Rai is an award-winning teacher and emeritus English professor at Ball State University whose academic work is researching biographies of early 20th Century poets, novelists, and journalists. A self-taught book binder, she founded Book Arts Collaborative in Muncie, Indiana, a public letterpress and hand-sewn book binding shop where she taught university classes and workshops.

Rai started High Class Booker in 2022 and has built hundreds of journals and sketchbooks in her quest to keep people writing and drawing. She works in archival (acid free and acid-neutralized) materials because whatever we record now will be of tremendous interest to our descendents, scholars, and curious people of the future. Rai believes that paper is the perdurable display device because it requires no special hardware to decipher.

Rai’s work received the Artist’s Challenge Award at Déjà Vu Art Show in Columbus, Indiana in 2023, and she was awarded Best of Show at the Indiana Artisan Marketplace in 2024.

Email her directly at Rai@bsu.edu