About Handwriting Success

Handwriting Success publishes the Getty-Dubay® Italic books, materials, an app for tablet and stylus, and downloadable computer fonts that bring legibility, beauty and ease to the everyday experience of writing by hand.

Since 1979, Getty-Dubay® Italic offers fun and effective learning tools for anyone who wants to improve their handwriting or learn the art of calligraphy.  Both the Italic Handwriting Series books and Italic Calligraphy: for School and Home are in use in schools and thousands of homes across America and abroad.

Over 4,500 medical professionals across the United States and tens of thousands of other adults and professionals have improved their handwriting through our flagship workbook for adults, WRITE NOW™.  

For those who want to use a tablet & stylus to improve their handwriting, WRITE NOW™ is also an ebook that you can write it via the Handwriting Success™ App, available for both iOS and Android devices. For students, the Handwriting Success™ App also provides a complete handwriting curriculum for K-6 at the touch of a button. Our Letter FUNdamentals apps bring foundational letter-forming practice to young students.

Meet the Founders and Authors

Inga Dubay and Barbara Getty

Barbara Getty, B.A., M.A.T., was an adjunct professor at Portland Community College where she taught calligraphy and handwriting from 1969 to 1999. She was an elementary school teacher for fourteen years and also taught at Portland State University and Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

Inga Dubay, B.A., was an adjunct professor at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, Oregon where she taught calligraphy for 25 years, and was Books Arts Department Head for six years. She taught handwriting in public and private schools for thirteen years  and has spent countless additional volunteer hours with children in public school classrooms.

Getty-Dubay Italic began in 1979 as the collaboration between two like-minded educators, Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay, both artists, calligraphers, and teachers.

Having recognized the need for an alternative to the then-traditional system for learning handwriting, they set about creating instruction books for children — all handwritten — that were soon widely adopted by schools.

A handwriting book for adults came in 1991, as well as two instruction books on calligraphy. Today, Getty-Dubay® Italic is in use in business and education throughout the United States and internationally.

Getty and Dubay have offered 170 Rx for Handwriting Success seminars for medical professionals across the United States, and also have presented at the World Health Organization in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the International Patient Safety Conference in Florence, Italy.

In addition, they have each taught handwriting and calligraphy as faculty in schools and colleges in the Pacific Northwest.

The legacy of their mentors in calligraphy, including that of Lloyd J. Reynolds, is in evidence in all their books, especially in their calligraphy instruction book for adults, Italic Letters. Dubay has also authored a calligraphy book for students, Getty-Dubay® Italic Calligraphy for School & Home as a companion to the Italic Handwriting Series. This book is the product of a unique program by Reed College to bring calligraphy into elementary school classrooms.

Getty-Dubay® is a registered trademark in the United States. WRITE NOW™ and Handwriting Success™ are common-law trademarks in the United States.

Sponsorship

Handwriting Success, LLC is proud to be a Corporate Sponsor of the National Handwriting Association.

Sustainability

Handwriting Success offers carbon neutral credits through Eco Cart.

Membership

Homeschool Trade Association
Portland Society for Calligraphy
Society for Italic Handwriting

Getty-Dubay Italic is featured in Primarium, the global compendium of Latin-based educational handwriting styles.

Giving Back

We are also proud supporters of these organizations:

  • The International Dyslexia Association Oregon Branch
  • The Calligraphy Initiative of the Colley Gallery at Reed College
  • The Portland Society for Calligraphy
  • The Oregon Symphony educational projects
  • Color of Change
  • Liberty House Child Abuse Assessment Center
  • Lion's Club International Fund Sight for Kids Program
  • Susan G. Komen Foundation
  • ACLU

Our Advisors

We are honored to have an advisory board filled with artists, authors, and educators.

Our continued thanks to:

  • Inga Dubay, calligrapher, author & Getty-Dubay co-founder
  • Barbara Getty, calligrapher, author & Getty-Dubay co-founder
  • Sonja Grove, EdD
  • Gregory MacNaughton, Education Outreach & Calligraphy Initiative Coordinator, Cooley Gallery, Reed College
  • Jennifer Rich, owner of Oblation Papers and Press

Photo by Rebecca Gallop, Copyright 2020, used by permission. Instagram: @adailysomething.