Finding A Digital “poetry-on-demand” typewriter (as a beginner)
So I’ve been reading through this subreddit for a while hoping to figure out a best approach by myself, but I’m reaching out to the chorus of experts as I think my writerdeck use case is a little unusual?
I’m not a novelist but a poet, and I’m often booked at events to do run workshops, perform, and occasionally sell individual poems as a sort of silent “living-statue” adjacent offering. To add to this, I want to begin working as a “poet on demand” at book fairs and events.
I’d love to build a writerdeck rather than using an actual retro typewriter, as I think the former would be more portable, cheaper to repair, and more customisable. However, whatever I choose/buy/build would require different things to a regular writerdeck:
✨ it would need to play nicely with a Bluetooth connected instant photo printer, or mini printer, to print off the poems.
✨ the printed poems would need to be formatted in at least a slightly visually pleasing way, on the page.
✨ Whatever display would need to have the ability to add line breaks and go back and edit line by line.
✨ the poems would ideally need to be saved as several different individual files, rather than one single huge file like a novel would be.
Best I can tell, the obvious solution is a cheap secondhand laptop in a pretty custom case, using Canva, or secondarily an old iPhone + a wired keyboard + a powerbank all thrown into a secondhand clamshell case, but I’m wondering if there’s a more ambitious option that would allow me to do what I needed, but doesn’t require using a device that cannot so easily browse the internet?
I have ADHD, so I’d ideally like a set up that is single purpose and wouldn’t allow me to get on social media. If I can go the raspberry pi + zerowriter route and still have the functionality I need, that would be my preference, though the learning curve I imagine would be STEEP.
Please let me know if I’m missing anything in terms of a best approach! ✨🫡