LAMY AL-star Aubergine Fountain Pen Giveaway

They are here! The two new LAMY AL-Star Fountain Pens for 2025 - Aubergine and Denim, have arrived. I’ve ordered a sampling, and have one to give away this week. To enter to win the Aubergine model with an Extra Fine Steel nib read the rules below and enter away!

Posted on March 25, 2025 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Giveaways.

Meet Your Maker: Alan Shrebtienko, On A Whim Woodworks

(Caroline Foty's first fountain pen was a 1970s Sheaffer No Nonsense that still writes perfectly. Since she discovered pens by independent makers, she wants "one of each, please" and wants to meet all the makers. Maybe you do, too. She lives in Baltimore with pens, cats, and all kinds of fiber arts supplies.)

Alan Shrebtienko started making pens “100% as therapy.” A high school physics teacher, and a longtime woodworker specializing in bowls, his life changed when he became so ill he spent more than five months in the hospital and emerged with much of his vision gone. “I couldn’t see well enough to return to teaching. It was my second career (after being a commercial construction superintendent,) and I absolutely loved it, and my students were really successful in their AP exams. I had more toys in my classroom than any kindergarten classroom in the state!”

Making a lot of bowls was a little too difficult given his new normal. “Pens were easier to see than bowls, and it seemed to be something people were buying.” After two years making component pens, he switched to making kitless pens, at about the time that everyone was locked down at home with time on their hands. Some of his segmented wooden bowls are still on display in galleries in the Louisville area, where he lives, but these days his shop is all about pens.

Shrebtienko’s long years of experience with wood turning have served him well in building his pen business. “I needed to develop a process that is repeatable and doesn’t require vision. I was determined to get it done, and kept doing it till I got it right. When you have a pen on the lathe it’s spinning so fast it looks stationary. Once I make the initial contact it’s pretty easy from there.” He approached photographing and shipping pens in the same way. “The setup for taking pictures doesn’t need touching, it’s the same every time. It took me almost as long to package my first pen for shipping as it did to make it. It’s all about consistency.”

Early efforts at making blanks didn’t lead anywhere productive. “The main thing I was making was a mess.” Instead, he sends photos to blank makers like Tim Crowe – the materials called “The Scream” and “Midnight Borealis” were inspired by his photos. “The guys who do this are like magicians.”

The need to establish a consistent repeatable process is somewhat at odds with Shrebtienko’s desire to learn new things and add personal touches to his pens. He has made one basic silhouette, the ‘Zephyr’, with a slight taper and flat ends, for a long time. “I should get an award for the most redundant maker.” But a surprising feature that has crept into his work is a variety of ink windows. “I started them because someone asked me to. I went through several iterations to get them down, and I can make them in any configuration – wide, narrow, multiples.” The process he developed required that he make his own molds, and involves cutting windows in an existing blank, then re-pouring around the blank and boring out the center to open the window to the inside.

Uniqueness is the main reason that his favorite pen right now is one made by Mad Science Pen Co. for the As The Pen Turns podcast Secret Santa exchange. “I can’t write with anything but a fountain pen anymore.”

When he’s not in the shop, Shrebtienko is deeply involved in the blind and vision-impaired community in his area. He lives near the Kentucky School for the Blind and the American Printing House for the Blind, and is working on a National Federation of the Blind audible Easter egg hunt at the School, with eggs that make a sound. Sighted kids can attend as well, but they participate blindfolded. “For most of these blind kids it will be the first time they’ve been able to participate in the egg hunt with their sighted siblings and friends.” When makers were creating pens in blue and yellow as a sign of support for Ukraine, he made a pen specifically to raise donations to an organization for blind Ukrainians.

The biggest new direction for Shrebtienko is metal work. “I like a clip myself, my desk isn’t level. But I’m not putting a $2 factory made clip on one of my pens.” He took a metalworking class and wants to design his own clips and roll stops, as well as finial coins (“I might need a logo…”). In the meantime, he recently developed a new pocket pen version of the Zephyr model. “It caps and posts using the same triple start threads and can be eyedropper filled or it will also use a standard cartridge. My prototypes kept coming apart when I was uncapping them, so I ended up putting reverse threads on the section and that keeps it all together really nicely. I’ve softened the edge around the cap so it easily slides in and out pocket or purse easily without snagging.”

Despite the focused effort required to develop his processes, fun is important to Shrebtienko and is reflected in the name of his business. “I’ve always been about whimsical bright fun.” He marvels at the extent to which the pen community has embraced his work.

“I’m not sure that I have expressed properly how much being part of the fountain pen community has done for me personally. I was having a pretty rough time when I had to leave teaching. I went from the classroom to sitting in my little dungeon. When I started making pens and putting them on Instagram, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but people started buying them. I was in shock, I couldn’t believe people actually liked my pens and were buying my pens! I was really in awe. This led me to make a whole new circle of friends - pen collectors, and makers, and writers, and just a whole list of neat people. It basically let me get out of my shop without actually leaving my shop. Being a part of the whole fountain pen world has really turned my dungeon into a functional workshop, and it’s allowed me to tell my story from the point of the victor and not the victim.”

Alan Shrebtienko’s work can be seen on Instagram @onawhim_woodworks and on his online shop.