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The Boy in the Rain: Catching up with Stephanie Cowell

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We, at Regal House, had the delightful opportunity to sit down with Stephanie Cowell, author of the upcoming The Boy in the Rain, a love story of two young men in Edwardian England, releasing May 1, 2023, and ask her all the particular questions we had regarding her writing process, her hobbies, and her inspiration for her upcoming book. We’re thrilled to share that interview with you!

What surprising skills or hobbies do you have?

Stephanie as a balladeer age 25

Before I threw myself into writing novels, I was a high soprano, singing both traditional folk music with guitar, and opera. With folk songs, I sang everywhere from prisons, schools, on a cruise on the lake around Stockholm, and the most elegant private parties in New York City apartments. I sang in several languages though my favorite was British songs, particularly “Greensleeves” and “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton.” I performed many roles in opera, among them Gretel wearing my hair in braids and Gilda in Rigoletto, the young Renaissance Italian girl who is seduced by the Duke of Mantua. Her father vows vengeance and death, and the baritone singing the role and I had a very dramatic duet, when he keeps singing “Si, Vendetta!” (Vengeance!) and she begs him to forgive the scoundrel Duke because she still loves him. At the end Gilda must sing a very high note: the Eb above High C. I was terrified, and my throat would close which meant no high note. So, my old Italian voice teacher discovered I could manage if I ran while singing. Everyone thought I was wonderfully dramatic with my long hair streaming behind me, running across the enormous stage while sustaining that note. But I could not do it otherwise!

I still sing a little when I do the dishes, but nothing nearly that high.

How do you research your work?

Stephanie researching in Eccleston Square in London

When I first began to write novels (1984) there was no internet, and I had very little money for books, even if I could find them. I would go to the research libraries which still had index cards cataloguing books. There was always tremendous excitement finding a book. The New York Public Library’s main reading room (the Rose Room) where I sometimes went to study is unbelievably huge and gorgeous. You wrote out a call card and handed it to the librarian and after a time someone from somewhere in the seven stories below the ground where the books were stored, the book you wanted would be fetched. My new novel, The Boy in the Rain, was researched in old book shops and libraries and later, books bought online. I also went to England several times to research it, to London and to Nottingham where the two young men in the book lived. But research also is sensory memory. I stayed many summer weekends as an adolescent in an old country house which was security for me. I heard the heavy tree branches moving against the house. It became the house in my novel.

How long did it take you to write your book? Revisions?

The Boy in the Rain, releasing May 1, 2023

It took forever! The Boy in the Rain was the first novel I tried to write, begun on a dare from two friends. It was very short and undeveloped, but a friend remembers, “it had tremendous passion.” So, I hid the printout in my closet and every four or five years, I’d miss it awfully, and bring it out to revise and share it with a few friends. Agents would fall in love with it and some editors but in the end, they thought it was too unusual and wanted other books from me. I’m terribly glad actually because it took that long to develop into its full strength, 

Have you published anything before? If so, what and where?

I have published three novels with W.W. Norton: Nicholas Cooke, The Physician of London, and The Players: a novel of the young Shakespeare. Then came Marrying Mozart through Viking Penguin, and after with Crown Random House, Claude & Camille: a novel of Monet.  My books have been translated into nine languages and the Mozart novel was made into an opera. I am the recipient of an American Book Award. I have at least six novels in draft, always hoping to finish them. Maybe eight….

LAST QUESTION: When you are writing which is more real, the world all of us live in or the one only you can see? How does to feel to share that world??

When I am writing, the world of the novel is as real as the one I physically live in. I feel the characters walking next to me in the street. When I was an only child (until the age of nine), I would be taken to school and brought back again to my room where I was alone most of the time until dinner. We lived in NYC and I had no way to go to other kids’ houses, as little kids don’t walk the streets alone! Actually, I kept changing schools, so I don’t remember having any friends until after the age of nine when we lived in one place for a few years, and I was able to walk a few streets to visit my first friend or go downstairs to visit a girl in the building. So, I made up people.

I had a made-up friend called David, and I believe he was the genesis of some of my characters, especially Robbie in The Boy in the Rain. Everyone has imaginary worlds in them, but most people are private about them. Writers share them in books. For a long time, I felt The Boy in the Rain was too private to share, that it was just for me. When I first saw the novel printed between covers, I was a little terrified. It is such an intimate world to me. Writing these words, a month before publication day, I am still not sure I want to stand up and talk about it before people.  So, there was a great tug between keeping it a secret forever and sharing it. I guess sharing it won. 

Broadside Bookshop: a Northampton Icon

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by Thérèse Soukar Chehade

Broadside Bookshop has been in the same Main Street location since 1974

Broadside Bookshop in Northampton, Massachusetts, was the first bookstore I visited after moving to western Massachusetts from my native Lebanon in the summer of 1983. I liked the welcoming staff, the small space, and the shelves piled high with books. Even though my Arabic and French education hadn’t exposed me to the English-speaking authors on display, I felt that I was viewing a collection curated with love and intelligence.

I made it a point to visit often. The civil war was still raging in Lebanon, but the bookstores had remained open, providing havens of stability and reason in a shattered country. I went to Broadside for the same reason I went to the bookstores in Beirut during breaks from the fighting: to lose myself among the shelves and forget the difficult world outside. I was struggling to find something to tether me in my new and unfamiliar life. But books I knew. A friendly staff member would offer to help or simply let me browse to my heart’s content, and the world would get a little brighter. I read and was drawn into the magical circle of belonging.

The region of western Massachusetts known as the Pioneer Valley is home to many colleges. The New York Times describes it as “arguably the most author-saturated, book-cherishing, literature-celebrating place in the nation,” featuring many bookstores to satisfy book lovers. Located in the same spot on Main Street since 1974, Broadside is a Northampton icon and a popular destination for locals. It is part of a network of local bookshops that are rooted in their communities, their excellent customer service providing a welcome relief in an increasingly automated world. 

Bruce MacMillan, the shop’s original founder, died in 2001 after leaving the store to four of his employees. Bill Clements is one of these owners. He has been with the store since 1992 and agreed to meet with me. We’ve known one another since the late 1990s, when our sons attended the local Montessori school. After catching up for a few minutes, we began the interview.

Bill Clements in front of the fiction section

There are many bookstores in this area and they all seem to coexist. Why do you think that is?

There aren’t as many as there used to be. I moved here in 1982. For the first ten years that I lived in Northampton, there were four stores that sold new books. Now there are only two. 

The town has changed. Rents had risen even before COVID. There are a lot of empty storefronts. It was never like this before. On Thursday nights, the entire town used to be open, but now there isn’t enough street traffic to support it. In fact, for the first time, we are considering not being open late once our winter hours end in a month or so for the rest of the year. We’re usually open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and we’re debating whether to keep that up. There aren’t enough people. It’s much more difficult to run a store and make enough money to keep it open. There are fewer places to shop and hardly any retail. It is driven primarily by restaurants in the evenings. I’ve recently traveled and seen a lot worse, so we’re fortunate, but it’s not what it used to be.

What effect did COVID have on sales?

At the start of COVID, Channel 22 did an interview with store owners. They followed up with them after COVID, and we were the only store they originally interviewed that is still in business, out of 4 or 5. So yes, it’s been difficult for local businesses.

Your store will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next year!

The community values us and people here have always gone out of their way to support local independent businesses in general. Because of the politics of the area being what they are, people are aware of the corporations and the big box stores and they know this is not the lifestyle they want to be around as much. They want it, but they don’t want only that. They want us as well. So we really are valuable to them, and they realize that we want to be around for them. That’s a big thing for us. Before the founder of Broadside, Bruce MacMillan, passed away, he made it possible for the store to be passed on to us, and in doing so, he was aware of the legacy of the store. We, too, are very aware of the need for this to continue, and in fact we’re probably going to be in transition in the next three years or so. It will be a generational change, and a lot of stores don’t survive that. When the owners of a store want to retire, they try to sell and find that it’s not easy. Fortunately, we’re setting up things now that will put in place people who will be carrying it on. 

So the key is to stay local?

Yes, as well as the politically aware locals who recognize our value as a kind of third place outside of home and work to gather and create community. We’re seen that way. We are not the only ones, but we are part of that.

How do you give back to the community?

We have a non-profit program where we sponsor a non-profit that we feature in the window once a month. We offer them space to be noticed and recognized by people walking by, and give them the money we have raised to help them out. It’s a very popular program. We also provide books for the schools and hold regular reading events featuring local authors.

A book is born. How do you decide which books to display? 

Before that, we must decide which books to buy. We order from a company that provides catalogs for all major and minor publishers. The criteria are the author’s track record and, if nonfiction, the subject’s track record. If it’s fiction, we also look at the track record in that genre. We have knowledgeable and experienced buyers who understand what works and what doesn’t. Everyone has their finger in the wind. Publishers don’t know what will work or not, so they put it out there. Most of the books published do not make any money. It’s great that they’re publishing so many writers, but only a small percentage of the successful books drive the whole engine and pay for the ones that are losing money, which accounts for about 80 or 90 percent of the total.

And yet books keep getting published.

It’s an interesting model, and it has its ups and downs. Another major factor is the escalating financial crisis. I attended a conference in Seattle three weeks ago, and the main topic of discussion was what we should do about it, and where this is all going. The rising cost of books is a big concern. Novels are selling for almost $30, and non-fiction can cost up to $45. 

That leaves out a lot of people.

That’s a big concern. Going back to the business of bookselling, we order the books and we put them out. Some will succeed unexpectedly through word of mouth, while others will be carried because they are written by well-known authors. In a way, the rich get richer. We make a point to stock works by local authors. We accept books, even self-published books, from walk-in authors. We have a consignment program, and we carry these books for a small fee. If they sell, we order more. If not, after a year or so we ask them to take them back. This creates a local connection. Most of our reading events are by local authors. We have a lot of authors in this area.

Books have a different business model than food or clothing. The books can be returned. The publishers accept them back at no cost. If a book doesn’t sell, we return it and that’s it; we pay the return freight, which isn’t cheap, but there’s no discount on them. We can keep the books flowing that way, but you must stay on top of it. Ordering, returning, culling, and reviewing records on a regular basis. If a book hasn’t sold in three months, it is returned. It’s a judgment call whether you continue to carry it after selling one in three months and for how long.

NPR and the New York Review of Books are both important venues for book promotion. We have a very popular bookcase where we keep titles that have been reviewed by NPR. Many people get their recommendations from them. It’s a constant flow.

On the subject of “the rich getting richer,” I’m wondering how small presses fit into the picture as you decide which new books to purchase. Small presses frequently publish writers from underrepresented groups like women, minorities, and lesser-known authors. Keeping in mind that booksellers are trying to survive in an increasingly difficult economy, do you believe they have a role in highlighting some of these lesser-known voices in an effort to broaden the literary playing field? 

It is part of our mission as booksellers to carry lesser known and marginalized authors. This is made easier by the publishing and book distribution industries: publishers are making a substantial effort to publish women, minorities, and lesser known authors, especially after the wake-up call of the controversy over the publication of American Dirt several years ago. There’s been far greater diversity of voices published since then. Distributors are carrying small presses so we have easy access to them. The bookselling business is always about a balance between carrying what sells–we need to stay in business, of course–and doing our job as purveyors of culture(s), writ large and small. We are very aware of the need for the latter.

I’m one of those people who prefer to have a book in my hands rather than read on a screen. Do you think that’s still true for most people?

Yes. a lot of people are mixed. They do both, but it’s circumstantial. If they’re on a plane, it’s an e-book. If they are reading genre fiction, it’s often e-readers, partly because people tear through a romance or mystery in a short time, and do they want to spend $17 on it? This drives which format they use. Many people discovered in the last 10 or 15 years, when e-books looked like they were going to take over the world, that the readership went up and then plateaued. That’s because a lot of people like the feel of the book. Astonishingly, I heard years ago that young people were getting tired of their screens, and it was almost a relief for them to have a book in their hands. 

That’s hopeful.

Hopefully, that is true. Our readership skews older, but there are many young people who come in to buy books.

I believe that people are not reading as much as they used to. Is that consistent with your experience?

I just read an article in the New Yorker about the decline in college enrollment in the humanities. In an interview, a Columbia English professor said that he used to read five novels a month. Then he bought a cell phone. Now he’s happy if he reads one book per month. If someone like him is reading this much less, imagine what it’s like for other people! We’re all reading blogs, responding to emails, and listening to podcasts. Few people read the long form, although people continue to write them. How many people nowadays read Dickens?

Are you seeing these changes reflected in sales?

Somewhat. But we had our best year ever two years ago, as did almost everyone. Because of the outpouring from the community following COVID, 2021 was far above any other year. Last year was not as good, but it wasn’t bad. Things are sluggish this year, but we hope sales will pick up.

The opening keynote speaker at this year’s ABA (American Booksellers Association) Winter Institute conference said that there are currently 530 new independent bookstores in the pipeline nationwide. The book industry suffered significant losses during the 2008 recession, which didn’t really level out until 2012. But, since then, there has been a steady increase in the number of new independent bookstores opening, proving that it is a viable business model. The real indicator is that Barnes and Noble has been struggling. It used to be the big box stores were our main competitor before Amazon became the boogeyman. The independent stores won that battle to the point where Barnes and Noble hired the guy who turned around BigBox books in England. The way he did it there, and is now attempting to replicate his strategy at Barnes and Noble, is by giving power back to the actual managers of each store á la indie bookstore model, rather than corporate dictating what you buy and where you display. It’s all about reinvesting in the local community.

I wonder if they’ll succeed. Barnes and Noble feels cold and big to me.  

It may not be able to fully replicate us. Also, customer service is what sets us apart and was the bedrock of our turnaround. Indie bookstores are staffed by people who know books and are trained booksellers. That’s what we have that the big ones don’t.

Aside from buying books, how do we support our local bookstores?

Attend events. Join book clubs that are sponsored by the stores. We don’t have one but others do. Mostly, it’s by financially supporting us.

And don’t go anywhere near Amazon!

That’s also mixed. It’s similar to what we said about e-books earlier. This was the message at the Seattle conference: get used to Amazon. Your best customers are buying from Amazon. It’s very difficult to resist that whim in the evening, when you go over to your computer and hit the button. It’s amazingly convenient. There are also a large number of people who do it for the lower cost and do not bother with us.

Bookshop.org can scratch that itch.

It’s good that you know about it. That’s a measure of its success.

Is it helpful?

The guy behind Bookshop, the one responsible for the whole enterprise, gave a presentation at the conference. He said that COVID really increased the success of Bookshop. It was the right time to start it. He was trying to give booksellers a platform that would not necessarily be able to compete with Amazon, but would at least allow us to stay in the game. He was successful, and part of it was the timing, with COVID triggering community support. Bookshop has grown five times since then. It is spreading and incredibly generous. We aren’t very active with it. But we get two checks from them each year with no effort on our part. They pool money and then divide it among the participating stores. And the customer can get the book by mail while still supporting independent bookstores in general. If you want to support a specific store, you can do so by choosing one when you first log on to the Bookshop website.

Do you have a favorite section in the store?

I’m a non-fiction guy. I love history, especially local history.

If you had infinite space, what would add?

I would have more sidelines. (Laughs.) There was a flattening out of sales in the 1900s and the downturn in 2008. Both times, the ABA highly recommended that we make up the difference by increasing the number of sidelines and not rely only on books. The founder of Broadside, Bruce, was a book guy. He had literally one spinner rack of cards from one guy in Maine. That was it. I’m naturally inclined toward liking the old-fashioned kind of stuffed place where you walk through and see something different at every turn. The store reflects my cluttered mind, I guess. (Laughs.)

It feels like a small library to me, and the sidelines are just part of the decor.

I keep stuffing things in here, much to the chagrin of my colleagues. They’re always rolling their eyes. We do have a filter, and we try to keep it to things related to words. We try not to have anything way out there. We still want to have some sense of dignity and integrity as a bookstore. (Laughs.)

Broadside Bookshop

Address:

247 Main St.,

Northampton, MA

Phone: (413) 586-4235

Website: http://www.broadsidebooks.com

Thérèse Soukar Chehade, author of Loom, has spent the last two decades teaching English Language Learners at a public school in Amherst, MA. She lives in Granby, MA, where the autumn foliage still fills her heart with gladness. Her upcoming novel, We Walked On, will be published by Regal House in the fall of 2024.

BookBound: Children’s Book World

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by Ona Gritz

In 1989, Hannah Schwartz, a former buyer for the children’s department of The Book House of Suburban Square in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, decided to open a shop that specialized in books for children. Children’s Book World quickly became a vibrant hub and crucial community resource for the children, families, teachers, readers, and writers in the Philadelphia suburb of Haverford and surrounding areas. Thirty-three years later, it still fills that role. And at eighty-five, Hannah, together with her daughter Heather Hebert, is still at the helm.

Recently, on the mild last day of January, I visited Children’s Book World with its inviting displays and shelves of bright spines, the striking mural by Renee Daily above the door, featuring a fox and a bear, each engrossed in a picture book. I’d just missed Hannah who does much of her work— special orders and backlists—from home these days. But I got to spend the better part of an hour talking to Heather who was twenty-one and just out of college when Children’s Book World first opened. She helped out in the store at first, but, inspired by her mother and her own love of art, soon opened a craft shop where, as it happens, the renowned children’s author Paula Danziger came to learn scrapbooking with the thought that she might use the skill to illustrate her next book.

Heather ran her craft shop for a decade, but after she had her first child, she came back to Children’s Book World as manager. Her first baby is now twenty, and many of the customers who were little children when Heather first returned to the store now come in with their own kids.

“They thank me for not changing the place,” she told me, laughing.

Even customers who haven’t gone on to have children often visit as adults. A few have even written their college applications on Children’s Book World. It’s the place where they not only discovered books and became readers, but had some of their most memorable experiences.

Kids in wizard costumes making friends by playing cards and reading together as they waited in line to meet J.K. Rowling. Or chatting about which graphic novel in the Smile series they’d decided to ask Raina Telgemeier to sign. Kids who got to draw pigeons with Mo Willems or dress up for the Fancy Nancy parties the store held.

Recently, the owner of Snapology showed children how to make Lego mosaics of their favorite characters. Books flew off the shelves as everyone looked for what they wanted to create.

Children’s Book World is also where some of the local schools hold their book fairs. There’s so much joyful noise in the shop on those afternoons, Heather told me, you can’t even hear the phone ring.

Something the staff noticed was that many students found the book fairs overwhelming. With so many choices, they didn’t know where to put their attention. So the Children’s Book World staff began visiting the schools to give booktalks on their favorite ten books for each grade. This, of course, requires a good deal of reading and preparation, which, Heather says, is the best kind of homework you could have.

“We feel very fortunate that we get to do this, what we love to do. That the community is so supportive, that the schools and the educators we work with are so caring about what they put in kids’ hands, and that they trust us to help them with that.”

Children’s Book World has also fostered several literary successes. Isaac Blum, who came to the store from the time he was six years old, just won the William C. Morris Award for his debut young adult novel, The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen, which was also longlisted for The National Book Award.

Katherine Locke, who, as a shy teenager, used to attend all the young adult book signings, is now a successful author of books for all ages. And Rachel Hartman, author of the New York Times bestselling Seraphina Series, worked at the store for years.

“We saw her wanting to do this, and knew how talented she was. So when other people realized it, it was fantastic.”

Heather and the Children’s Book World team show this kind of love to all their local authors and illustrators. And in Heather’s words, “We have gobs of them.”

Every year, on the first Friday in November, Children’s Book World hosts an author/illustrator evening. When Hannah started this tradition, about three years after the store opened, there were ten in attendance. Last November, there were over eighty.

“Writing is a solitary job, so it’s nice to get out there and see everybody and see what they’re doing. They get to have their night to just to buzz around about the business, but then we also bring the public in to get books. The new crop of young authors and illustrators are nurtured by the ones who’ve been doing this for a while. Just to watch those interactions and conversations is nice.”

“Can I come?” I couldn’t help but blurt, an hour in this infectious place bringing out the child in me.

“Absolutely. You’ll be on our list. We put all our local authors and illustrators on our list.”

Heather smiled at me. Actually, she’d been smiling the whole time we spoke. It’s no wonder. What her mother built, and she has gone on to sustain and grow, is rare and beautiful, joyous and necessary. Haverford Pennsylvania, thanks to these remarkable women, is home to the luckiest community of children, parents, teachers, librarians, writers, illustrators, and readers you could meet.

Ona Gritz’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Utne Reader, Ploughshares, Brevity, and River Teeth, and has been widely anthologized. Her recent honors include two Notable mentions in Best American Essays, a Best Life Story in Salon, and a winning entry in The Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020 project. She is the author of the recently released middle grade title, August or Forever.

Jeanette Horn

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Jeanette Horn was enamored of the written word at an early age and spent much of her childhood reading and making books. At eleven, she formally decided to become a writer, devoting herself to poetry several years later, when she learned from a William Carlos Williams documentary that it didn’t have to rhyme.

After receiving a BA in English from The University of Texas, where she won several Adele Steiner Burleson Awards for poetry and essay writing, Jeanette earned an MFA from The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. There, she was awarded a Maytag Fellowship and was a finalist for Poetry’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. Her work has appeared in MARGIE, Poetry International, Stand, Washington Square, and other journals.

Jeanette resides in Austin, Texas, with her husband and dogs. Play, With Knives is her debut novel, and its lyrical style is evidence that poetry remains her first love. Learn more at jeanettehorn.com

After 42 Years, The Muse Bookshop Still Promotes Literacy and Community

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By Ginger Pinholster

In DeLand, Florida’s bustling historic downtown, The Muse Bookshop invites readers to browse an irresistible children’s section, new best sellers, used and antiquarian books, topographical maps, “Floridiana,” gifts, and more.

Seated at the heart of the shop is its unstoppable founder – educator and community champion Janet Bollum, who co-founded The Muse 42 years ago, on July 1, 1980. Bollum’s business has continued to thrive despite devastating recessions, changes in her personal life, and a global pandemic. On a recent Saturday, customers bustled in and out of the shop as they paraded along DeLand’s humming downtown shopping area.

Bollum has played a key role in advancing her city’s downtown business district, ever since the area was established in 1985. “I have a vested interest in the viability of the downtown district,” she explains. “I’m on the MainStreet DeLand Association board. I live in DeLand, own a business in DeLand. I promote literacy in that, if people come in and they’re looking for something, I have the ability to point them in the right direction.”

Janet Bollum, owner of The Muse Bookshop

She considers that level of service – and literary insight – as her primary selling point, compared to chain stores. “I can help my customers navigate my collection,” says Bollum, an enthusiastic bibliophile. “If I don’t have it, I can get it for you.”

From a visitor’s perspective, Bollum’s other primary selling point is her infectious passion for books and her steadfast commitment to community-building. As an example, following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, Janet and her daughter Ella Ran live-streamed weekly readings of children’s books on race and diversity. Readings in that series included books such as Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice.

“Give a kid a love for books and they’ll be entertained for life,” Bollum says, noting that her nine-year-old granddaughter loves graphic novels such as Wings of Fire and Artemis Fowl.

The Children’s Section at The Muse

Bollum’s preferred genre is historical fiction. She reads to escape, and for entertainment, but she also reads a bit of everything, including all of the offerings in her bookshop’s “Florida Room.” There, contemporary literary fiction by Connie May Fowler and Carl Hiaasen’s humorous thrillers coexist with antique copies of Robert Wilder’s Flamingo Road and Marjorie Kinnan Rawling’s Cross Creek.

Born in Minnesota, Janet Lynn Bollum earned a mathematics degree from Moorhead State College, taught high school in Australia for a couple of years, then returned to the United States, where she became involved in adult education. That experience got her more interested in promoting literacy.

In 1979, she and her then-husband, the late Keith Charles Bollum, followed her parents to Florida, where he worked at a bookstore in St. Augustine. In 1980, they bought a business called McVicker’s Books, Cards, and Gifts, which was located a block north of her current store in DeLand. The Bollums had two children, Justin and Ella, before divorcing in 1989.

The Florida Room

Still, The Muse Bookshop persisted.

Janet Bollum became increasingly involved in civic life, serving as a City of DeLand commissioner; as chair of the Volusia County Metropolitan Planning Organization; as a representative of the Volusia Council of Governments; and on the advising committee of the Metropolitan Planning Organization. She remains active in the Democratic Party, and she helps citizens register to vote.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bollum says, The Muse closed for a couple of months, then began reopening gradually. She was able to secure grants from the county that helped her survive. All along the DeLand business district, she says, landlords temporarily reduced rents to help keep their tenants from going under. With very few exceptions, most of DeLand’s downtown businesses are small and privately owned, she notes. By working together, the community got through those dark days, and it has now bounced back stronger than ever, Bollum reports.

Bollum received the Woman of the Year Award from the DeLand Downtown Business and Professional Organization in 1996. She has been listed as a noteworthy Retail Book Store Owner and Educator by Marquis Who’s Who.

These days, her brother Brian helps out at the shop, as needed. At the back of The Muse Bookshop, daughter Ella Ran co-owns Outsiders, a retail store for outdoor adventurers.

Visit The Muse Bookshop at 112 S. Woodland Avenue, DeLand, Florida 32720. DeLand’s award-winning downtown district also features an art museum, eclectic craft and gift stores, restaurants, a brewery, and much more. If you’re in Central Florida, it’s a destination well worth touring, especially if you have a chance to meet and be inspired by Janet Bollum.

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Ginger Pinholster’s second novel, Snakes of St. Augustine, is forthcoming on September 12, 2023 from Regal House Publishing. Her first novel, City in a Forest, won a Gold 2020 Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writer’s Association. She works for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and lives in Ponce Inlet, Florida, where she volunteers with the Volusia-Flagler Turtle Patrol.

Arvida Book Company: A Warm and Nurturing Community Gathering Spot

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by Candi Sary

Arvida Book Company is my local bookstore. Its eclectic décor spans generations of style, pairing unique and edgy artwork with the nostalgic comfort of grandma’s living room. Lantern-like hangings, made of book pages, dangle from the ceiling. Paintings and sculptures by local artists adorn the walls. A turntable near the register plays music from a collection of vintage albums. Tables and shelves are stacked with an impressive variety of new and used books. The children’s section, like an enchanted garden with climbing vines, invites little ones to stay a while. 

Sam and Mike Robertson

One Friday morning I stopped in to talk with owners Samantha and Mike Robertson. We sat together in the burgundy and gold wingback chairs near the coffee counter. Tiny blackboards along the wall offered staff beverage picks—Mike suggested a ‘cortado’ while Sam simply underlined ‘black coffee.’ There in the cozy chairs, with a small rounder of classic literature between us, the couple shared their Arvida story. Opening a bookstore in the age of Amazon and during a pandemic takes a lot of courage and heart. Spending time with the Robertsons, it was clear the two have an abundance of both. 

When the pandemic hit, Mike lost his job and Sam, a flight attendant, worried about losing shifts. She had always dreamed of opening a business sometime in the future. Given the uncertainty of their current situation, they thought, why not now? and set their eyes on a vacant store in their neighborhood. The big corner building, amidst quaint little shops and restaurants of Old Town Tustin, had only switched hands twice. First it was a hardware store, and for the next twenty years it was Mrs. B’s Consignment Store. Sam and Mike loved bookstores. They even had their engagement photos taken at The Last Bookstore in LA. With a leap of faith, in 2020 the Robertsons transformed that vacant building into Arvida Book Company. 

With the help of friends, family, and their two young daughters, Sam and Mike have created a welcoming, comfortable and inspiring atmosphere for the local community. They want Arvida to be more than just a bookstore. Along with author events and several bookclubs, they host a variety of community gatherings. Sam told me how important it is to listen to their customers, tailoring books to local interests, and asking about the needs of the neighborhood. Upon learning that Tustin does not have a community garden, the Robertsons are now involved in making that happen. 

A cozy nook for children

I spent a good deal of time in the store that day. Regulars stopped in to say hello and share friendly chatter. A young couple, who plays chess every morning at one of the outdoor tables, peeked in to say goodbye when they left. During our conversation about the author/artist/community events they host, Sam pointed out a petite woman on the couch beside the turntable. It was Sondos Kholaki whose book I’d seen on the local author shelf. The Robertsons introduced me to the writer who was sitting with a friend, a songwriter. The three of us, though very different kinds of writers, found a connection over our shared love for words. We had an inspiring conversation there beside the wall of local art, with the smell of coffee in the air, and a sense of warmth all around the colorful, nurtured space. And I thought to myself, This is no ordinary bookstore experience. This is Sam and Mike’s vision achieved.

I left that Friday afternoon with the latest Sally Rooney novel, a personally signed copy of Sondos’s book, and an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I get to call Arvida Book Company my bookstore.

Candi Sary is the author of the book Black Crow White Lie and the recipient of the Reader Views Literary Award, a CIBA Award, and a first runner-up in the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her novel with Regal House, Magdalena, will be released in the summer of 2023.

Scuppernong Books: It’s All About Community

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by Valerie Nieman

I can honestly say I was there at the beginning.

Several years ago, opening night at Scuppernong Books in downtown Greensboro, NC, featured a warm fellowship of writers and readers, but the space itself was a work in progress. Bare shelves revealed the raddled brick of a succession of businesses. I don’t recall seeing a single fox, the creature that would become the familiar spirit of this place known for “Books Wine Community.”

owner Steve Mitchell

Today the space is bursting with books, new in the front, used in the back, with overflow onto big library tables in the event space. Staff reviews adorn books at front and center, while art and mottos—and foxes—make it hard to remember back when the walls were bare. But the “old home place” atmosphere remains, in assorted vintage armchairs and kitchen table chairs perfect for coffee and conversation. When authors visit, which is frequently, then folding chairs are brought out to offer seating that may or may not be enough—Scuppernong is on the tour list for popular authors such as North Carolina’s own Wiley Cash and kids’ book author Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid).

Co-owners Brian Lampkin and Steve Mitchell, both of them authors as well as booksellers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries, could see something special right from the start.

“I was reluctantly getting into this,” said Lampkin, who had previously owned a bookstore in Buffalo, NY. “I walked into this dead, dilapidated, dead-rat space, but I could see the possibilities of a great bookstore.”

owner Brian Lampkin

“It had been empty for 10 years,” added Mitchell. “The building has been here since 1898. It was a feed and seed store when it started, and then was a bunch of other things. It had been two ‘shotgun’ stores with a wall down the middle.”

If they could see a bright and book-filled future, others were skeptical. The owners admitted that one local funding source, when hearing that they planned to serve wine and beer, thought they were really planning a bar, not opening a bookstore at all.

Greensboro was in a bad place for books when Scuppernong began. Small shops and newsstands had closed, chain outlets had disappeared, leaving only used booksellers to feed the need of local readers downtown. The central business district was just starting the renewal that makes it a lively destination today.

“People were really interested. They came by, looked in the window,” Mitchell said. “Somebody brought us a decorated brick that we still have.”

“And the rock somebody threw through the window a couple of years later,” Lampkin added.

What can you do about bad reviews, right? But truly, Greensboro has taken Scuppernong Books to its heart, and vice versa. “What makes a great bookstore, in part, is that it has a distinct personality. Indie bookstores are always curated to a some degree. There are things we care about, and we are always learning from the community what they need and want. Great bookstores reflect the community,” Mitchell said.

books displayed for upcoming events

Community engagement has taken many forms. The store works with local schools and has set aside space for voter registration efforts in cooperation with the League of Women Voters. Its ongoing commitment to debate and discussion is evidenced in programs such as the Death Cafe about end-of-life issues, a science forum, Ask a Muslim Anything, and book clubs including “Reading the World” and another for poetry. In addition to a full schedule of readings, Scuppernong hosts writing workshops such as “Looking at Short Fiction” featuring five authors from Press 53. There’s also “ScupTV” on You Tube with book reviews and discussion, sock puppet shows, and short clips from presentations. A weekly online magazine, Renard and Raisin, keeps people up to date.

That brings us to the foxes. Red-furred foxes appear in unexpected places, their canny eyes and bright tail-swirls following you around the space. So what’s the connection? Scuppernongs are native grapes, and grapes then make you think of the Aesop fable about the fox and the grapes. Therefore, drawing on the French names, Renard and Raisin.

The biggest event of the year, however, is the Greensboro Bound book festival, launching in 2018 under the umbrella of Greensboro Literary Organization which the bookstore was instrumental in founding. The name comes from Greensboro’s history as a major railroad hub, and the festival logo features crossed railroad tracks. At venues across town, readers get to meet dozens of writers both national and regional. “After our first Greensboro Bound, people came to us and said this really feels like a festival for writers,” said Lampkin. “As writers ourselves, we knew how to keep writers happy.” I can verify that engaged presenters make for happy audiences!

Memoirist James Tate Hills reads from Blind Man’s Bluff

Readings are a major part of the indie bookstore scene, and Scuppernong is incredibly supportive of authors, but there is a learning curve. “Most authors who’ve done it for a while have modulated their expectations, but new authors may expect big crowds,” said Mitchell. “We tried for a long time to make all authors happy, from self-published to big names, but the realities of the book business make it hard. We’re more empathetic to writers because we both understand what a tough racket this is.”

The store has been getting noticed far and wide. “We were in Time magazine, the centerfold actually,” said Lampkin. “Lev Grossman did an article on independent bookstores for an issue on the best reasons to live in America.” The store has also been recognized by Southern Living as one of the best bookstores in the South, and received awards from the North Carolina Writers Conference, Arts Greensboro, Friends of the UNCG Libraries, and more.

Some controversy has come about as well. When the store hosted Bronwen Dickey for her book Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon, anti-pit bull folks were enraged. Hate mail poured in from across the nation. More recently, the store’s adherence to vaccine guidance, including the requirement for a vaccination card if people wish to unmask for eating and drinking, has drawn some hostile responses.

Like most retailers, Scuppernong Books has had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic and the slow return to a new sort of normal. “People understand that shopping local nurtures their own environment. They want local business, and COVID really strengthened that. If they wanted restaurants and retailers to still be there, they knew they had to support them,” said Mitchell.

When the shutdowns hit early in 2020, the store was closed to foot traffic, and for several months, Scuppernong survived on mail orders and curbside delivery. The coffee, wine, and small plates service at the cafe was shuttered. But the lights are coming on again, and book lovers are again gathering at the bar for coffee or a glass of wine or local beer to warm their conversations.

Like other businesses, Scuppernong has experienced “the well-documented supply chain issues with printing, and shipping—COVID makes it difficult,” said Mitchell. Lampkin noted that opposition to Amazon has helped indie bookshops, however, because they offer atmosphere and human contact as a counter to “price-matching.”

Author Valerie Nieman (center in yellow) at the launch for To the Bones

So what’s next for Scuppernong Books? When the store opened in 2013, each of the owners brought special knowledge and love to make it a success—Mitchell had been a chef for a number of years (and worked in mental health), while Lampkin was an experienced bookseller.

“Steve and I are no longer young. Ferlinghetti (founder of City Lights Books in San Francisco) made it to 101—I don’t know if that’s in our plan. We do put a lot into this,” said Lampkin. Bringing renewed energy to the business is Shannon Jones, a longtime employee who recently joined the ownership. “She’s as committed as we are, and will bring new ideas and new thinking. We’ll continue Greensboro Bound, and now we are publishing books,” said Lampkin. “We don’t have grand visions of change. Maybe we have an archaic myth of the idea of bookstores.”

Michell added, “The idea is that a bookstore will be an energetic space, not a quiet, dusty place.”

Scuppernong Books

304 South Elm Street

Greensboro NC 27401

(336) 828-1588

scuppernongbooks@gmail.com

Valerie Nieman, author of In the Lonely Backwater (coming from Fitzroy Books in the summer of 2022), To the Bones, and three earlier novels, a short fiction collection, and three poetry books. Her award-winning poetry and short prose have been published here and abroad. She has held state and NEA creative writing fellowships.

That’s My Story: Cindy Maddox

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It was our pleasure to have a virtual sit-down with Cindy Maddox, author of In the Neighborhood of Normal, to learn a little more about her writing process as well as any backstory tidbits she might want to share about her new novel.

Cindy Maddox

• Are any of the characters in your fiction based on people you know in real life?

The main character in my novel In the Neighborhood of Normal shares my grandmother’s name (Mish, short for Artemisia) and a few of her eccentricities, but she also shares some wonderful characteristics from a woman I knew named Barb. The Mish in the book is her own person but undoubtedly has been influenced by my love for these two women in real life.

• With what do you write? A computer? A pencil? A ballpoint/ biro? Rollerball? Quill and the blood of virgins (male or female is fine. We’re all about the equal opportunity at Regal)? A fountain pen (people who use a fountain pen get extra credit points)?

I’m boring. I write with a computer and the most common word processing program. But spellcheck must be turned on, the grammar tool must be turned off, and hidden formatting symbols (e.g., spaces and paragraph marks) must be visible.

• Are you fluent in any other languages? 

I like to joke that I am fluent in English, sarcasm, and profanity, but I am actually not all that fluent in profanity. I have never advanced beyond the single-word expletive, which is probably just as well since I’m a minister. My church is very liberal, but the pastor letting loose a multi-syllabic profanity-laced rant is still frowned upon.

• Do you see chocolate/wine as an intrinsic aid to writing?

Chocolate is an intrinsic aid to writing primarily because chocolate is an intrinsic aid to living. I used to get involved in the milk versus dark chocolate debate, but now that I am older and wiser, I do not discriminate. Except for white chocolate. It is an abomination.

• Who has supported you along the way?

Fearless!

I started writing this novel years ago, but I never really got going. My wife talked me in to accompanying her to a writers’ meetup, and I went as a favor to her. The accountability and feedback got me moving. Even when I feared I would never see the book in print, my wife’s faith in me kept me going. I never would have finished it without her.

• What do you read that people wouldn’t expect you to read?

In my teenage and early adult years, I read a lot of romance. At the time I needed an escape from real life and those novels filled the void. As I aged I lost interest in the genre but still sometimes want to read to get away. In those times I don’t want fluff—I want the characters to struggle with meaningful issues and events—but I don’t want to read something depressing, either. That’s what I try to write: fiction with relatable characters experiencing real-life drama, but that leave the reader with joy. Life has enough despair.

• Has your education helped you become a better writer?

I think both my undergraduate and graduate degrees have helped me become a better communicator. The best training as a novelist, however, came from my work as a freelance book editor in partnership with a more experienced editor. She performed the substantive edit on novels, and I followed with copyediting. Seeing the changes an experienced editor made in a manuscript was invaluable to me as a writer.

• What’s your process for writing: do you outline, create flow charts, fill out index cards, or just start and see where you end up?

I start with a character and a general idea, and then I see where it takes me. I need to have a general idea of where the story is going, but I don’t like to be bogged down in details up front. I like to watch the story unfold. Sometimes it goes exactly as planned, and other times I’m surprised.