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The Bookworm: Special Home to a New Jersey Community’s Reading Life

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by Donna Baier Stein

Some bookstores sell books. Some bookstores embody history.

The Bookworm does both.

Tucked into the heart of Bernardsville, New Jersey, this independent bookstore is far more than a retail space. It’s a community thread spanning generations of readers, families, and stories. And its continued thriving life is no accident; it’s the result of loyalty, commitment, and a deeply intuitive understanding of the people who walk through its teal painted door.

The shop started out as the Bedminster Bookshop before being moved to its current home on Claremont Avenue more than four decades ago. In 1985 it was sold to Mary Ann Donaghy, When she passed away, the future of the bookstore was uncertain — it might simply have disappeared.

Instead, Vera Marowitz, who had worked as a bookseller alongside Mary Ann, volunteered to buy it, determined that the store — and what it meant to Bernardsville — would be preserved. This wasn’t a job change. It was a continuation of a life-long love of books.

Residents of Bernardsville responded with relief and gratitude.

A Fourth-Generation Bookstore

When I asked Veera about the store’s relationship with the community, the answer was immediate: really good.

One local family has even shopped there for four generations — grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, and now great-grandchildren. That kind of loyalty doesn’t come from sale prices or algorithms. It comes from trust that you and your book preferences are known. From booksellers like Veera who remember what you loved last year — and what you might love next.

It’s easy to see why this is the heart of the store’s success and longevity. Staff like Jessica Sarlin pride themselves on understanding readers’ tastes—and will sometimes steer customers away from books that won’t be enjoyed. The fact that that level of candor is more important than simply ringing up another sale has led to a loyal, long-time customer base.

The Importance of Quiet

As soon as you step inside the store, you’ll experience a welcome calm and quiet.

There’s no noise from an in-house café, no piped-in music. Years ago, classical music from WQXR played softly, but when the station changed format, the store let the sound go. The quiet remains, making the Bookworm a lovely space for browsing.

Authors, Schools, and the Wider Literary World

The Bookworm doesn’t host many in-store author events, largely because of space and the unpredictability of attendance — an all-too-real challenge for small bookstores. Instead, they partner with venues and organizations throughout the state.

They regularly sell books for authors appearing at the Mayo Performing Arts Center, including frequent appearances by David Sedaris. They also provide books for author visits to schools in many towns. Authors appearing at the annual Junior League luncheon and the Bernardsville Public Library benefit from the store’s support as well.

Today’s Bookstore Challenges

Like every independent bookseller, The Bookworm faces the pressures of online retail, ebooks, and audiobooks. One solution is their partnerships with Libro.fm, which allows customers to support the store even when purchasing audiobooks.

But the greatest challenge may be less visible to anyone walking into the store: selection. Each season brings thousands of new titles from publishers. Choosing what to stock requires hours of from Veera as well as her intimate knowledge of what her clientele want.

The Secret to Success

Talking with Veera, it’s easy to see what matters most to her as an indie bookstore owner: her relationships with her customers and being able to choose the books they will most want to read.

The staff read widely, write reviews, and offer guidance based on reading the books themselves.

The Bookworm proves that an indie bookstore can still thrive — not by competing with algorithms, but by offering what they cannot: memory, conversation, discernment, and human connection.

It’s a place where someone might remember the book you loved ten years ago. Where a reader can grow up — and grow old — alongside the same shelves.

And that is a story well worth keeping in print.

Donna Baier Stein is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, poet, and playwright whose work has been featured on NPR, PBS, Washingtonian, Saturday Evening Post, and O Magazine. She is the author of The Silver Baron’s Wife, Sympathetic People, Letting Rain Have Its Say, Scenes from the Heartland, and Courtesan to the Buddha, forthcoming from RHP in Summer 2027. She was a Founding Editor of Bellevue Literary Review and founded and publishes Tiferet Journal. 

That’s My Story: Regal House Publishing (RHP) Interviews Novelist James Janko

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We were delighted to sit down with James Janko, the author of The Wire-Walker, to talk about life, literary pursuits, languages, science, and the value of meditation.

RHP: When did you start to write?

Janko: I was a truant in high school, but I began writing a novel my junior year. I stuffed hand-written pages into an empty tinker-toy box until it was full. I have no idea what my novel was about, but my older sister, who never missed school, read a chapter or two and said, “This is sick.”

My early efforts aside, I am a person who must write. In 1974, while living in New Orleans and working as a flower vendor on Bourbon Street, my health broke down and I was in severe pain. Three years earlier, I had returned from the Viet Nam War, where I was a combat medic in an infantry battalion commanded by Colonel George Armstrong Custer III. Nowhere felt like home after the war, so I bought a backpack, a fishing pole, and wandered the country. Hitching rides was easy for a white male in the 1970s, and finding work—I wasn’t choosy—seldom took more than a day or two. I picked strawberries in Willamette Valley in Oregon, drove a truck during a Nebraska corn harvest, a taxi in Chicago, and so on. I lived the life of a drifter, but the war followed me, more intimate than a shadow. I remember lying in bed one night, hurting all over, when I heard a voice inside me: You must write. Write something, anything. Otherwise, you’ll die.

RHP: Has your education helped you become a better writer?

Janko: After my vagabond days ended, I went to college on the GI Bill and received a B.S. in Conservation of Natural Resources from UC Berkeley. The program revived me, breathed new life into me, and sparked my creativity and love for the earth. One class in particular––Ecosystemology––had a direct influence on my first novel, Buffalo Boy and Geronimo, which highlights the environmental consequences of war. For our final exam, Arnold Shultz, a delightfully unpredictable professor, led us outside of our cramped classroom and onto the campus. Each student was free to walk about for a time, then choose one square inch of earth to write about as an ecosystem, that is, to write about the relationships between organisms, about what sustained this patch of earth. I remembered, as I was writing, that a Cobra gunship, one of the most effective killing machines of the Viet Nam War, could put a bullet in every square inch of a football field in less than a minute. And at the same time, on a blue morning in Berkeley, I learned and am still learning about the complexity of life in minuscule, one inch containing innumerable organisms and inseparable from the ebb and flow of life, inseparable from the rest of the planet! I believe what Walt Whitman believed: “…a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.”

RHP: Are you fluent in any other languages? If so, do you find that knowledge has any effect on your writing? Is it important for people to learn other languages? Why?

Janko: I can’t say I’m fluent in Spanish, but I’m competent enough to appreciate the untranslated poetry of García Lorca and Juan Ramón Jiménez and Antonio Machado and many others. The sounds of Spanish are sometimes supple on the tongue, sometimes fierce, and I hear, especially in Lorca, rivers and stones, love songs, castanets, and the wails of birthing and dying. What is more important in writing, meaning or sound? I don’t know, but I doubt there can be any profound meaning without close attention to sound.

I speak rudimentary Khmer, my wife’s language, and I can read and write Arabic at a first-grade level. I take great care when I write a word in Arabic. I pay homage to those long ago who invented the word, the meaning, the sound. I pay special attention to words of the earth and the elements. I can read and write in Arabic rain, waterfall, river, lake, and sixteen other words associated with water. The language finds a home in my body, the rhythm of my heart. How can this not be a boon for the difficult task of writing?

RHP: There’s a fair bit of interest, scientific and otherwise, in the links between creativity and insanity. How crazy must someone be to be a good author?

Janko: My best writing comes when I sit in a room, door closed, a cat or two at my side, and imagine my way into the lives of others.

I once said to my wife, “Forgive me if I seem distant. Sometimes I go far away when I write, but I go far away to come closer to you and the world.”

She replied, without hesitation: “Why are you nuts?”

RHP: How has Buddhist meditation supported you in your efforts to write?

Janko: I often meditate before I write. Silence is my first language. Nearly everything in the modern world encourages us to be occupied, to be addicted to our phones, to hitch a ride on the endlessly spinning hamster wheel called social media, to waste our precious lives on chats and messaging and online profiles and calculations for deepening our influence so that one day—this is the pipe dream of many writers––we’ll go viral, reach the masses, sell millions of books.

Buddhist meditation is revolutionary. There is no ambition, except to cultivate kinder and more compassionate ways of living and being. I believe there’s a deep kindness in most of my writing, and this is especially true of The Wire-Walker, whose narrator, Amal Tuqan, is the most loveable character to ever come my way. She found me in the silence, or we found each other. Amal understands the circus of life and the requirements of her profession: “The work of a funambulist is to walk in the sky on a rope, a wire, a prayer.”

James Janko is the author of the novels, What We Don’t Talk About, The Clubhouse Thief (recipient of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Award for the Novel), Buffalo Boy and Geronimo (recipient of The Association of Asian American Studies Book Award and the Northern California Book Award), and The Wire-Walker, which was a finalist for the 2023 Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, a finalist for the 2023 Dzanc Fiction Prize, and was awarded the Juniper Prize by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2021. Excerpts of The Wire-Walker appeared in the Fall/Winter 2022 issue of Nimrod International Journal. Janko’s short stories have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Sun, and Eureka Literary Magazine, among others. His story––“Fallujah in a Mirror”––won First Place in the Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award and appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of The Iowa Review. Janko is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction.

Letting the Story Lead: Valerie Nieman and Upon the Corner of the Moon

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by Valerie Nieman

Writers are not our characters, most times, though these characters may draw upon our lives, our experiences, our quirks.

Macbeth and Gruach, the main characters of Upon the Corner of the Moon, definitely are not “me” except that I was drawn to the story and felt the urge to tell it – an urge that stayed with me for almost 30 years.

I first came across the facts about the historical Macbeths when I was researching an earlier novel. I did not realize how thoroughly this story had been reversed: Macbeth was a rightful king based on Celtic traditions and ruled for 17 years, being called “The Righteous” and “the ruddy king of plenty.”

How did he become a villain?

Macbeth was cousin to Duncan, and yes, he did kill him – but in battle when Duncan invaded his territory. Duncan’s son Malcolm Canmore eventually claimed the throne through primogeniture and the Celtic system of electing kings was erased. Chroniclers grafted Macbeth’s story with various legends to shape a monstrous, murdering usurper. Shakespeare found this tale in Holinshed’s Chronicles, shaped it to please King James and included the witches that so fascinated the king.   

As to “Lady Macbeth,” we know little more than her name and her father’s name. We do know that she was married to a man called Gillecomgan, also killed in battle by Macbeth, and then married Macbeth. I had to do a great deal of speculation in building a plausible life for her but drew on scholarship from a number of areas including archaeology of the Picts and the study of ancient goddess religions.

This book is the first of two telling the story of the historical Macbeths, hewing to the record where it exists and speculating to fill in the gaps. The Last Highland King will come out in 2027.

My earlier book with Regal House, In the Lonely Backwater, featured the distinctive voice of Maggie, who owes a lot to the solitary girl that I was, simultaneously lost and found between the wonders of the natural world and the books she carried everywhere.

I grew up in New York State, near the headwaters of the Allegheny River. My parents owned fields and woods that I knew well before I learned to read. I fished with my dad and wandered a patch of old-growth forest. Books sustained me — Twain, Poe, and Tennyson in addition to Shakespeare, all in the tall bookcase upstairs – along nature guides, and A Girl of the Limberlost that featured another rural wanderer. Like Maggie, I brought back my finds and interpreted them, generally to amused interest.

After high school and a few erratic years where I took jobs in factories and donut shops while in community college, I slid south along the Allegheny’s path to find myself at the other end of that river system, attending West Virginia University on the banks of the Monongahela. Propelled by the desire to write, I’d determined to become a journalist, as a blue-collar kid lacking mentors to help me along the path toward becoming a novelist and poet.

For nearly twenty years, I worked as a reporter and editor for daily newspapers in the northern coalfields of West Virginia, covering everything from train wrecks to murders to acid spills in the rivers, along with government beats and the “hook and bullet” column that let me hang with scientists at the Department of Natural Resources. During that time, I homesteaded a hill farm with my then-husband, building a house and barn, planting an orchard and organic garden — and, of course, wandering with my dog and gathering wild foods and always writing.

My first poetry chapbook and my first novel, both deeply engaged with the natural world, came out in 1988. Neena Gathering, a post-apocalyptic tale based on the landscape around that farm, was long out of print before being brought back as a classic in the genre. Like In the Lonely Backwater, it features a teenage narrator, though at its debut, Young Adult was not yet a thing and it was listed with general SF paperbacks. I still love that book, and it has many fans who’ve applauded its reissue.

Things change. The marriage ended and I found myself with a small farm I couldn’t manage and the editorship of a newspaper destined for sale. I headed to the Piedmont of North Carolina for a job with the News & Record, living outside of Appalachia for the first time in my life. The move brought new adventures, from getting my MFA at Queens University of Charlotte, to the publication of more poetry and fiction, to learning how to sail. A 25-foot Hunter docked at Lake Kerr was direct inspiration for Maggie’s world of the marina and the landscape of the farms and piney woods of the coastal plain.

I had the pleasure of working with Kevin Watson at Press 53 for all three of my full-length poetry collections and my novel Blood Clay, set in North Carolina. I was delighted when West Virginia University Press, which had also released my short fiction collection, decided to publish To the Bones, a horror/mystery set in the coalfields. It was acclaimed as “a parable of capitalism and environmental degradation” and in the sequel, Dead Hand, Darrick and Lourana flee to Ireland in search of answers to questions raised in the first book.

And then my Queens classmate Pam Van Dyk made me aware of Regal House, and I met Jaynie Royal and all the wonderful folks at my most excellent publisher!

Another marriage came and went, and I found myself freed to wander more widely. Solo hiking was pure pleasure, even when I was quite lost on the trails near Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, slogging through the rain along the Great Glen Way in Scotland, or following the music in Donegal and Dingle. Trailheads beckon me, from the Mountains to the Sea trail in North Carolina to the coastal vistas of San Francisco Bay.

Along the way, I’ve published poetry widely, in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, Chautauqua, and journals across the U.S. as well as Scotland, Ireland, and Greece. Work has also appeared in some fine anthologies, including Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology.

I have been a creative writing fellow for North Carolina and West Virginia, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m professor emerita of creative writing at North Carolina A&T State University and continue to teach writing workshops.

That’s My Story: Beth Castrodale on Literary Adventures, the Importance of Friendship & the Influence of a Depression-Era Corset Maker

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In the lead-up to the publication of her novel The Inhabitants, Beth took part in a virtual sit-down to discuss her writing process, the role of friendship in her writing, and more.

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? Do you use the same process every time?

I find rough outlines invaluable for working out story arcs for first drafts of novels, and for helping me complete those drafts in a reasonable time frame. In the absence of such advance planning, I once spent 12 years writing and revising a novel, which I vow to never do again.

But I never hew strictly to outlines. They’re just general guides, and once I get down to writing, stories and characters inevitably take on a life of their own, which is one of the things I enjoy most about writing.

I’ve created a rough outline for every novel I’ve written since the one that took 12 years to finish, and I can’t imagine I’ll ever skip this step in the future. My life isn’t getting any longer!

We’ve all heard the advice that authors should “write what they know.” But fiction emerges from the imagination and the creation of new worlds. Do you feel a tension between what you’ve experienced and what lives only in your mind?

Personally, I find it most engaging to write about situations–and from perspectives–that are quite different from what I’ve experienced. To take my most recent novel, The Inhabitants, as an example, the protagonist is a portrait artist, and she moves into a house built by an architect whose creations were said to influence the mind. Although I’m not a visual artist, and the protagonist’s house is purely my own invention, I loved the possibilities that arose from placing someone who’s visually attuned into such a mentally, and emotionally, stimulating space. (And the space is haunted, no less!) To give some examples from my other novels, I’ve also written from the perspective of a (male) rocker-turned-gravedigger and a Depression-era corsetiere.

For me, novel writing is perhaps my greatest source of adventure–a way to immerse myself in diverse characters’ inner lives and to see how they confront various challenges, both internal and external. To my mind, writing about someone who’s a lot like me, and who shares many of my own experiences, would be the opposite of an adventure, and I think I’d lose interest pretty quickly.

I wouldn’t say that there’s a tension between what I’ve experienced and what lives only in my mind, because when I’m deeply immersed in my writing and in a character’s world, I kind of lose my sense of self. However, I certainly draw on my own experiences when I’m writing about characters who are grieving, falling in love, dealing with an upheaval in their lives, or going through just about anything else that most of us typically face over time.

What role has friendship played in your evolution as a writer?

A huge role. I’m thinking in particular of a dear friend, the poet Beth Gylys, whom I’ve known since first grade, when both of us attended a since-demolished elementary school outside of Pittsburgh. When Beth and I first met, I’m not sure that either one of us sensed that writing would be the thing we most wanted to do with our lives. But storytelling was part of our relationship from the start. For one thing, we used to wander around a cemetery near our suburb, read the names on the gravestones, and make up stories about some of the people buried on the grounds.

During recess, instead of playing hopscotch or kickball with the other kids, or swinging our way across the monkey bars, we’d make a wide circuit around the playground, talking and talking. I can’t remember the topics of our conversations, but it seemed as if nothing could be more important than whatever we were discussing. Through experiences like this, we built a bond that lasted for years and across many miles after Beth’s family moved back to New Jersey and mine moved to Ohio. Beth has remained a beloved friend and an inspiration to me as a writer, and we’ve supported each other through many ups and downs when it comes to writing and life in general. Beth has also been a thoughtful, insightful, and generous commenter on my work.

What surprising skills or hobbies do you have?

One of Beth’s hand-sewn dresses, based on a forties-era pattern

One kind of odd hobby I have is sewing dresses by hand. Although I have a sewing machine, I don’t like being rushed by the mechanics of it, and I find it far more relaxing and rewarding to set my own pace and to have the sensory experience of working with a needle and thread.

This all started when I was working on my début novel, Marion Hatley, whose eponymous protagonist is a Depression-era corset maker. The retro nature of the novel inspired me to order some vintage patterns and sew some older-style dresses. It’s been a lot of fun, and I love it that so many old-school patterns are available online.

What’s next for you?

A scene from the family farm that inspired Beth’s novel-in-progress

I’m in the early stages of writing a novel that’s set on a farm inspired by a fourth-generation farm in my family. The story involves a land dispute that threatens the ongoing existence of the farm, which the protagonist has been left to run by herself, for the most part. The dispute stirs the protagonist’s great-grandmother to return to the world of the living and step into the action, on the protagonist’s behalf. But it turns out that she wants more than to just save the land, setting the protagonist up for a struggle that’s far bigger than what she’d bargained for.

Beth Castrodale is the award-winning author of three novels: Marion Hatley, In This Ground, and I Mean You No Harm. Her latest novel, The Inhabitants, will be released by Regal House Publishing in fall 2024.

That’s My Story: Sandy Grubb and Just Like Click

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We recently interviewed Sandy Grubb, the 2022 Kraken Contest winner for her middle-grade novel, Just Like Click, which released yesterday, April 16, 2024. Just as Sandy has been inspired by so many talented authors who came before her, her adventure story with heart and humor is certain to inspire a new generation of readers. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

RHP: Your book is out in the world! How does that feel?

SG: I’m elated. I’m humbled. I’m jittery. I have all the feels, all at once. But I’m so grateful to my family and friends who encouraged my dream of publishing a children’s book. And I’m grateful to my agent, Stephanie Cardel at Lighthouse Literary, and you, Fitzroy Books, for picking my book out of the masses of manuscripts you receive every week and recognizing something special in my pages. I wrote a story about fifteen years ago that slightly resembles Just Like Click. I would pull it out every couple of years and play around with it, making minor changes in my characters and plot. In the meantime, I began really studying writing and realized what a mess that story was. I started all over about seven years ago, and my debut is the result.

RHP: We’ve all heard the advice that authors should “write what they know.” But fiction emerges from imagination and creation of new worlds. Do you feel a tension between what you’ve experienced and what lives only in your mind?

SG: I believe a writer should definitely write what she knows but shouldn’t stop there. A writer’s life experiences inform and enhance her imagination. The more experiences she has, the more her imagination will range far and wide to create exciting stories and intriguing characters.

Imagination is a mysterious phenomenon. No doubt we draw from all the movies, books, and TV shows we’ve consumed along with our real-life relationships and activities. In a way, it’s like having our own personal version of AI running full-time in our brain. For Just Like Click, I drew from my childhood love of Superman comics and our family’s favorite vacation spot at Black Butte Ranch. My characters in the story are a conglomeration of my own family, friends, students I’ve taught, and myself. Ideas may come to me when I’m poised with my fingers hovered over my keyboard, when I’m out for a walk, or when I’m about to fall asleep at night. Imagination is at work all the time. When ideas come, I quickly write them down.

RHP: Which author most influenced you?

SG: In the eighth grade I discovered Charles Dickens. When I finished Great Expectations, at first, I was just impressed with myself for reading such a long book. But that story and Dickens’ writing have continued to inspire me. When I was applying to colleges, the Stanford application asked me what kind of book I would write. I told them, I’d write a story that reflects today’s society the same way Dickens did for his time. I can’t match Dickens’ genius, but the books I write for children are all contemporary stories with universal life themes showing struggles kids face today. I recently listened to the audio version of Tale of Two Cities. It played like a movie in my head. Dickens swept me into his vivid world. I hope I can do that for the readers of my books.

RHP: What’s your favorite joke?

SG: It turns out laughter is good for our health in many ways. Humor is just as essential as breathing. I take it seriously and work it into my writing and my life. The humor I enjoy best springs up organically, often from the quick wit of a friend or within the dialog of my story. Those are the kind of laughs we explain by saying, you had to be there. I also appreciate slap-stick humor or stand-up comedy, in the right place. If I were trying my hand at writing a stand-up routine, I may deliver something like this:

I told my husband I’d like to fly to Paris for the weekend to gain inspiration for a story I was feeling stuck on. When my husband called me delusional, I almost fell off my unicorn. I explained that if I don’t fly business class, our kids will. My wonderful husband agreed. I wanted to blend into the Paris scene, so I shopped for some camo pants, but I couldn’t find any. On the flight, a lively little girl ran up and down the aisles, disturbing everyone. Eventually she ran into the flight attendant and knocked a cup of hot coffee out of her hand. As the attendant was cleaning up the mess, she glanced at the little girl and suggested, “Look, why don’t you go outside and play.” In Paris, I began posting videos on TikTok, thinking it would help spark my imagination. I was addicted to the hokey pokey, but then I turned myself around. When my husband told me to stop impersonating a flamingo, I had to put my foot down. I finally came home when I broke my arm. I explained to my doctor I had broken it in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.

RHP: What difference do you hope your book will make?

SG: Recently, blogger Melissa Taylor (Imagination Soup) listed many reasons children benefit from reading, including cognitive development and increasing their capacity for empathy. As a former teacher, I understand how literacy opens doors of opportunity throughout life. So, first of all, I hope my book will spark more children to become life-long readers. Sometimes it only takes one special book to get them started. My world growing up was not much bigger than my neighborhood, but I “traveled” around the world in the books I read.

More specifically, I hope readers of Just Like Click will come to realize that they have superpowers and can choose to use them to change their world, to help themselves, and to help others.

RHP: What advice would you give to an aspiring author?

SG: Live generously. Practice bravery. Read widely. Write even when you don’t feel like it. Find your writing people. Don’t forget to laugh. Don’t be afraid to start over. Never give up.

Indeed, writers are among the bravest people I know. We compose words from our hearts and put them out to the universe for review. When rejection comes, we tell ourselves it’s not personal, but it almost always stings. Perhaps it’s the rejection that makes praise all the more glorious. When Fitzroy Books chose my novel as the winner of the 2022 Kraken Book Prize for Finely Crafted Middle Grade Fiction, my joy broke loose in tears.

FLAGSHIP BOOKS: A Vibrant Addition to an Old Kansas City Neighborhood

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by Catherine Browder

Flagship Books celebrated its second anniversary in the historic Strawberry Hill district of Kansas City, Kansas, on January 27, 2024. Brothers Ty and Joel Melgren left a more residential block and moved uphill to their current storefront in April of 2023. The old downtown district of Kansas City, KS, with Strawberry Hill nearby, is perched on bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. This once Central European neighborhood is enjoying a multi-national renaissance.

“Here, we’re in the heart of Strawberry Hill,” Ty explains.

Currently, at 510 N. 6th St., they enjoy steadier foot traffic, a third Friday Arts Walk, burgeoning and established businesses, and a busy Mexican restaurant across the street. Next door you can find a hairdresser, an auto body shop and a gym. The Strawberry Hill Neighborhood Association meets at Flagship, as does a monthly Big Open Book Club, where patrons “come and hang out and talk about books.” They are a neighborhood business and proud of it.

During the recent AWP#24 conference, Flagship hosted off-site readings for Indy and university presses, including three Canadian presses. In its short life it has offered book launches for several local authors and is scheduled to do another in early Spring of ’24 for veteran KC poet, Trish Reeves. A table to the left of the entrance features local authors. Indeed, its support of local writers is one of its great appeals.

Melgren brothers: Ty (l) and Joel

What was once a grocery and bar in the 1950s later became a yoga studio and then a real estate agency. The pressed tin ceiling, the polished hardwood floors and brick walls are original.

Over five years ago, Joel Melgren joined the real estate agency that had offices in the space. When the space became available to rent, the brothers thought it fit their project: to build a business that was both fun and community-oriented. The space is modest, but deep and airy. Displays racks, shelving and tables are movable, and the arrangement was different each time I visited.

Joel is the financial half of the enterprise, the one originally interested in establishing a business. Ty, with a side-job as an ESL teacher, makes the literary choices, revealing wide-ranging taste. On a day I visited, among a selection of popular new books, I found Clare Keegan’s latest and Danny Caine’s updated How to Resist Amazon and Why, while Sarah Smarsh’s work appeared on the regional author table. A “small book” title by Wendell Berry, Think Little, sat on a wall shelf. Ty has developed an interested in physically “small books.”

In the center stands a tall multi-sided display of well-curated used books, both recent titles and classics. In the rear, beyond a settee and chairs, is the children’s section. An enormous map of Wyandotte County, KS, covers the north wall and was in place when the brothers moved in. On the north side, is a table for meetings or art activities. The wall behind the table is covered in a white board where, that day, a drawing of Strawberry Hill was displayed. Children are free to draw on the board. Flagship recently hosted a clay artist.

Ty standing with wall map of Wyandotte, Co, Ks.

Ty points out the art work decorating both north and south brick walls: framed paintings by local Croatian artist Elaine Grisnik. Grisnik has been documenting Kansas/Missouri buildings for years. And on the central table displaying cards and stationery, puzzles and journals, Ty selects a postcard featuring work by Grisnik. The painting replicated on the card depicts Weiss Market and Bar, where Flagship Books now resides.

Strawberry Hill was settled in the late 1800s mostly by immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe: Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Poland, and Russia. The area is situated close to the West Bottoms of Kansas City, MO. Most of the newcomers were employed in the meat packing industry, located across the river in the Bottoms. Although the stockyards are long gone, the West Bottoms, now mostly warehouses, has burgeoned into a new art and entertainment district.

Early on, these European newcomers to Kansas City, KS, lived on the riverfront close to their stockyard jobs in Missouri. The 1904 flood destroyed these homes, forcing the community uphill. Highway and viaduct construction in the 1950s further intruded on the old Central European communities. Somewhat later Strawberry Hill became home to a sturdy Mexican-American community. And nowadays, Ty informs me, the area has become home to recent Burmese immigrants.

Even today, established communities in Strawberry Hill belong to two Catholic churches that anchor the area. The Croatian community still attends St. John the Baptist, and Holy Family Catholic Church, visible from the bookshop door, remains the Slovakian parish. St. John’s Park offers an impressive view of the Kansas City, MO, skyline.

A visiting humorist once referred to Kansas City as “a burgh the size of Asia.” He was referring, probably, to the larger Kansas City, in Missouri. But the Kansas City Metropolitan area, in fact, includes two states, both Kansas Cities and their suburbs, housed in five counties. “Spread out” is an understatement.

A patron looks over a table of Kansas City related books

Flagship Books, actually, began its life in a different part of the greater Kansas City Metro: North Kansas City, MO. Ty had recently been brought home from a State Department teaching job in Tunisia because of the pandemic. Home at that time was family, living in Mission, KS. He continued remote teaching for the State Dept, but online teaching was not something he enjoyed.

The brothers began brainstorming ideas for a business they might both support and enjoy. When Joel, the real estate agent, sold a duplex, they had the money to invest. The Iron District in NKC was geared for an outside space since the pandemic was still an issue. Businesses and patrons were looking for outside spaces, and the Iron District offered unique shipping containers. The Melgrens started tentatively, but people did come. Since the shop was housed in a shipping container, they thought the bookstores might best he named for a ship.

“But not a battleship,” Ty adds with a laugh. “Eventually we settled on Flagship-Joel had the idea. It served us well even though we outgrew the original space.”

They remained in the Iron District for nine months. Since they lived in Kansas, they felt motivated to return. When the first Strawberry Hill location opened, they were ready to move. Eventually, the real estate agency space on N. 6th St. became available, and the Melgren brothers willingly moved once more.

“We are more visible here,” Ty explained during one of my visits. “We have people in their 60s or older stop by to chat because they remember the location, remember Weiss’s grocery store or the people who lived upstairs.”

A 2023 book launch for The Manning Girl

This connection to Strawberry Hill’s past appeals to the brothers. Yet Flagship has both the comfortable, and comforting, atmosphere one expects of a bookshop, as well an as appealing community engagement and youthfulness. They’ve hosted local artists and printmakers as well as indie bands as part of the annual music festival organized by Manor records. They even offered a Chilean Music Night with the Kansas City Latin Jazz Orchestra.

The Melgren brothers’ commitment to local writers is proving to be another strength. One of the newest bookshops in the Metro, you increasingly hear people refer to Flagship. More readings and book launches are scheduled. Its social media sites are appealing and up to date. And more writers and writers’ organizations, as well as readers, are beating a path to its door.

Catherine Browder lives and writes across the river in Kansas City, MO. Her novel, The Manning Girl, (winner of the Petrichor Prize) was published by RHP in November of ’23 and has been selected by the Kansas City Public Library as a Book Club Book. She has published four collections of short fiction, including the award-winning Resurrection City: Stories from the Disaster Zone, about the NE Japan disaster of 2010. She is a recipient of fiction fellowships from the NEA and the Missouri Arts Council, and her work has appeared in anthologies and been nominated for a Pushcart.

Eat, Drink, and Storytell: Life’s Essentials at M. Judson Booksellers

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by Beth Uznis Johnson

The exterior of M. Judson Booksellers impresses with 1918 architecture.

The women who founded M. Judson Booksellers in Greenville, SC, were not deterred by the economic reality in 2015. At a time when many indie bookstores were closing across the US, and amid the rise of a certain-unnamed-profit-gobbling-ecommerce-giant trying to force customers to buy and read books on screens, they accomplished an incredible feat: bringing the experience of books and stories back to downtown.

In a ‘go big or go home’ move, M. Judson Booksellers opened its doors in the historic courthouse building in the center of Greenville. The store’s exterior is impressive, with brick pavers, antique street lamps, grand stairs, and 1918 architecture with its ivory-colored façade and terra cotta ornamental trim in the Beaux Arts style. Once inside, the landmark experience of M. Judson continues to inspire not only readers of all ages, but lovers of food and drinks, and anyone looking for the perfect South Carolina gift.

“You’ll find our shelves bursting with books we can’t wait to tell you about, bestsellers and new releases, everything from poetry to Southern Lit to cookbooks, as well as gift items gathered from all over the Upstate. We’re proud to be more than just a bookstore; we’re a home for stories,” says Ashley Warlick, an M. Judson founder, novelist, and creative writing professor.

M. Judson event manager Alyssa Fiske showcases the fiction section.

The store is named after Mary Camilla Judson, a historic Greenville feminist and the first Lady Principal (they really called her that!) at the Female College of Greenville. Camilla Kitchen is the café inside M. Judson serving up delicious treats and drinks with stories of their own.

M. Judson is a general interest bookstore with selections in every genre. The children’s section is huge, with areas to read and play at a 14-foot community table. It is built around themes children love, such as cooking, STEM, art, trucks, and animals.

Guests attend a Sunday Sit-Down Supper to enjoy a literary-themed meal.

Literary-themed events are an important aspect of the M. Judson experience, with most events requiring tickets, including a book, and selling out. These are not your traditional bookstore events with an author behind a table signing books. Most are interactive, such as the Sunday Sit-Down Supper series where a chef prepares a meal inspired by a novel and attendees gather around a beautifully set table to dine and discuss. Camilla Kitchen offers book-themed cooking classes or demonstrations. The events calendar is packed with experiences, like an evening with symphony music, open-mic nights for writers, book and wine pairing events, and more.

“I think we have found the way to connect with our community and our readership here in Greenville and show them how to better support the literary world. Our goal is success for the people who are making and telling these stories. I do feel committed to that mission,” Ashley says.

The community component of bookselling has surprised her the most, with deepened ties as the store pivoted during the pandemic to meet its customers’ reading needs. Some patrons have continued having M. Judson staff read, select, and recommend books for them long after shutdown ended. Greenville is also a popular tourist destination, with M. Judson a must-visit destination for travelers. Ashley describes a beloved customer, who actually lives in California and saw on social media that the store offers book recommendations. Three years later, M. Judson still sends her books.

Author Katherine St. John discusses her book with event guests.

Nine years after opening an independent bookstore at a seemingly impossible time in history, M. Judson and Camilla Kitchen are thriving businesses in downtown Greenville. Firmly rooted in books and storytelling, often centered around food and drink, and providing a breathtaking experience both inside and outside the store, it is woven into the fabric of the city.

“We believe that stories don’t just come wrapped in book jackets. Sometimes they’re bottled in a wine, roasted in a bean, baked in a bread, woven into a tea towel, or created in a moment,” Ashley says.

Learn more about M. Judson Booksellers, upcoming events, or contact them to send you one of their famous “blind date” book selections to change things up in your reading life. You won’t be disappointed.

Beth Uznis Johnson’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Massachusetts Review, Broad Street, Mississippi Review, Cincinnati Review, Story Quarterly, Gargoyle, Southwest Review and elsewhere. Her essay, “Your Friend/My Friend, Ted,” was included in The Best American Essays 2018, edited by Hilton Als. Beth is the author of Coming Clean, released by Regal House Publishing on January 9, 2024.

Volumes Bookcafe: A Beautiful Day in My Neighborhood

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Volumes Bookcafe, Wicker Park in Chicago, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave.

By Beth Uznis Johnson

Who remembers that glorious day in May 2020 when 28 authors from around the country released a reenactment of the library dance scene from The Breakfast Club to the song “We Are Not Alone”? I’d seen their faces on book jackets, Twitter, and a few in person at writing events over the years. Amid the isolation of the pandemic, to get this inside peek at their homes and dance styles was beyond thrilling.

Themes of social justice proliferate all sections of the Wicker Park store.

Not only did they dance their asses off, they did it in support of Volumes Bookcafe, an independent bookstore in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. The video was conceived by Chicago author, Rebecca Makkai, who is also the artistic director of the nonprofit literary organization, StoryStudio Chicago. At the time, I was a Michigan-based writer without a neighborhood bookstore. To see the literary community rally behind a beloved bookseller touched me deeply.

It was a great day on literary Twitter. I watched the dance video at least 10 times.

It made me long to move back to Chicago, a vibrant literary community, with many indie bookstores sprinkled around its more than 200 neighborhoods. Flash forward to 2023 and I did move back. With the launch of my debut novel, Coming Clean from Regal House Publishing, slated for January 2024, I vowed to never live in a community without a bookstore again.

“Volumes, on Milwaukee Avenue,” my friend Claude said without hesitation, when I asked for the best bookstore around my new condo in West Town. I scrambled to open my maps app and couldn’t believe my luck: Volumes Bookcafe of Wicker Park was only 0.7 mile away. A 15-minute walk! A 7-minute bike ride! A 4-minute drive if I could talk my husband into dropping me off.

Even better, I can pick up Claude on the way. She’s only 0.2 mile away.

Come to find out my kickass neighborhood bookstore has an amazing neighborhood story. When a new landlord upped the rent (during the pandemic, no less), forcing Volumes to temporarily close their doors in Wicker Park, the neighbors rallied. They found a great location, crowdsourced funds to BUY the store space, and partnered with owners, sisters Rebecca and Kimberly George, to open a new, forever location at 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave.

With the community deeply invested in the store and the days of pandemic isolation in the past, Volumes has everything a reader (or writer) could ever need, starting with the heavenly new-book smell and knowledgeable staff who love and care about literature. Foot traffic in the store has returned and the in-person event schedule is back and growing.

Owner Rebecca George greets guests at an author event.

Rebecca, who spends the bulk of her time at the Wicker Park location, gives me her take on the book business, including:

  • 1. Physical books are a much-needed escape in a world where people spend far too much time on screens.
  • 2. Community bookstores are a reflection of the community itself and, in Wicker Park, that means a focus on fiction, science fiction, kids’ books, and nonfiction on topics of social justice, popular culture, and true crime.

Volumes offers handwritten recommendations for books in all categories around the store, from its section featuring Chicago authors to carefully curated literary fiction, best-selling graphic novels, mysteries, memoirs, and on and on. The notes include quick plot summaries, staff picks, who liked the book and why. There are also novelty items and gifts for readers (and writers) like literary-themed mugs, t-shirts, bookends, and socks. There are cozy nooks for reading, a picnic table for discussions, and tables for work-oriented patrons. There’s a café with baked goods, coffee drinks, teas, and other refreshments.

Fiction, memoir, and biography, also popular in Wicker Park.

I sit with Rebecca while she checks out a customer, a man she obviously knows based on their rapport. He’s finally decided to use the gift card he’s been hanging onto, selecting a cookbook with glossy photographs.

“You’ll have to bring in some of the dishes you make and we’ll sample them,” Rebecca jokes. The customer laughs and pauses, seeming to seriously consider it. We chat for a few minutes and I wonder if there is a way to ask them to call me for this sampling party; I like to eat, especially when someone else cooks, and I’m new in the neighborhood and looking for friends.

After the customer leaves with his book, Rebecca shares there’s a story behind the joke: some amazing cookbooks were released in the spring of 2020, the early days of the pandemic, and a local mom and her kids had—indeed—continued to visit Volumes with samples of baked goods they’d made together.

Authors Bradeigh Godfrey and Alison Hammer (aka Ali Brady) at the
launch of The Comback Summer

The café, Rebecca says, is especially nice to have during author readings and other events at the store. She tells me about a literary-themed private event the night before: a husband planned a surprise party for his wife that included an 8-course meal with themes from her favorite classic books. She was one of Volume’s first Wicker Park customers. She was really surprised.

Rebecca also tells me about a children’s book, The Story of Ukraine: An Anthem of Glory and Freedom, that Volumes took to local schools for student readings over the course of a week. The Wicker Park neighborhood is next to Ukrainian Village, where many Ukrainian families live. One child, from a refuge family, read the book to his mom three times and insisted on sleeping with it. Other classmates got enthused and decided to do an action project to support Ukraine.

My new Chicago neighborhood suddenly feels distinctly more intimate than the bookstore-less Michigan suburb I’d lived for more than 20 years. Strange how a big city can feel quaint; a suburb can feel vast and never ending. During the brief years a Border’s Books opened and closed, I never heard friendly chats between shop owners and customers.

Rebecca says Volumes loves to support new authors and local writers. She encourages me to attend some events at the store and recommends an upcoming Ali Brady launch, a summer beach read titled The Comeback Summer. So, I go. It turns out the author is the writing team of Chicago writer, Allison Hammer, and her friend, Bradleigh Godfrey. I’m amazed at the turnout: the bookstore is packed! It turns out the authors are members of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, which has a large Chicago contingency. The WFWA members have come in droves to support the book.

As a proud member of the WFWA since its 2020 pandemic write-ins, I feel the warmth of the Chicago literary community like an embrace. How lucky to be here for the launch of Coming Clean. How amazing that Volumes Bookcafe is my neighborhood bookseller. How exciting to have Volumes in Wicker Park hosting my launch event on January 13, 2024.

How lucky I donated so many books before I moved and can now refill my shelves with all the great new literature. Volumes will see a lot of me in the years to come.

Visit Volumes for the launch of Coming Clean by Beth Uznis Johnson: Saturday, January 13, 2023, at 6:30 p.m. at Volumes Bookcafe, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60622 Website: www.volumesbooks.com ; Instagram: @volumesbooks ; Facebook: @volumesbooks ; X: @volumesbooks

Beth Uznis Johnson’s short fiction and essays have appeared in Massachusetts Review, Broad Street, Cincinnati Review, Story Quarterly, Mississippi Review, Southwest Review, “The Best American Essays,” and elsewhere. She lives and writes in Chicago. Coming Clean is her first novel. www.bethujohnson.com