Tag Archives: Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap

12:01 The Day After

Posted on by
3

Book launches are funny things – and fun ones. You spend a year going over with a fine tooth comb every nuance and gerund of what you’ve written–first with your editor, then with the copy editors, then with the publicity team–and then there’s this short period of silence, followed by more bleedin’ marketing work than you ever knew could exist.

Amid the flurry of learning the secrets of social media (that there aren’t any) and the hoopla of “getting your web presence increased” you find that the book drops back to a distant reason for why all this is happening, but not the core of what you’re working on.

And then, this date that’s been on your calendar for weeks and months, or even a year, is tomorrow, and you haven’t got party hats or a plan. But you just move through the day, and then it’s midnight and your book goes off into the world. (Since we own a bookstore, and since some friends asked us to, we stayed up until 12:30 so we could sell books at midnight. I don’t recommend this as a lifestyle, but it sure was fun as a one-off brief party!)

And then the eye of the storm passes directly overhead…. all through the weeks leading up to publication, there are bloggers and GoodReads reviewers and other worker bees in the publishing world, getting your book presence in the big world. But once anyone can buy it, who does? How?

Sitting in that eye, the day after publication, it’s good to know a couple of things: that you meant what you said, and that what you said means something to others; and that you are part of a vast eternal library of all people, in all time, who have put out words that can be read by other people.

That first one makes you happy, especially when you see reviews from readers who have identified with, understood, even challenged what you said in a way that you think opens a healthy discussion. I feel like I’ve contributed something nice to the bookselling world. That second one keeps you balanced, and reminds you of your place in the grand scheme. Like the machine Douglas Adams invented that tells you your importance to the proper functioning of the universe (.01%) all you have to do, the day after your book gets published, is walk into a bookstore and look around.

As Masha Hamilton said in The Camel Bookmobile, “You are a part of this dance. You are not its center.” That’s a good thing to remember, because to your friends and family, you are the center of something, and it’s all too easy to mistake your small world for the big one. That would hurt. And be unwise.

So, my little book about our little bookstore is even now, knapsack over one shoulder, wending its way through the twists and turns of the Great Wide World’s path. It is navigating the mountains of China (got a foreign language contract in Mandarin!). And it is, I think, whistling a cheerful tune. Because it says what I meant, and it says things that mean something to other people.

Good.

Such a lovely, weird Wedding….

Posted on by
7

The bookstore hosted its first wedding Sunday. The bride wore a black bustier; the groom wore a black vest. (Both wore blue jeans, in case you’re interested. And the bride had a nice white corsage pinned to one strap.)

 

The Society of Friends members and the friends of the marrying couple gathered in our bookstore a little before 1 pm, wearing Sunday dresses and panty hose and blue jeans and flannel and generally looking like themselves. (In case you’re interested, I wore my pink bunny house slippers. You know, an afternoon wedding is less formal.)

Jack, as a member of the Big Stone Gap Meeting, read the Clearness Ceremony findings for the couple, stating there were no impediments to their marriage. He then explained more informally how the thing would go down, to put the non-Quakers at ease.

And then the wedding started. Silence descended, lasting about five minutes before Rachael’s father spoke up to thank everyone for their embracing of Wes and Rachael’s lives, and expressing appreciation for the assembly of friends to witness their Commitment Ceremony. (Fathers don’t have to speak first; it just happens as it happens.) Another five minutes of silence. Rachael stood and told Wes she intended to help him become the person he wanted to be, and that the day she met him, “my whole future flashed before my eyes.” Wes promised to guard Rachael’s health and well being, to be her best friend, and to “always listen to what you have to say.”

Couples in the circle of chairs began to hold hands, and the sniffling started as Wes and Rachael embraced, then signed their marriage certificate. Jack and Sue-Ella, the meeting’s clerk (the closest thing Quakers have to pastors), also signed the certificate. They all sat down. Silence followed, broken by various participants speaking their thoughts at slight intervals. While a Gathered Silence for Worship usually lasts an hour, this one ended at 45 minutes, out of deference to those not quite at ease with such practices–or perhaps put off by bookshop cat Val-kyttie, a real curmudgeon who has a soft spot for Wes, deciding to bless the marriage certificate by lying down on it. Who can say?

Out came the food, glorious food–mostly vegetarian, since Quakers are generally considered liberal bleeding heart health-reform-lovin’ animal-rescuin’ treehuggers (although I happen to know that two people in our group vote staunch Republican). And the presents. A jar of honey from the homesteaders’ bees. A hand-stitched afghan. A homemade card of pressed flowers. A gift certificate to a chain restaurant. (Told you there were conservatives.)

The bridal couple took their wedding trip to the liquor store across the street (now open Sundays). While friends don’t normally go on honeymoons, four accompanied them. What can I say…..

It was a moving event. Wes and Rachael had just the day before expressed concerns: would the act of marrying change their commitment to each other, change the way people viewed who they should be? He the homekeeper, she the high powered executive, they’d spent a lifetime already defying the conventions of who should be doing what, and called what. “Husband and wife” were not in the plans; no rings were exchanged, white tulle and virginal lilies conspicuously absent.

But oh, there was love. And understanding. And honest commitment. It all got summed up when the Presbyterian minister, called in to make the wedding legal in the eyes of the Commonwealth of Virginia, stood to announce the newlyweds. I saw Rachael brace herself. As someone who had been introduced as “Mrs. Beck” five minutes after my own wedding, I felt her fear.

Tony put one hand on Wes’s shoulder, one on Rachael’s, smiled at them, then at the assembly and said, “I would like to introduce to you, for the first time ever, the loving and united-in-the-sight-of-God couple of Wesley Hearp and Rachael Miller.”

Yep.