WordWacky

This Sunday’s Seattle Times had a sad tale about my city’s bookstores:

Seattle has more bookstores per capita than any other city in the country, according to the “America’s Most Literate Cities” survey conducted by Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University — 174 at last count. But running a bookstore has always been an occupation for dreamers, and area independent stores have had to confront the realities of wresting a living from a low-margin business in an increasingly expensive town.

M Coy Books, on Pine Street between First and Second avenues in the Pike Place Market neighborhood, could not survive a major rent increase. All for Kids Books in the University Village area, a treasured children’s bookstore, closed down this summer. Jackson Street Books at the corner of Jackson Street and 23rd Avenue, specializing in African-American literature, science fiction and other genres, shuttered its Seattle operation this spring. In Kirkland, Parkplace Books resorted to a campaign for donations from its fans and customers to avoid closing its doors.

I refuse to surrender the neighborhood bookstore as another idea whose day has passed. Here are some success stories from bookstores who have recently fought to stay alive, despite the “business is down, rent’s up” story that seems all too common these days.

Fundraise

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. This old truism may be cliché, but it’s also true. Faced with seeing their beloved neighborhood bookshop close, many residents are willing to put a few dollars into the bookstore. Maybe a bookstore isn’t non-profit, but often the profits are none.

As mentioned in the Seattle Times story, Parkplace books did just that to keep their business going. So did Wordsmith Books in Decatur, Georgia – they recently led a successful fundraising campaign. From their blog:

We have reached the end of our two week campaign to save the bookstore. From August 4th through August 17th, we asked for your help. We asked for the chance to take this business and turn it forward, to get out from under the weight of immediate costs that were threatening to close our doors forever and begin the task of paying down debts that were accrued in our original location. And you responded. Our call for help hit the AJC, was broadcast on NPR, was rehashed and debated on countless blogs, commented on, emailed about and discussed in bookstores throughout the country. We received help from 18 states, Canada, and a handful of people in the U.K.

Relocate

Little Professor Bookstore in Fenton, Michigan moved downtown to avoid the rising prices in the shopping center where they made their home for 12 years.

Carpenter said she is paying significantly less rent for smaller quarters at 150 W. Shiawassee Ave. — a few doors down from the popular French Laundry restaurant.

She sees other advantages.

“There’s more foot traffic downtown,” Carpenter said. “It’s not like you can walk from Wal-Mart to my store. And where we were located, it was hard to see our signs from the road.”

Sell

Sometimes new energy can be just what a burned out bookseller needs. Just because you may be through with the never-ending race of sales versus bills and rent doesn’t mean that someone else isn’t willing to step up and take the baton.

As mentioned earlier on Wordwacky, another option when faced with imminent demise is to sell the shop. The Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis was saved this year when someone stepped up and bought it – after the closing sale had already happened.

Then last week, Skujin’s partner ran into Barb at a concert, who told her the 38-year-old store had lowered its price but had not found a buyer, and was now in its final days. “I called Barb the next day, we met last Thursday, came to an agreement, shook on it, and I still can’t believe it, but I own a bookstore,” said Skujin.

Go Virtual

In Culpepper, Virginia, one bookseller’s decision when faced with closing up shop was to expand his web presence. The 32 year-old Corner Shelf Bookstore will close this month, to be replaced by only a website. But according to the Free Lance-Star, the bookstore won’t lose its personal touch.

Those who don’t like to shop online will be able to call Gordon Dickerson using the same telephone number the shop has had since it opened in August 1976: 540/825-4411.

And customers will have three options for receiving their books. Dickerson says he will mail them to whatever address you want (postage will apply, of course) or you can prepay and the books will be left at the Raven’s Nest Coffee Shop on East Davis Street. Dickerson has even worked out an arrangement with the Raven’s Nest’s owner to hold author book-signings at the coffee shop.

Next time: Some ideas around opening, not closing a bookstore, even now…

Two word and book related stories made the news in the last week, in which people who do things we all might do – or at least might be tempted to do – were actually caught and booked for their offenses.

The first took place at the Grand Canyon – the crime: conspiracy to vandalize government property.

Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year. They had removed an extraneous apostrophe and added a comma to the sign.

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty Aug. 11 for the damage done March 28 at the park’s Desert View Watchtower. The sign was made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon-area landmarks.

The second reminds me of my mother, who told me so often that it was burned into my consciousness (perhaps to my own detriment): “There’s no debtors’ prison in this country.” Heidi Dalibor of Grafton, Wisconsin was arrested for not returning her library books, and failing to pay the fine.

Dalibor couldn’t believe the day two Grafton police officers came to her house, armed with an arrest warrant for failing to return library books and a $171 fine.

“We just went to the car and he told me he had to handcuff me. I was a little surprised and told them I didn’t think that was necessary. He said that was procedure, cuffed me, grabbed my head and put me in the car,” Dalibor said. ”

Daliber checked out “Angels and Demons” and “White Oleander”, but never returned them.

[This rogue editor's disclaimer: The above excerpt is quoted exactly as posted -- all errors are the author's, not mine.]

That’s an awfully big smile. Did the photographer prompt her, “Say lawsuit”?

As a member of the LGBT community who reads, there is often overlap between my literary life and my queer life. I tend to read contemporary lit, if perhaps not lit with a capital Literature. I don’t read many romances, though my reading material often contains romance. I don’t read many mysteries, though every good story should have a mystery or two. I don’t read much sci-fi, though magical realism/fabulism often crosses my nightstand. And when I go to the bookstore, if I’m not searching for something specific, it’s the staff picks table, or the new paperbacks table that I gravitate toward. Only rarely will you find me in the LGBT section, and then I’m usually looking for an obscure title.
 
Last week I attended the Lambda Literary Retreat. While I was there, I heard the author of  The End of the World Book, Alistair McCartney, speak on a small panel of debut authors. He talked about feeling ghettoized originally to find himself in the LGBT section. But eventually, he realized he had a niche market, and in these times of many books, few readers, this was exceptionally valuable.
 
I didn’t tell Alistair that I never would have found him in the LGBT section. I stand among those writers (if I should ever get something finished and released to the world) who does not wish to be relegated to the LGBT section, if only because I would never find nor read my own work that way.
 
I do not like the term crossover. What exactly am I crossing over to – or from, for that matter? Have I somehow become a part of a netherworld of outcasts, who have to rise above a certain high-jump marker before we can make it out of the “ghetto”? I live in the everyday straight world. Some of my best co-workers are straight. I take the bus with straight people. I read their literature. I answer their e-mails. Why when I become an author would I suddenly have to be crossing over in order to appear on the shelves and tables that I regularly choose my books from – indeed, where my inspiration lives?
 
On the American Bookseller’s Association blog, Bookselling This Week, is a recent article called “GLBT Titles: Not Just For GLBTs Anymore”. It begins:

With the success of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and just about every David Sedaris title, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender lit has long since moved from off- to center-stage at general bookstores. With so many choices for GLBT books, the tricky part for a bookseller is creating optimal GLBT section visibility, shelving titles that can span two, three, or more genres, and winnowing a rich field of contenders for shelf space.

 
And my response to the ABA: when were they ever just for GLBTs? While I’m sure that some were written expressly for the queer audience, many others were not. Who exactly determined that these books were just for GLBTs?

The Story of Forgetting: A Novel by Stefan Merrill Block

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

If I didn’t really like this book, I’d hate Stefan Merrill Block. The kid – and yes, I mean kid – was born in 1982, as his book jacket brags. He’s still in his 20’s. And this book is good, not good like macaroni art is good, or good like that time that your 12-year-old cooked you pancakes and forgot the eggs, it’s bona fide good. Maybe it’s not great, but jeez, he’s gotta have something to do with the rest of his life, right?

Block creates a familial mythology that is interwoven with a genetic disease, an imagined variety of early-onset Alzheimer’s. On his website, stefanmerrillblock.com, he details the personal origins of his fascination with Alzheimer’s:

When I was a small child, my grandmother was diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s disease. At that time, I hardly knew what the disease was (I thought the word was “Old-Timer’s”). For the first year or two of her decline, her symptoms were subtle and I was too young to notice anything unusual. By the time my mom invited my grandmother to come stay with us, however, the disease was in its middle stages, and I was old enough to understand that something was deeply wrong. Just before my grandmother arrived, my mom explained to me what I should expect: cognitively, I was now more advanced than she. Difficult as it was to comprehend, I would now have to think of myself as more mature than my grandmother. I would have to watch out for her, like a brother would for his little sister.

Like the disease, the myth of Isidora is carried from parent to child, from one generation to the next. The Isidorans start out unable to remember anything – this is not considered a flaw, but key to their bliss.

Complicated are his ideas on memory, but they are ideas, not permutations of characters at play, but actual ideas. He could have been more coy with his ideas, weaving them seamlessly into stories, but he states them outright, with poetry and grace, and I, for one, am glad he does. Take his ideas of DNA as Memory, birthed of its parent, Chance:

…Chance also created some astoundingly complex and resilient successes, and memory didn’t miss a chance to take these opportunities as far as it could. Eventually, with higher domains of complexity, Memory took on new responsibilities. Once Chance and Memory devised the nervous system, for example, Memory found work for itself beyond its endless, monotonous transcription. Chance interred Memory in their mutual creations, allowing, for example, a simple fish to remember not to eat a bluish alga, or swim too close to the coral. Chance encouraged Memory’s new work, and in new organisms new forms of memory were invented all the time: instinctual memory, procedural memory, sensory memory, short-term memory.

Perhaps the ending, which carefully leaves some laces untied, is still a little too perfectly assembled. I can’t say that I understand how you strike that balance between order and potential, though. Maybe in the next ten years, either Block or I will get there.

View all my reviews.

The Bright Forever: A Novel by Lee Martin

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seldom have I seen an author so skillfully align guilt and innocence, unfold a story with such dexterity as to confound the reader’s own judgment of these usually clearcut qualities.

Our protagonist — if he can be called such — in The Bright Forever is both heartbreaking, almost childish in his innocence, and yet terribly guilty. As lies are told and truths uncovered, we judge and empathize with the character. In the end, we feel nearly as guilty as he does, as we allowed ourselves to love a little bit those we would choose to scorn were the whole story revealed.

Loneliness, shame, and pride are explored in this book — left wide open: the question of redemption.

At many points the main character addresses the reader, daring us to put the book down in condemnation of his actions. While this is not my favorite literary technique, it’s used well here. When we don’t put the book down, read on at times in the story when our worst fears about our primary narrator seem most certain, we give a little bit of doubt away, place a little more trust in him. We collude with him, if you will.

Aren’t we as guilty as he? Aren’t we also the ones charged with forgiveness, if it is to be granted?

View all my reviews.

I am about to have my first traditional publication credit: two poems in an anthology. I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t pretty jazzed about it, but the subject matter of the book — if only because it’s my first publication — is a little embarrassing.

The book is called Women. Period. Wanna guess what it’s about?

Why is it that our “time of the month” is taboo? In some cultures, menstruating women are banished from their marital beds during Aunt Flo’s visit.

In our culture we come up with cute names to talk about menstruation, mimic it in television commercials with something that looks like it could clean windows, and charge exorbitant prices for pressed cotton wrapped in something called Dry-Weave — to keep it away from us.

And yes, even though I see right through all these euphemisms and whitewashes, I am still embarrassed that I wrote two poems — one of which I even count among my best — about the subject. Worse yet, they’re not hiding away in a document on my now dead computer. They’re out there, in the world. In a book.

So it is with a familiar mix of pride and shame, and shame of my own shame — metashame? — that I announce this publication. Truly it’s a gift that I get to put something in my artist’s resume. Certainly it’s an honor to be chosen. And someday it will be a funny story.

For now, it’s mine. And damn it, I’m proud of it.

So at my buddy Katie’s suggestion, I joined Paperback Swap today.

It’s a pretty good deal. To start out you post ten books you can part with (they don’t really have to be paperbacks, but keep in mind that you’ll be paying postage, so paperbacks are cheaper), and you get two credits to spend. One credit = one book.

Once I was done posting my books, I immediately had five requests, so half of my books were wanted — and these were the books I knew I’d never read again. I thought for a moment that the site was that active, but it turns out that you can make a wish list, and when the book comes available, you get first dibs (assuming you’re first in line, that is). Pretty neat.

When two of the members who had wishlisted my books confirmed that they wanted them, I promptly went to the post office to mail the books, which was my biggest mistake. I didn’t like the idea of setting up a postage account with them and printing my postage — how would I know exactly how much postage I would need? That would mean that some of my money was always in their hands: add all of that extra postage up, and it’s likely a lot of money. Smells like a racket to me, and I’m careful not to give money to something that feels that way to me, no matter how little money it may be, on principle. Well, as I mentioned, that was a mistake. It turns out that had I printed the postage, they would have considered the book not just mailed, but received. And therefore my two credits would already be available.

As it is, I have to wait until the members receive the books I mailed and go online to mark them received. According to their site, that could take 15 days! Also, at the automated mailing station at the post office (it was closed), I couldn’t buy media mail, only first class or priority, so I spent more than I had to, about $5.35 to mail two books.

The site was down for maintenance when I first visited, and pretty slow moving (and relatively unattractive… just saying) once it was back up. And my wish list is far longer than the list of books I wanted to read that were available. Like me, other readers are probably only putting their least favorites up for swap.

But this is only my first day, and some of my dissatisfaction was my own stupid fault. So I’ll have to keep you posted on how it goes from here on out.

Update: So another person confirmed that they wanted one of my books and I went the pre-paid postage route. It is not cheaper, and I do feel ripped off. I spent $3.50 on the postage, $.50 of which was a fee for using my credit card.

The postage cost $2.41, and I also spent $.43 on the per-book transaction fee of using the prepaid postage service. I did get instant credit, but when it costs 39% of the postage to mail it from home, that’s not a bargain.

Of course, I could have put more money into the postage account, thereby spreading the $.50 over multiple shipments, but even if I spread it over, say, 10 shipments, that would still be $.48 per shipment, or in this case, a 20% premium.

There is a second option I’m going to try next time. This feature prints the mailing label with a confirmation bar code on it — as soon as your mail is scanned in at the post office, you get credit for the trade. It costs something like $.23 (I can’t find the exact price, bad user experience, folks), and of course, since I only have $.16 in my account now, I will have to spend another $.50 to get my account balance up to the point where I can use it. Sigh.

  Just in time for Pride weekend, Tom Spanbauer will be visiting Seattle to read from Faraway Places. Spanbauer’s first book has been reprinted by Hawthorne Press, a cool Portland indie publisher:

All of our titles are published as affordable original trade paperbacks but feature details not typically found even in case bound titles from bigger houses: acid-free papers; sewn bindings that will not crack; heavy, laminated covers with double-scored French flaps that function as built-in bookmarks.

The new volume features an introduction by A. M. Homes, who’s a new favorite of mine. From the introduction:

Faraway Places, Tom Spanbauer’s first novel, is not enormously long, but it is a big book. And it is masterly—a near perfect book. Built upon keen observations of human behavior—ranging from God, to farming, the scent of one’s father, the magic of sex and the exact number of steps from here to there—there is enormous originality, drama and spirit to this tale. It is a family drama with a pitch perfect crescendo. The story is hypnotic, mesmerizing, delicately brilliant—and so well made. While you are lulled by the language and the characters, the storyline builds and then like a well timed firework explodes—surprising, enthralling, captivating.

I’ll be there to get his paw prints on my yet-to-be-purchased copy of In the City of Shy Hunters.

You should be there, too.

Tom Spanbauer
Elliott Bay Books
Friday, June 27 at 7:30 p.m, Free!
101 South Main Street
Pioneer Square, Seattle

by Anne Carson

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book marks, without an ember of doubt, the first time I’ve ever felt burned by my lack of education in the classics. I approached this book ready to feel cowed and lost, so I was enthralled when that was not the case.

I understand Geryon intimately, for I, too am a red creature.

From a forgotten notebook of mine:

“On my steady diet of nicotine and coffee, my thoughts grind (like bad teeth) into points. I am a sharp-shaped thing. A needle, an arrow, I cut. I can touch rage: rage that was the only sprig of life on the barren potato farm; rage tucked into the left work boot for the dark walk home from the plant; rage channeled into the line of a razor’s making, at first invisible, then blessed red. We all know the color of rage. Red will unmake me.”

Geryon’s red is a different hue, as has my own ripened with age. Passion. Shame. Love. The interior exposed and vulnerable. Heat. Longing. Did you know longing was red? Do you know how close you are to knowing that?

Like the terrestrial crust of the earth
which is proportionately ten times thinner than an eggshell, the skin of the soul
is a miracle of mutual pressures.

Fuck Herakles. That bitch and his arrogance, never seeing the deep red interior of his jailbait trick. Winning is blindness. Winning is empty. Winning is lonely, even with a joint in one hand and a cock in the other. It is through losing that we learn to make bread in the volcano’s eye. It is through returning that we get wings.

Anne Carson, thank you for making a hero of the vanquished, for turning a flat story over and finding the life growing beneath it.

Geryon stood upright
within the rayon planes of his brother’s sports jacket. Sweat and desire ran
down his body to pool
in the crotch and behind the knees. He had been standing against the wall
for three and a half hours in a casual pose.
His eyes ached from the effort of trying to see everything without looking at it.
Other boys stood beside him
on the wall. The petals of their colognes rose about them in a light terror.
Meanwhile music pounded
across hearts opening every valve to the desperate drama of being
a self in a song.

“What is time made of?” Geryon asks frequently.

Fear of time came at him. Time
was squeezing Geryon like the pleats of an accordion.

And:

…A man moves through time. It means nothing except that,
like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.

What does this thoughtful young artist have against time? We might think it’s his death — we all know his demise is assured before reading the book, or at least once we find out he goes up against Herakles:

on the other side of the world somewhere Herakles laughing drinking getting
into a car and Geryon’s
whole body formed one arch of a cry — upcast to that custom, the human custom of wrong love.

But here Carson has turned the story around — it’s not death Geryon waits for, but heartbreak. And heartbreak, as we all can’t help but know, is red like thunder.

View all my reviews.

Two more independent bookstores bite the dust. One is in the heartland, Bookstore on West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH. From The Plain Dealer:

About 18 months ago, the landmark store was in code blue and failing fast, but patrons and friends of owner Mike O’Brien held a rent party, giving the place a new life.

The revival, however, was short-lived. Now the old Mecca for suburban intellectuals and urban poor people — who for decades browsed among the high wooden shelves and the 25-cent rack — is in its final hour.

It’s not hard to imagine that independent bookstores disappear from lower income neighborhoods before richer ones. The anecdotal evidence I can provide from my own life confirms this, and it makes sense that the richer the neighborhood, the more they can support a specialty store. However, it’s tragic to imagine books as objects inaccessible to the poor.

And in Berkeley, CA, Cody’s closed its doors on June 20. From the Berkeley Blog:

I have been a longtime fan of Cody’s Books in Berkeley. It was a great independent bookstore with a big selection and very knowledgeable salespeople that supported local authors. It also brought a lot of great speakers to Berkeley, many of whom I had the privilege of hearing talk in a small, intimate space, and many of whose visits resulted in posts on this weblog. It was one of the institutions that enriched the city, kept it intellectually stimulating, and made it a great place to live.

In the good news section, a different bookstore called Amazon - not referring to the online giant, but a little feminist bookstore in Minneapolis - got saved at the last possible moment. The closing sale had already happened, but the new owner, Ruta Skujins, is thrilled to get started again. Quoting the new owner, Amy Goetzman at MinnPost.com says:

“‘I belong to several online literary groups, and I kept hearing about these great bookstores closing, in places like Iowa and Boston. When I heard that Amazon was closing, I thought, ‘No, that can’t happen,’ ‘ she said. ‘I talked with Barb Wieser [manager and most veteran employee of the cooperative] back in February about gathering a group of investors, but it just didn’t come together, so I gave up on the idea. But it bothered me.’

Then last week, Skujin’s partner ran into Barb at a concert, who told her the 38-year-old store had lowered its price but had not found a buyer, and was now in its final days. ‘I called Barb the next day, we met last Thursday, came to an agreement, shook on it, and I still can’t believe it, but I own a bookstore,’ said Skujin.”

Unconvinced that these stores are worth saving? For a great discussion on the many-pronged value of independent bookstores, visit Thoughts on Books, a blog by an employee of a publishing house.