-room until they were needed to fill orders...

   Despite its primitive production values, the Pocket Dictionary was a success, and prompted upgrades in technology, as well as continued research, to produce The New Dictionary of Farrier Terms and Technical Language the following year. 

   In the years that followed, Millwater Publishing handled the Carolina Farriers Open Forum and Idea Exchange, which was the newsletter for the Southeastern Horseshoers On Education (S.H.O.E.) organization, the independent regional Equestrian Quarterly, promotional publications for national farrier events, and the national farriers' Guild Chronicle magazine.  (The content of most of these publications are available in the free archives of the Millwater Publishing website.)

   In 2003, new avenues opened for independent publishers.  PoD services enabled Millwater Publishing to make online ordering much easier, and made substantially better print quality feasable.  This was put to use in the 2004 Tenth Anniversary Dictionary of Farrier Terms, and to enable even-year updates thereafter.

   The PoD services also enabled Millwater Publishing to branch-out into the FARRIER'S CADUCEUS line of products for farriers and horseowners.

   The New Dictionary of Farrier Terms and Technical Language went through eight print editions between 1995 and 2010. In 2012 it evolved into an encyclopedic reference with triple the content of the last New Dictionary, including an extensive historical reference section... MILLWATER'S FARRIERY: The Illustrated Dictionary of Horseshoeing and Hoofcare. Available NOW in hardcover and economical trade paperback!