Category Archives: writing

CALLING ALL CREATIVE PEOPLE: Christmas Titles Needed

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destiny finishOK, team, my friend Destiny and I need your help. That’s her on the left, crossing the finish line on the Veteran’s Day 5K charity run, about a month after she donated a kidney to a guy who was dying. Yeah, you read that right. Some of the A-listers from the Big Stone Gap movie filming here ran as well, but I don’t think anyone could have been as brave as Destiny.

Destiny is making me some Christmas ornaments, and later a couple of throw pillows. They are all book-shaped. We got her the pattern off Craftsy (if you wanna go look for it) so she could cover us in these adorable things, and also sell them for herself in the store.christmas books book pillowsThe fabric she’s got for the Christmas ones is on the left, and those are the pillows on the right.

So now we need some cool, made-up titles for her to use on the ornaments. Think “GREAT CHRISTMAS TITLES THAT SHOULD BE.”

So far we have two titles we like: Rudolph the Well-Read Reindeer, and Hat Trick: the unauthorized biography of Frosty the Snowman. But we need more. So comment here with some great titles for Destiny’s little puffy books? Thanks! We know we can count on the collective wisdom of the bibliophilic community and we look forward to reading them.

destinyThis is Destiny with her mom, who passed away a year ago. She was one of our most fun customers. Destiny donating the kidney was part of her doing 50 random acts of kindness (big and small) in honor of her mom’s life. I think I’m going to talk Destiny into writing a book.

ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY

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Jack’s guest blog this week discusses the family of booksellers, from NYC to BSG

Our second NYC visit, to meet up with Wendy’s editorial team at St Martins Press and her agent Pamela, has been great. We were a little more confident about surviving in the Big Apple this time, even able –with the assistance of ‘shop-sitter’ Andrew–to navigate our way around the subway system and cross streets without getting knocked down.

Another reason for being there was an event Jess (our lovely publicist) had organized at Word Up Books, on Thursday evening. Organizer Veronica met us at the door and immediately said how much she had been looking forward to welcoming us as she had read ‘The Little Bookstore’ with growing recognition of everything Wendy had written about pertaining to their store. “Been there, done that”!

What impressed me most about ‘Word Up’ was how it met our paradigm of what a bookstore should be – truly a community center in its neighborhood. Started a couple of years ago as what was meant to be a very temporary ‘Pop-Up’ store lasting for a week in an empty building, it was so successful that the locals demanded it stay on. First it was a month, then another couple of months and finally a permanent institution. It had to eventually move to different premises and ‘crowd-funded’ the necessary $70,000 opening costs in just a few weeks!

Run entirely by volunteers, Word Up provides a space for all sorts of activities, and always have coffee on the go as well. They keep their costs down by getting donations of used books, plus support from the publishing industry itself in the form of seconds, overstocks, and even editors slipping in a few books to handsell—a win-win for authors, publicists, and sellers alike.

We learned that a neighborhood in New York can also be a ‘small town’ just like Big Stone Gap and has the same needs. This neighborhood had a mix of Spanish speakers from all over the world, plus the usual NYC melting pot and the bookstore specializes in Spanish language reading, but also caters for those other cultures

Finally – our event felt like a real family affair as Wendy’s agent Pamela and Pamela;s assistant Michelle, editor Nichole with her assistant Laura, publicist Jessica, shop-sitter Andrew and his significant other Ali, plus Veronica, store owner Gio, and a phalanx of small business owners from the community joined shop regulars. They made us feel like celebrities, but even more fun, we got to talk books and business, and the business of books, with people who live and breathe it as we do.

Woo Hoo – –