Category Archives: publishing

Hey Ho for the Open Road – – –

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Since moving to the U.S. I’ve had many a long road trip. Coming from a country where the opposite coast could be accessed by a  2-hour drive (but the trip required packets of sandwiches, a thermos flask of coffee, and other emergency supplies) you can imagine how I’ve adapted to a place where 7 or 8 hours is the norm!

Usually Wendy and I do these long trips together and she does most of the driving. In a couple of weeks, though, I head off solo to Colorado to attend the annual PVS conference (Prison Visitation and Support, and by the way thank you for all those postcards).

Wendy was originally slated to go with me and visit with old friends who recently moved to Pueblo, so she organized a couple of book gigs along the way: LuAnn Locke’s Afterwords in Edwardsville, Illinois and in Wichita, Kansas at Al’s Old and New Book Store, managed by Anita Siemer. And we’d hoped to meet Hilda, owner of BookMedley, who helped arrange the KS gig.

And then—-

Unable to find someone to mind the shop in rapid succession over four road trips (we have the Southern Festival of the Book this weekend and a trip to NYC in November to see Wendy’s agent and visit Word Up Bookstore) not to mention the small matter of finding time to write her new book, and the brand new cafe upstairs in our bookstore, forced Wendy to call off. So it’s over to me.

My first big US road-trip solo! 8 hours on Tuesday to LuAnn, 7 1/2 hours on Wednesday to Anita, and 6 hours on Thursday. Then the whole thing backwards in a straight shot homeward, no stops, when the conference finishes on Sunday.

I suppose my biggest worry is navigating through the cities to find the bookstores and the conference hotel. Talking with the book clubs and guests at bookstore events is fun. Wendy wrote the book, but we both lived it, and over the months we’ve been doing events patterns of questions have emerged, yet pleasant and surprising insights as well.

Then as soon as I get back we prepare for New York, but that will be (at least partly) a train ride. And we will get to visit with last year’s live-in shopsitter, Andrew “perfect” Whalen, who promises to show us a good time in Brooklyn.

Should we be afraid, do you think?

Meanwhile, I have nothing to fear but the drive itself. I used to think, when a little boy, that the annual summer holiday trip from Dunfermline to Aberdour (about 15 miles) was a long journey and a real adventure. We took a break halfway at Otterson Loch–in the words of the famous old ballad: Half Ower, Half Ower, tae Aberdour–where I’d catch minnows and put them in a jar.

That was then, this is now! I’ll settle for finding the hotel.

Editor’s note: Wendy would like to mention that Jack may not be worried, but she is. He keeps telling customers that he’s driving to “Arizona.” She has pointed out several times that Colorado is a different place, but Jack just waves his hand. “Pshaw, it’s out west someplace, and it’s all America, isn’t it?” {sigh}

Retirement, my Arse

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Jack’s guest blog on the loneliness of the overworked bookseller

When I joke about there being no such thing as retirement I mostly am really just joking. Except this week…..

We’d only just got through getting Wendy’s new book into a formal proposal and out the door (a process that involves Wendy disappearing into the basement for hours on end while I cope with a list of chores not limited to but dominated by laundry, food services, bookstore management, and dog/cat care) when it was straight into the Celtic Festival with all its associated hair-tearing last minute complications. (Our favorite “least favorite” festival moment: 10:45 a.m. I go out to start my little red ’62 MG to carry Lady Big Stone in the parade, and the engine won’t turn over. Started at 11:02 for the 11:15 parade. I’m too old for that kind of excitement.)

I will add that Big Stone Celtic this year surpassed itself: lovely attendance, lovely weather, lovely performers, lovely vendors, lovely feel to the whole two days. It was delightful.

The day after that loveliness, all the signs and banners had to be taken down and stowed. One of the reasons we had such good attendance is that our friend Elissa headed up publicity; she thought of places to put those signs and banners that defy description.

On Monday we basked in the glow of photographs and comments on the Big Stone Celtic Day’s facebook page, and on the bookstore’s. We must have basked for twenty full minutes before it was time to turn our attention to the SECOND STORY CAFE–opening Oct. 8–and the health inspector’s visit to approve it. Bruce, the inspector, is coming tomorrow, but Rick, the heat and air guy, is still installing the new heat pump in the attic: estimated completion Friday.

Oh, and our friend Gayle Ross will be telling at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, so she’s coming up to do a house concert on Monday, Oct. 7. Quick and intensive advertising to be done.

Surely there can’t be anything else?

Well, we decided to empty the ‘love shack’ and shift all the romances from there into the shop since it’s not a great space for retail in winter. We’re creating a couches-and-coffee room upstairs next door to the main dining room, lining its walls with shelves, and bringing up the classics and poetry; the romances will go where those used to be on the bookshop’s main floor. Unfortunately, we can’t move them yet because first the kitchen has to be ready for Bruce to inspect Thursday and then the room clear for Rick on Friday and then Saturday we’re moving the couches into the coffee shop room so I’ve got to get the shelves built soon.

Did I mention that Adrianna Trigiani’s novel about Big Stone Gap is being filmed here in town starting in two weeks? One of the film crew was in yesterday asking if the restaurant would open while they’re here. I said, “God knows, because I’ve got to put a bathroom in our basement this month or Wendy will kill me.” (We moved into our basement to clear space for the cafe, but women’s bladders are small and my wife has grown tired of making the midnight trek to the toilet one flight up.)

What was that dear? Shelves? What shelves?