Briefs: Bookstores & Book Tours

Word Up bookstore has opened! The Upper Manhattan pop-up bookstore and community space was welcomed by an enthusiastic crowd on Friday, June 17, and featured small press books in English, Spanish, Russian, and even Armenian. The grand opening got very nice write-ups in the Manhattan Times and the New York Times.

San Fran small press author Jesus Angel Garcia has embarked on a cross-country tour for his new 21st century pulp novel about sex, cyberspace, alterna-scenes, and evangelist religion in the Dirty South: badbadbad (New Pulp Press, 2011). His LA debut reading was held Friday, June 17 at Skylight Books, a great (indie-press friendly) bookstore in Los Feliz; his next reading date is in Austin on Wednesday, June 22. See his tour schedule (39 shows in 32 cities!) here. Read his first tour blog at Electric Literature here.

Under the Volcano Books will host its first reading this Friday, June 24 in Mexico City. The reading will be Matthew Stadler 's fourth stop on a 12-city "NAFTA Tour"--he'll read in Canada, US, and Mexico from his new book, Chloe Jarren's La Cucaracha. Novelist Stadler is also former lit editor of Nest, and the publisher of Publication Studio, a new indie press (and innovative publishing model in the vein of OR Books and Cursor) that started (in one sense) with a binding machine obtained at a good price from Brooklyn's Vox Pop Bookstore (RIP). The reading event will be in the future location of Under the Volcano Books, an English-language bookstore set to open (once funding allows) in the Roma District of Mexico City. The reading starts at 7:00pm, location address is Cerrada Chiapas 40-C, Colonia Roma Norte. Find more event details on Facebook here. Read an interview about Publication Studio here. Read more on Under the Volcano Books here.

WORD UP Community Bookshop to Grace Upper Manhattan for One Month

Two titles from Fractious Press as spotted on the shelves at Fleeting Pages bookstore (Pittsburgh, May 2011).

Fleeting Pages pop-up bookstore closed its Pittsburgh doors at 9:00pm on June 4th. But close on its heels, small press publisher Veronica Liu, pairing up with the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA) and Vantage Properties, will be opening a Manhattan pop-up on June 14th. The new bookstore will be called Word Up, in reference to its uptown location of Washington Heights. Much like Fleeting Pages, Word Up will pop up for one month, and will be dedicated to the output (and reading/writing events) of the small press, the micro press, and self publishers of zines. The store will aim also to showcase a multi-lingual selection of books, to reflect the residents of this diverse neighborhood especially known for its large Dominican population. Inventory and events will focus largely, but not exclusively, on metro New York presses and writers.

Liu, who is managing editor of Seven Stories Press by day, and moonlights as publisher of Fractious Press by night, has been active in the micro press scene for several years. After attending zine fests and other small press fairs with a table full of Fractious wares, and hosting readings to promote the press' subversive and engaging authors, a pop-up bookstore may seem like a logical extension of such events.

But two projects through Seven Stories led equally to the idea of placing a bookstore in Washington Heights. Liu has been working with the Seven Stories Institute (affiliated with the Press, although a separate entity), which acts as a democratic disseminator of Seven Stories books and ideas. Recognizing that their radical, critical nonfiction was being distributed more widely in academic circles than in the communities such books were written to serve, Seven Stories Institute was founded in 2004 to devise ways to reach those underserved populations--whether by offering the books in Spanish, making the books available at a deep discount, or organizing community discussions. (Read more here.) In addition, Liu has been editing a forthcoming book, REBEL BOOKSELLER: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want To Fight for, from Free Speech To Buying Local To Building Communities (written by veteran bookseller Andrew Laties). Due out from Seven Stories in its second edition in July, the book (originally published by Vox Pop in 2005) has been considered a must-read among certain circles of radical and community-minded booksellers.

NoMAA and Vantage Properties have been enthusiastic partners with Liu in making the Word Up project a reality. The assisting realtor from Vantage has been excited at the prospect of both filling an unused space and seeing a bookstore come to Washington Heights. Liu says that the realtor grew up in the neighborhood and can't recall a single bookstore in the immediate area, although nearby Inwood and Harlem/Sugar Hill have had bookstores. Details for the final location of Word Up are still being worked out, but Liu has one back up location "ready to go" should her first-choice storefront fall through. The exact location will be announced later this week. [See UPDATE below.] Though utilities such as electricity and internet will create costs, the overall overhead of the project is expected to be low.

The bookstore will open during NoMAA's Uptown Arts Stroll (aka Paseo de las Artes), an annual festival featuring a month of artist exhibits, dance performances, readings, and other creative events. At this writing, Word Up store hours are set for weekdays 4:00pm-9:00pm, and weekends Noon-4:00pm, with some added hours for events. Currently, Liu is collecting the shop's inventory, which will be sold on consignment. Interested small press publishers and authors should contact her at info@fractiouspress.com to receive a consignment form and shipping address, or to propose a small press reading, workshop, or event.

Find a Facebook event page for Word Up here:
https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=217256871630959

See the Fractious Press events page for an update on the location: http://www.fractiouspress.com/events

Find the new Word Up website here:
http://wordupbooks.wordpress.com/

...or stay tuned to this blog for additional info.

UPDATE: Veronica Liu has confirmed the bookstore address as 4157 Broadway @ W. 175 Street (a former pharmacy).

SECOND UPDATE: This article has been edited for accuracy since its original version.

Bookseller of the Month: Grant Cogswell

I don't usually give a Bookseller of the Month award, but I'm inventing one for Grant Cogswell, who just made a death-defying drive through the most dangerous part of Mexico, all to retrieve some books. The books, waiting for him in Austin, were donations from Stateside friends and supporters, for his future store: Cogswell will be opening an English-language bookstore in the heart of Mexico City, Under the Volcano Books. The bookstore will be in the vein of Paris' Shakespeare and Company, catering to both a literary expat community and to residents of Mexico City interested in learning about the literature of the English language. Cogswell has said that he wants to foster a better dialogue between Mexico and America; instead of guns, drugs, border patrols, and anti-immigration talk, Cogswell wants to introduce each side to its more creative side. He'll be trying to lure American friends to experience his view of Mexico City (known in Mexico as Distrito Federal), and trying to offer the better angels of America to Mexicans who know mainly our indifference or our scorn. An international literary journal, Mexico Review, will be part of Cogswell's venture.

Grant Cogswell is an American citizen who spent his childhood in some far flung locales, including Paris. A filmmaker, journalist, and longtime resident of Seattle as an adult, he had an infamous and colorful campaign for Seattle's city council where he ran on a platform of creating a citywide monorail. That campaign inspired a book, Zioncheck for President, and a forthcoming movie, Grassroots, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. A few years ago, driven by health concerns, Cogswell began spending his winters in Mexico City. He soon fell in love with the city's vibrant culture, and its likeness to some of his favorite childhood memories. La Roma is the area of Mexico City where Cogswell is seeking a space for the store, and it was laid out (in the early 20th Century) in imitation of Parisian boulevards. Its street vendors, street musicians, and lively sidewalk life remind Cogswell of the street life of 1970s Paris. Once serving as the haunts of William Burroughs and film location for Luis Buñuel, La Roma has been home to artists and expats for the last hundred years.

Cogswell will be selling books in Mexico City street markets until he secures a space to open the store. I'll be running an interview with the intrepid bookseller as the opening of Under the Volcano Books gets closer.

Make a donation to the bookstore here.

See a partial inventory of Under the Volcano's books here.

Read Grant Cogswell's bookstore blog here.

Find the Under the Volcano Books website here.

Fleeting Pages Small Press Bookstore Opens Saturday, May 7th

As you know if you've been following this blog, I'm very excited about Fleeting Pages, a pop-up, all indie-press bookstore that will occupy the space of a former Borders in Pittsburgh for one month starting tomorrow, Saturday, May 7th. I visited the (cavernous) space in the past couple of days to check it out, and Jodi was there with a few friends from the Pittsburgh area as well as folks who flew in from afar to help set up the bookstore. Check out Fleeting Pages website here. Read my interview with organizer Jodi Morrison here.

Goodbye Borders, hello Fleeting Pages.

Rumor has it that one of Pittsburgh's favorite neighborhood coffee shops has offered to run a cafe in Fleeting Pages, it would be off to the LEFT in the above photo. An empanada stand is another rumor.

Writing workshops and other events, such as film screenings and some readings, will be held on the downstairs level.

When I peeked in the first box of books (the ones that had already been priced and inventoried), what did I see but my good friend Julien Poirier's new poetry title, El Golpe Chileno! (From Ugly Duckling Presse.) Julien lives far from Pittsburgh, and I haven't seen him for a few years so it was very nice to see him show up here in this way. Hi, Julien!

I'll blog some more photos after the bookstore is open. Good luck to all the busy folks at Fleeting Pages working late into tonight.

Pop-Up Indie Bookstore To Inhabit Former Borders

Dateline Pittsburgh:

A new bookstore called Fleeting Pages will inhabit the space of a just-closing Borders in Pittsburgh city limits starting April 30. They will sell books by indie presses and self-publishers; hold book-making workshops, readings, and other events; and are open to other suggestions by writers and artists in the indie community. At this date, they plan to occupy the space for one month and possibly 6 weeks, after which they may regroup and pop up in another space.

Note that the organizers are seeking indie books, journals, and comics from small press folks based all over, not just Pittsburgh. See under Submit Work.

Find Fleeting Pages' website here: http://www.fleetingpages.com/

Find Fleeting Pages on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fleetingpages

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Update: Interview with a Pop Up Bookseller

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Brief Holiday from Small Press Holiday Blogging

I took both an internet vacation and a real vacation, and went to Detroit. This post is to let you know that I'll resume with Small Press Holiday Recommendations tomorrow, Tuesday November 23rd. Meanwhile, I wanted to share a small press gem I discovered in Motor City.

When I came upon it, Leopold's Books had just closed for the day--so, sadly, I did not get to go inside and browse. But I loved the look of the sign and the tiny, impeccable shop (located on the ground floor of a gorgeous old apartment building), so I looked it up on the world wide web today and I loved everything I read about it. The shop bravely opened a little over a year ago in Midtown Detroit (just across the street from the Detroit Institute of the Arts and Wayne State University). Their philosophy (both of how to survive and how to curate) reminds me of that of Copacetic Comics (Pittsburgh)--both stores run a very tight ship in a modest space, selling only books the owners know, love, and can personally recommend. They know their customer base and they play directly to that, offering a kind of specialized knowledge and personalized selection that chain stores and Amazon can't. Leopold's blog claims, "This is a strategy all small retailers can use to combat their giant, wealthy competitors. We can afford to be specialist experts, whereas they must be conforming generalists."

Leopold's sells a select array of local zines, magazines, graphic novels, art books, fiction and nonfiction. They also hold regular reading events ranging from local poets to out-of-towners on book tours. Recent events have featured Seth Tobocman of World War Three comics, poet Carla Harryman, and graphic novelists Jim Munroe and Shannon Gerald. One blogger raved about a rooftop reading for Counterpoint author Peter Lewis.

Emphasizing discovery and face-outs, Leopold's hopes you'll come inside because you trust their taste, and leave with a book you didn't know existed when you walked in.

Library Tourism in Action

Andrew Carnegie at the Braddock Carnegie Library, dedicated in 1889.

Following up on my July op-ed about public library advocacy through Library Tourism, I will be conducting a library tour in Pittsburgh a week from today. In fact, as part of the Pittsburgh Small Press Festival's month of events, I have been asked to conduct two tours. On Sunday, September 12th, I will be taking a trolley-full of people to tour a few major libraries in Pittsburgh, and on Sunday, September 19th, I will conduct a tour of six of Pittsburgh’s indie bookstores.

Pittsburgh has such an embarrassment of riches when it comes to historic libraries and indie bookstores, that we won’t get to all of them, but I’ll talk about the ones we don’t go to. Both tours will be from 1:00-4:30pm, both cost $10, and both will come with a “swag bag” of goodies, including one free Autumn House Press book for each tour participant, as well as a brochure-map of either Pittsburgh's historic libraries or the city's indie bookstores (respectively). You must sign up before the tours. Tickets and details are HERE for the Library Tour and HERE for the Bookstore Tour.