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Thanks so much to everyone who came out last night! Pictures to come on our Flickr shortly. For now, just imagine our basement full of beautiful people laughing and smiling.

Without further ado, our four winning six-word writing memoir entries:

“Landlady still refuses prose for rent.” — Mikki Halpin

“Erotica: What’s another word for ‘penis?’” — Grace Bello

“Procrastinating on novel? Start a blog!” — Jake Roren

“Write without inhibition, edit rigorously, repeat.” — Erin McInnis

Is one of those entries yours? If so, email [email protected] toot sweet to claim your prize. Thanks to everyone who entered!

A funny thing happened when we put this book on the counter.

“Hahaha,” a customer would say, looking at the cover. “Hahahaha, it’s true! Hitchhikers are obsolete. Oh yeah, same thing with lickable stamps. Ha! Yeah, I haven’t gotten lost since I got my iPhone. And also…”

And then, always the same fateful pause.

“Wait!” the same customer would say, voice turning from amused to saddened. “Cursive writing is nor obsolete! I still write in cursive everyday! None of my friends do, but…”

This happened so many times that we lost count. Except insert writing letters, film, smoking, bald spots, books, arcades, and hyphenated last names for cursive writing in that last bit. The book is hilarious! And then, suddenly, not so funny. People feel compelled to defend their favorite obsolete things!

(In particular, we’ve noticed an astonishing number of customers who, under their breath, notify us that phone sex is most certainly NOT obsolete, thank you very much, and in fact it was alive and well in their apartment just two weeks previous. Which, wow, alrighty!)

Anyway, this has been so much fun for us that we decided to make an event out of it. A debating event! You’ll have the chance to defend your rapidly-obsolescing item in front of a crowd, and maybe even save it from extinction.

You can speak out in defense of:

–keeping plans (and making dates)

–niche publications

–photobooths

–thesauruses

–privacy

–dying of old age

–body hair

Or any of the other items in the encyclopedia! Just drop by the store to look through, RSVP on Facebook, or email [email protected] to save your spot (and your item). You can also get inspiration from the tumblr page for the book. See you there…unless maybe really fun book events are already obsolete?

Last night, we hosted author Rebecca Stead and her editor, Wendy Lamb for the latest installment in our YA NOT? series (a literary salon for not-so-young adults). They have the sort of editor-author relationship that makes us feel good about being in the book industry. This business is all about relationships, in many ways—our relationship with our customers, an author’s relationship with hir readers, and so on—but it all starts with the author and the editor. As they discussed quite a bit last night, every editor approaches each author a bit differently. And the approach that Wendy and Rebecca have taken together is, much like Rebecca’s books, magical and impressive.

Some highlights from their conversation last night:

—Rebecca talked about this TED talk with author Elizabeth Gilbert about inspiration, and mentioned an ancient idea that inspiration is a matter of “catching the serpent.” You have to reach up to grab it, and if you get its tail, you can reel it back in and make something with it, but if you miss it, it’s gone forever.

—Wendy, on how authors are like dogs: “Some authors are work dogs. They just keep working and working and working on a book until you just want to take it away from them before they mess it up. And other authors are like companion dogs. They need you to sit next to them and call them to see how they’re doing.” And Rebecca? Well, Wendy said she’s a lovely combination of the two.

—Rebecca, on why she writes for kids: “I love that children are still at a point where they are thinking about the big questions of life and trying to figure things out. They’re not jaded yet. I don’t think it would be possible for me to write for a jaded reader. I guess I can write for kids and adults having a mid-life crisis: people who are open to thinking about big ideas and wondering about life.”

—The best mail Rebecca has gotten in response to her latest book, When You Reach Me, is regarding a small idea in the book that she didn’t think most people would notice. She discusses the idea of a veil, that we all walk around with this invisible veil in front of our faces and go about our day, but every once in awhile it lifts up, and suddenly we can see the bigger picture, see the connections, and feel some peace about the way things are.  ”A surprising number of kids are writing to me to tell me how much they identify with that idea. Which I think is very encouraging!”

Those are just a few snippets from last night’s conversation, which we loved almost (almost!) as much as we adore When You Reach Me and First Light. What about other folks who came out in the blustery rain? What was your favorite part?

Greg stares forlornly out the front door of WORD, waiting for someone to take him home.

There’s only 6 days left until Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days comes out, and we’re celebrating with a contest for teachers and librarians!

The publisher sent us that great big cardboard Greg in the picture and, while we love him, he is just a little too big for our store. We’ll keep him around this week while we prepare for the latest book in his series, but then he needs a good home where he will be properly appreciated. Do you think your school or library might be that place?

Then email us and tell us why! That’s right, it’s that easy to get this totally awesome display for yourself. Just email info (at) wordbrooklyn (dot) com and tell us why your school or library is the best home for Greg.  The staff of WORD will pick our favorite.

We’ll announce our winner (and one runner-up, who will get a Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days T-shirt) next Monday, October 12, when the book comes out. So get to thinking about why Greg should go home with you and let us know ASAP…

Have you emailed the WORD Literary Fantasy Football Commissioner yet? There’s still time—the draft will be Tuesday, September 8, 7pm at WORD (or you can draft online if you can’t make it to the store).

Here are some of the awesome names suggested so far:

2666 All-Purpose Yards
Moby Vick
The Lombardi Code
F Larry Fitzgerald
A Farewell to Stiff Arms
The Man in the Iron Facemask
The Lord of the Super Bowl Rings
The Maltese Falcons
The Receiver in the Rye
The Punt Also Rises
I-Formation Claudius
The Heart is a Lonely Punter
The Linebacker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Yes, folks, we’re unusual EVEN by Brooklyn’s standards. That quote comes from this lovely write-up in The Brooklyn Paper about our basketball league.

Another thing that’s unusual about us is our matchmaking board, about which Stacked Blog wrote a great post. So if being unusual means that we encourage athleticism and seek to spark romances, well, we’ll take it!

Feel free to use the comments to talk about other things that are unusual even by Brooklyn’s standards.

We know you love our staff picks in the store (how else can we explain Cloud Atlas’s two-year streak on the WORD bestseller list?), but did you know that sometimes our staff picks go beyond our doors?

Kelly’s, above, is for Hothouse Flower and the Nine Flowers of Desire by Margot Berwin, a book she loved so much that the author is coming to read and sign at our Hot and Wicked Botanical Book Night this Tuesday! You can find this review in July’s Indie Next List in any independent bookstore in the country.

And Stephanie’s blurb for When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead is featured on a cardboard display made by the publisher to go next to the book. Good thing, too, since it’s her choice for the best middle grade novel of the year!

Convinced? Drop by the store to get your copies today! Actually, for Hothouse Flower, wait until Tuesday, that way you can meet the author. We’re so proud of these blurbs that the books will be in stock for quite some time, though in the case of When You Reach Me, the sooner, the better—we have a limited number of signed bookplates for copies purchased here. And as always, if you’re too far away to make it in, just email [email protected] and we’ll be happy to ship either or both out to you!

That’s right, ladies and gents. Get your literary dealbreakers all sorted out and head down to WORD to finally meet your literary soulmate!

May we offer ourselves up as a good place to meet up before your first date? Nice, well-lit place to make sure your future beloved is just as cool as his or her taste in books would suggest.

Finish out your week with a smile—read this delightful missive from Katherine Arathoon, member of The Elements of Style!

“When I first agreed to join a dodgeball team (don’t worry, it’s just a quick tangent), I thought I was signing up for kickball. ‘Sure, that sounds like fun,’ I said, forking over a hefty enrollment fee, and forgot about it. It was only 2 days before our first game that I remembered that dodgeball is actually two teams actively trying to pelt each other in the face with hard rubber balls. In an instant I was transported back to those terror-filled sessions in my elementary school days, and I called my roommate, Sanam, in a panic, shrieking, “I’ve just remembered what dodgeball is! I don’t want to play any more!” Accustomed to my histrionics, Sanam calmly informed me it was too late to get my fee back and I was damned well going to play. So play I did, and it turned out it was actually pretty fun. Teams were more evenly matched, now that everyone’s pituitary glands have for the most part leveled off, and there was beer after every game. Can’t argue with that!

“So, when the Mediabistro blurb popped up recommending Literary Basketball, I was intrigued. Sure, I’d hated basketball in high school gym, but if a girl like me can learn to tolerate dodgeball, she can do anything. Plus, the challenge of answering ‘literary questions’ in order to qualify was irresistible. I answered the questions, a handful of friends joined in as well, and one short introduction meeting later I was on the white team.

“The name picking began. We were team White, so early options included The Eebees, The Mocha Dicks, Charlotte’s Web of Domination, Great White Taupe, The Invisible Jam, and Midnight’s Children But With Basketball. However, several clear winners emerged from the fray, and after pushing Comma Sutra out of the way with deft aplomb, The Elements Of Style reigned supreme as our name of choice. The Strunks became unofficial team nickname, and ‘Sucks to your ass-mar!’ is our (as yet still unused in battle) team slogan.

“It was during this discussion that our noble team captain, Mark, came up with the brilliant plan of creating team t-shirts and using punctuation symbols instead of numbers on the back. There was a furious scramble to claim interrobang, and a question arose that remains unanswered to this day: does a dollar sign count as a punctuation mark? (In the end, cool factor won out over questionable verisimilitude on that particular issue.)

“So now we were named and marked, and ready for action. By this point I’d had enough fun and nerdiness that I scarcely cared about the looming first game. Sanam–now $anam–explained the basic rules to me on subway ride over, and I figured I was prepared enough.

“Two things I hadn’t anticipated:

“1) Basketball requires a lot of running. Like, a LOT of running. Fortunately we had a good showing of teammates that first game, because there was a steady rotation of subbing-out-before-my-heart-explodes. Some of us were a little hung over from the previous night’s adventures; some of us were just woefully out of shape. Safe to say, by game’s end most of us looked like teammate Mike in this picture.

Wow, if you didn’t make it to Sarah Magid’s event for her cookbook Organic and Chic, you missed out in a big way! The basement was packed and for the first time in WORD history, we sold every copy of the book in the store. We suspect the delicious mini-cupcakes and other goodies had something to do with it, but the main attraction was the incredible book, which you just have to see to believe. We’re out of stock for the next couple days, but you can bet we’ll have it here again soon for you to check out.

Here’s a few photos of the treats Sarah brought:

Thanks, Sarah! And thanks to everyone who made it out to make this event such an incredible success!

Thanks to all of you for your good wishes on our new arrival, Adrian. Even though I’m not in the store too much these days, I thought you might enjoy a pic of Adrian enjoying a good book. I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of him in the coming months!

-Christine

It’s a little crazy here today because it’s Buy Indie Day!  We’ve been selling our favorite books to Greenpoint customers and Twitter customers alike.  Want to join in the fun? Drop by any time today, email [email protected], or call 718 383 0096!  You can also find an independent bookstore near you by using IndieBound’s great search function.

And don’t forget, it’s not just independent bookstores that deserve love. Celebrate your favorite indie video rental place, restaurant, hardware store, bike shop, tattoo parlor, florist, grocery store, chocolatier, thrift store, or clothing boutique by paying them a visit today! Feel free to let us know in comments about your favorite indie businesses, we’d love to hear about them.

WORD got a lovely mention from Michael Tyrell in the NYT’s City Room blog today in a column he wrote about poetry in Brooklyn. In response to a question about venues for poetry readings in Brooklyn, among other things, he wrote:

“Finally, it would be worth your while to check out local bookstores in particular Brooklyn neighborhoods; some, like WORD in Greenpoint, have interesting and enriching programs.”

We think that’s the best part of the post, but if you’re looking for more information on poetry in Brooklyn and some fantastic answers about Brooklyn and writing in general, do read the whole thing.  And if you’re interested in the book Tyrell co-edited, Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn, stop by WORD and check it out.  We love it enough that it’s on display on top of the NYC section (and it was before today’s nod!)

Here’s a small bookish sample from Broken Land, from the end of “Dead Morning in Brooklyn Heights,” written by Maurice Kenny in 1979.

“Every morning Norman Mailer tramps down Clark St.

To the subway at the St. George Hotel to office.

His secretaries do not write his novels.

Even pimps ply their trade on the street below;

Pigeons bloom on crumbs in the gutters,

And the dead have labored at dying.”

Hey, you!  Yeah, you, the one with the addiction to cute cards.  You know you have a problem.  You buy boxes of cards, but then only use half of them.  You hoard cards because they’re cute with the excuse, “well, I’ll want to use it for so-and-so’s birthday next year.”  But then you forget that you bought it because you have so many cards socked away.  You’ve made public promises not to buy any more stationery until you use what you already have, but that doesn’t stop you, oh no.  It just means you sneak the new stationery home in the bottom of your bag.

We understand, and we’re here to help.

We’re probably part of the problem.  Normally, we’re pushers of letterpress, and cute cards, and cards with rude stick figure characters, and some that bloom into wildflowers when planted. Cards with the skyline of Manhattan, with ice cream sandwiches, with fangs, with owls, with curse words, with WTF and OMG on the front.  How can you resist?  You can’t, unfortunately (for you).

But not this Sunday.  This Sunday, we want to make your life easier with our first ever STATIONERY SWAP!

It’s easy.  Bring the stationery that you’ve fallen out of love with, the half-used boxes, the cards that you can’t remember why you bought them anymore. Come down to our basement between noon and 3pm.  Leave your castaways and look through those of fellow addicts.  A simple way to rejuvenate your collection without spending a dime!

If you want to drop off unwanted cards for the swap but can’t make it on Sunday, feel free to drop them by the store anytime we’re open this week.  Otherwise, see you Sunday!

Over the weekend, you may have heard something about a controversy over recent changes to Amazon’s ranking system that are primarily affecting books with sexual content, and especially books with GLBT content, by removing their rankings and thus impacting their visibility on the site.  More information is easy to find, as the internet has basically exploded about the whole thing.

Though it’s not clear yet what’s happened, here at WORD, we wanted to take this opportunity to assure our customers that the problem of books with “adult content” not being ranked is not endemic across the book industry. In the interests of transparency, our bestseller list is calculated as follows:

1. On first day of new month, run sales report for previous month.

2. Type top ten bestselling titles on a list.

3. Print out list on yellow paper.

(Possible glitch: the manager forgets how to count.  If this happens, we’ll be the first people to let you know.)

As you can see, it is a simple process and any book can be a part. We invite customers to test this assertion by buying dozens of copies of whichever adult title they like best to drive it to the top of our bestseller list.  No one would be more amused than we by an April bestseller list composed of gay erotica and perennial bestseller Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

This should clarify our position nicely, but if you have any other questions, you are welcome to email us at [email protected], call at 718 383 0096 (no extension, no phone tree, and definitely no hold music), or for direct human contact, visit us in person at 126 Franklin Street.

Well, we’ve got to end it sometime, and that time is this Friday at noon.  If you haven’t gotten your questions in, do it ASAP.  Thanks!

There are a lot of things that are fun about working in a bookstore, and one is the following scenario.

An adult walks into the store.  He or she walks trepidaciously towards the children’s section.  Looks around.  Hesitates.  Looks a little more.  Walks up to the counter.  Looks sheepish.  Dollars to donuts the first word out of his or her mouth is HELP!

And why not? Children’s books are tricky enough to keep on top of even when you love them and sell them all day.  So we’re starting a new feature online and in the store.

HELP! I’m looking for…

WORD’s suggestions for frequently asked questions.

There are certain types of books that people are asking about over and over.  So, sort of like our staff picks program, we’ll answer those questions with the books we would hand you if you came up to the desk and asked.  Many questions have more than one answer, so we might post multiple answers over time.  But for now, this is what we’re starting with:

HELP! I’m looking for a gift for a baby shower!

Sounds like you need one or multiple board books by Sandra Boynton.  They’re the exact right amount of silly and will withstand the worst of teething.  And they’re very easy to wrap (although, of course, when you buy them here, we wrap them free of charge).

HELP! I’m looking for a birthday present for a kindergartener!

What you’re looking for is a great read-aloud.  The parents will be busy buying super-educational presents, so let’s give the kid a break and give them something just for fun.  Right now we’re pretty into Meg Rosoff and Sophie Blackall’s Meet Wild Boars, a book about some atrociously-behaved wild boars who, should you ever meet in person, you should basically run away from.

HELP! I’m looking for a book for an 11-year-old who loves to read!

Man, the list could be a mile long!  But we’re going to recommend The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.  It’s got enough little jokes that you have to read it multiple times to find all of them—and luckily enough, the book only improves with age. 

HELP!  I’m looking for something for a teenager that isn’t Twilight!

We applaud you! Try out Pure, by Terra Elan McVoy.  We’re not just recommending it because she’s coming for an event soon, either.  It’s a fantastic book about friends, figuring out what you believe in, and the many pressures teenage girls face.

What can we help YOU with?

Check out the post here.

Follow us!  We’re at https://twitter.com/wordbrooklyn

We’ll be tweeting event reminders, as well as about books we love, especially when they show up at the store.  An easy way to keep up-to-date with Greenpoint’s independent bookstore!