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Because of the overwhelming Fort Greene community response (i.e., we've had more RSVPs than the venue could handle), we've decided to change the location of Tuesday night's bookstore kickoff party to accomodate more people at the event.

The party will now take place in the lobby of the BAM Harvey Theater at 651 Fulton Street, between Ashland and Rockwell. (It's close to the DeKalb B/D/M/N/Q/R/W stop, or the Nevins Street 2/3/4/5. I recommend Google Maps or Hopstop.com for a map or further directions.)

The good news is, this means you can still RSVP! Just send an email to [email protected]

The date and time of the party stay the same at Tuesday, September 16 from 7-9pm. Colson Whitehead will read one of his latest pieces at the party, and Jennifer Egan and Kate Christensen will be in attendance, as well as movers and shakers from the book industry and the Fort Greene community. And we've got the greenlight to make a really big announcement that brings the store closer to reality than ever!

BAM (the Brooklyn Academy of Music) is a neighborhood and a city institution, and the Harvey lobby is a big beautiful space -- I'm so excited to be there! So adjust your travel accordingly, and feel free to bring friends and loved ones. See you at a fabulous party on Tuesday night!

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It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and perhaps my last chance to blog for a little while, so allow me to lay some updates and anticipations on you.

Brooklyn Bookstore
I received my PowerUp! check for $15,000 in the mail sometime last week, so yesterday I visited my new friend Juan at a great local/national bank about 20 minutes away. As he and I had discussed previously, I opened a small business money market account with the prize money, which will also be the depository for other funds raised. And he gave me the paperwork to fill out for a great big (to me) small business loan application. I'm hoping to get that in by mid-June, at the same time as I'm looking for retail spaces.

In the meantime, I've made some other great business friends: the Retail Committee of the fabulous Fort Greene Association. It turns out that the beautiful, developing neighborhood of Fort Greene wants a bookstore almost as bad as I want to create one, so I'll be working with them on finding a space, building community support, and doing some more fundraising. I'm so grateful to these folks for what they've done already, and you can be sure there will be much more to report as we lay our plans.

Stimulating Reading
Speaking of fundraising... you like me! You really like me! The Stimulating Reading project has already inspired at least one Stimulating Reader to invest their ENTIRE stimulus rebate in my future Brooklyn bookstore, and several others have kicked in at smaller amounts! Thanks, already -- you're incredible. And the project is getting some notice: Forbes' Digital Download (disclosure: this is my friend Dave who helped out with the website), BookSquare, and Living Read Girl have given some link love, and more are to come. Hooray! You shall receive your shirts, bags, buttons, discount cards, and signed book in due course. Don't forget to spread the word to others in blogland, even outside our bookish realm -- I have a sense that there are lots of folks out there hoping to do something worthwhile with their stimulus rebate, and a lot of little investments can go a long way.

New York City Booksellers meeting
And speaking of little going a long way... I sat in a room on Wednesday with some of the best booksellers in my city, from stores huge, tiny, and everywhere in between, and big things are afoot. I admit I expected a certain amount of pessimism or crankiness at our first exploratory meeting about forming an alliance of New York booksellers -- we're known for our independence and our toughness, after all. But there was almost none of that -- instead, there was the sense that the time has come at last for us to get together and talk about what's great about indie bookselling in New York, and how we can get that across to the book buying public. Thanks to the good efforts of Kelly Amabile, Chris Doeblin, and Eileen Dengler, the meeting was a fantastic exchange of ideas toward a common goal, and I was amazed at the talent and intelligence in the room. We came up with a lot of great ideas for the nature of the group and for specific projects, and agreed to meet again in about a month to solidify some of those decisions. I'm excited to see what's to come.

Book Expo America 2008
And now... 'tis the time of year when a young bookseller's fancy turns to... Book Expo America! Yes, my beloved boss will be far too pregnant to get on a plane herself this year, so she's sending me to Los Angeles along with my trusty coworker (known as Webmaster Dustin), and we have plans to tear it up. To be precise: every year before now I've had a nice little list of things I planned to do. This year: a spreadsheet and a Google map. Seriously, check it out -- you can see all the places I'm planning to be, though some of them require some manipulation of the space-time continuum to be in more than one place at the same time. But, as per tradition here's (an abbreviated version of ) my intended schedule for BEA this year -- because I hope to see you there!

Tuesday, May 27
Arrive in Los Angeles in the afternoon. Dinner with best friend from high school (I grew up two hours north of L.A.), in which I will attempt to persuade him to tell me how in the heck people get around in this city if they're sloshed -- research, you know.

Wednesday, May 28
12:00-4:00: While most smart booksellers are doing the "Welcome to Hollywood" activities, I'll be in a room all day with some of the smartest -- the Emerging Leaders Council -- hammering out an action plan for Emerging Leaders that will take us through the next year and make us a viable organization. After long hours of decision making we'll need some refreshment, so...

5:00: ABA Welcome to Hollywood reception at the Egyptian Theater (It's no Brooklyn Borough Hall, but it sounds like fun)

7:00: Emerging Leaders party at The Woods (There's a velvet rope at this spot, so I can't encourage you to crash, but I hope you've already RSVP'd and I'll see you there. Can't wait to take more embarassing photos...


Thursday, May 29
8:30 - 4:45: The anticipated yearly ABA Day of Education -- ground zero for bookseller professional development. This year the lineup includes:

9:30-10:45: Buying, Merchandising, and Selling Graphic Novels, 101 (with panelists Diamond Books rep John Shableski, comics guru Scott McCloud, and yours truly. Come for some comics geek out, and serious tips on running a graphic novel section in your store.)

5:00: ABA Celebration of Bookselling (boy oh boy, if you don't know about the big Booksense-related announcement yet, you're in for a treat...)

7:00 on: various parties, including one at Skylight Books which I'm excited to see, and another at the legendary Chateau Marmont...


Friday, May 30
9:00 - 5:00: The show floor experience at Book Expo America, including meetings with reps and vendors, shmoozing with other booksellers, picking up (or trying not to pick up) free galleys and swag, and taking in the spectacle that is the American book industry. It's a lot to pack in to eight hours - wish I could get to everything.

7:00 on: Again, various parties, including a couple of publisher cocktails/dinners, and Craig Popelar's infamous Hellfire party -- I didn't make it last year, and I'm told it was something to see. We'll just hope I can stagger in on Saturday morning.


Saturday, May 31
8:00 - 9:30: BEA Graphic Novel Breakfast (Mike Mignola! Jeff Smith! Total early-morning geekery!)

10:30 - 11:30: What's Hot, What's Good, What's Next in Graphic Novels (another comics panel in which yours truly finds herself a last minute participant. Come to this one for hot tips on what's coming up from a librarian, a publisher, and other experts.)

Afternoon: Rendezvous with my mom and my sisters for a little California vacation. I'll be incommunicado until Wednesday, enjoying some beach and family time.

I've got lots to do between now and Tuesday, so I may not get to blog again before then. If I can find a few minutes of downtime in the ABA lounge I'll try for some live blogging -- otherwise I'll catch up when I get back. Hope you all have equally exciting plans for our beachside BEA -- see you at the show!!

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Introducing: Stimulating Reading!

Visit www.stimulatingreading.com, and use your stimulus package to become an investor in an independent bookstore -- specifically, the one I'm creating in Brooklyn.

The website will explain the details -- basically, you can choose an amount to kick in and receive some Book Nerd swag and/or buying power at the future bookstore. And using your rebate in this way is a way not only to show your support for my little literary project, but to stimulate the economy through supporting small and independent businesses.

Honestly, I feel a bit presumptuous asking you to use your windfall to help create my bookstore. I don't want to twist your arm -- I'm just offering an option. And especially if you're someone who has mixed feelings about the wisdom of the stimulus rebate to strengthen the economy, this is one way to spend it more purposefully than just by, say, buying new clothes.

I'm working on a number of other ways to pull together the capital to get this bookstore going by late this year. But I'd be so thrilled if some of the start-up capital came from you -- those independent supporters (or "small online donors") who can make such a big difference. And you might even get a personalized signed book, or a one-of-a-kind mix tape out of it, not to mention some major discounts on books.

Check out www.stimulatingreading.com, spread the word, and kick in if you can. I'd love to hear your thoughts, via comment or email.

And wherever you choose to spend your stimulus payment -- shop local and independent!

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Aren't we lucky, us book people, to have such a good built-in metaphor for change? The act of reading involves this moment of physical action where to move the story forward you have to cover up and leave behind what came before. It's not a renunciation or a rejection -- just a way to get to the next chapter.

Yes, I'm leaving BookStream, after all too short a stay on that particular page. I'm sending out the announcement today, and I'll be finished at the end of this month.

I wasn't expecting to win the Power Up! competition, nor all of the new opportunities that would come with it. But win I did, and come they did, and now I have to pursue and follow up on these opportunities or risk missing my chance to do the one thing that's been my goal all along: open an independent bookstore in Brooklyn. And I just can't do that in the free time I have now. Something's gotta give.

As I described it to the ALP, I feel like I've been expanding and expanding the things I've been doing, to get all of the experience and meet all of the people and gather all of the knowledge I could. And it's been wonderful. But now it's the time to bring it in, and start to focus on one thing.

I've still got a couple of projects I'll be wrapping up and passing along at BookStream: there's a new KidSplash event coming up, and another TitleWave this fall, and a very cool new website that should launch in the next couple of weeks. I'm grateful to have been able to put some things in motion that I hope will continue.

And I have every confidence that BookStream will continue to do what it does well. Providing added value to booksellers, through good relationships with its staff. Transforming the role of the wholesaler into something more: an intermediary between authors, publishers, booksellers, and book buyers.

They'll need someone to do what I've been doing, and more. A passionate book person, a writer, an organizer, a creator, someone in touch with what's happening in the book industry; but also someone who's able to do a bit more traveling, to engage more with booksellers and publishers, to work the customer service angle as well as the marketing angle. It'll be a dream job (and as usual, I half regret not being able to do it all). Jack and Carolyn and Ken and Lily and Felice and Carol and everyone else at BookStream are awesome coworkers, and they know how to make a job worthwhile. I bet somebody with the right kind of passion jumps at the chance.

And in a few months, or a few years, "Lord willing and the creek don't rise," as my mom used to say...

I'll be opening my bookstore, and placing my opening book orders with BookStream, and putting them first in the cascade. (If you're a bookseller who uses electronic ordering, you know what that means.)

As when reading a great book, it's tough to leave the good parts behind. But I'm awfully excited about the next chapter.

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This definitely comes under the listing of tooting my own horn, but I'm hoping some of you will get a kick out of it. Thanks to the graphic design help of my brilliant sister Sarah...

You can now purchase your own Book Nerd T-shirt!

Just imagine -- bookish types walking around, all over the country, with their hair-band/L.A. gangster/motorcycle-mob typeface t-shirts, proclaiming their unrepentant book nerdism. It's a beautiful thing.


The Cafe Press thing is something I've been thinking about for a while, for a couple of reasons:

1) Several people have asked where they could get their own Book Nerd shirt like the one in my profile photo. Since that was something the ALP had custom-made for me, I didn't have anywhere to send them. Now I do.

1) I'll make a couple of bucks on the sale of each t-shirt, which will go straight into the Future Bookstore Fund. It's not likely to be a major source of funding, but the overhead price is right (i.e. nothing), and I figure it can't hurt to put it out there.

I know the prices are a little steep for t-shirts. The base price for Cafe Press apparel is high, but they do provide all of the infrastructure and product, and they've got a good reputation.

And hey -- you can get a shirt for just about the price of a hardcover book.

You've got your classic white-on-black option, and an organic white shirt with black lettering. Either one looks pretty darn cool.

Do let me know what you think, and especially if you've got ideas for other designs or products I should be offering. Hope you enjoy, my fellow book nerds!

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It's not even blogging day (but I was gone Monday at the NAIBA meeting), so here are a few quick make-up links.

According to Shelf Awareness, "Bookstore sales last December were $2.113 billion, up 2.7% from $2.057 billion in December 2006, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The year ended on a good note, with sales at $16.768 billion, up 1.1% from $16.589 billion in 2006. During the first half of the year, sales were below the previous year's levels, but stronger results in the second half of 2007 helped pull bookstore sales into the black for the full year." Hooray!

And yours truly is beginning a series over at the Bookshop Blog, telling the story of this crazy dream of opening an indie bookstore. There's lots more going on at BB, so if you get bored with the story of my life there's plenty of links, advice, and personality to keep you there.

I'm off to a morning meeting, then I gotta do some grocery shopping for V-Day dinner with the ALP. If you're in the city and looking for something to do tonight, making books is a nice (free!) option. Insider tip: collage is one of our book decorating options, and I've repurposed a bunch of beautiful publisher catalogs to be snipped up for the purpose. Should be fun. Enjoy the day, however you spend it, and happy reading!

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So my win of the $15,000 PowerUp! Award for my bookstore business plan got written up in the Daily News yesterday, complete with photo of me with a goofy grin on my face (high on endorphins, as John T. surmised). I know the word got passed around at Winter Institute in Louisville, too.

Thank you so, so much to all of your for your congratulations and your support. Got ideas, suggestions, thoughts? Email me, for goodness' sake -- I'd love to hear from you! (Forgive me if it's mercenary to mention it again, but the one thing still standing between me and opening the bookstore doors is capital -- I'm looking for grants, loans, or any other creative means of pulling it all together, so if you have any suggestions in that regard, I'll probably be interested.)

Anyway, the congratulations keep coming -- from friends and strangers, many of whom think I should open the bookstore in their Brooklyn neighborhood! It's fantastic to know there are so many folks longing for a bookstore out there.

I was curious about how everyone was hearing about the news, and so I admit, I did that vaguely shameful thing authors often resort to -- I Googled myself. And here's who's writing about it (forgive the self-absorption -- it's kind of just for my records):

Chad Post (formerly of Dalkey Archive) in Three Percent, his new blog for Open Letter at University of Rochester...

Bookselling This Week had a nice mention, and Karen Schechner is writing up a more in-depth piece to run later this week...

Levi at Litkicks includes it in his roundup...

Shelf Awareness featured it front and center...

P.J. at Books in Northport gave me a bookseller-to-bookseller shoutout...

And Bud Parr at Chekhov's Mistress has a great post about what kind of bookseller he would be (a bit of a cranky one), along with his congratulations about the win...

Which leads me to another great post at BookNinja about George's dream bookstore (Lisa Loeb is involved)...

Inspired by this piece in the Guardian, about Lee Rourke's dream bookstore...

Which is really about two entrepreneurs (like me!) working toward opening The Big Green Bookshop in London, and writing a blog about the process (they've also apparently been bowled over by the publicity from the article). Warning: the blog opens to the tune of "Pleasant Valley Sunday," which I love but you might want to be aware of if you're in a quiet place.

I love reading all of the literary folks whose dream bookstore resembles that of Bernard Black in Black's Books, a hilarious cancelled BBC sitcom I've been obsessed with lately. Bernard loves drinking wine, reading books, and being left alone, and hates cleaning, anything new, and customers. Obviously he's a terrible bookseller. And as they admit, many of those who dream of the bookstore life aren't really cut out for it. But as my very first bookstore boss used to say, "that's why there are so many books [or jobs] in the world -- so not everyone has to like the same ones." And it doesn't hurt to dream, does it?

Happy Wednesday!

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Um, I won.

I actually had a very productive day at work yesterday -- I finished writing up descriptions of upcoming events for February, posted author photos on the website, responded to a number of event requests to tame my overflowing inbox, worked the cash register and answered some customer questions, and even pulled some returns from the interior design section. A good day in the life of a bookseller. I felt content in my life as it is, not filled with longing or anxiety, and just a little excited that at 5:15 I was going to put on my good shoes and go down to the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Library for a swanky awards ceremony and some snacks. Everyone at the bookstore knew I was going to the business plan awards ceremony, and I got lots of "good luck"s as I went out the door.

The ALP was waiting for me in the reading room -- we spend half of our Saturdays at the Central Library anyway so it wasn't hard to find him. The awards ceremony was held downstairs in the newly renovated Dweck Center -- I'd never had a reason to explore that part of the library before, and it was cool to see. On the way in the gifts started to flow: a free totebag from Citibank (the sponsor of the award), a business card case from PowerUp. Arcola, one of the Business Library librarians, handed me back my original plan, and I was told to sit in the first three rows reserved for finalists and judges. (We took this too literally at first and the ALP sat in the fourth row, but it later dawned on us that there was room for spouses of finalists in the reserved seating as well.)

I saw some of the staff from my BEDC class in the audience, and the judges before whom I made my presentation back in November, and the owners of Bogota Bistro, the first winners of the award (conveniently located about half a block from our apartment). Maud Andrews, my favorite librarian (because it seems to me she's found her calling too), asked me about the correct pronunciation of my new last name -- they were confirming with all the finalists, she said. It felt so good to be sitting there next to the ALP, the work all done, the prayers for blessings all said, and I felt I would honestly be content whatever the outcome.

There were, of course, lots of speeches preceding the awards: Dionne Mack-Harvin, the BPL's executive director, was the MC (I know her name and title because they're printed on the giant check on my kitchen table), and we heard from the Deputy Borough President (not Marty, sadly, but woman with a lovely Jamaican accent) and a City Councilwoman and representatives from Citibank, congratulating the library and the contestants on the increasing success of the contest. Previous winners also said a few words; the owners of Bogota (who were also the evening's caterers) talked about what an affirmation it had been to receive the award, and how many no's it took before they heard yes, and how well they're doing now -- they grossed over a million last year. Another previous winner, a two-woman toddler t-shirt company, brought up their own kids to showcase their wares -- the tots stole the show, in typical Brooklyn fashion. Then, suddenly, it was time for the awards.

The presenters would read a description of the business plan, then announce the entrepreneur's name and have them come forward for the award and photographs. As they announced the first honorable mentions ($500), I thought how that would be a nice chunk of change to start an account with. But I wasn't with the honorable mentions. Then the $750 honorable mentions were presented, and I thought how great nearly a thousand bucks free and clear would be. But I wasn't with those either. Then they announced the two second place winners, and I thought, five grand would be perfect, wonderful, not too much pressure. But the awards went to a woman with a line of aromatic soaps and cosmetics (who couldn't stop crying and saying "I have labels to buy!" - she knew exactly how she was going to spend her money), and another woman who wanted to open a healthy soul food restaurant (I hope she caters next year).

Well, it's all or nothing now, I thought. Probably nothing. And that's fine. I wrote the plan because of this deadline, which I might never have done otherwise, and I learned so much, and I met such great resources in the Brooklyn business community. Blessings on the winner, whoever they are.

And then the presenter announced that the winning plan was a business that would benefit the readers and writers of Brooklyn. The ALP and I looked at each other, oddly worried expressions on our faces. The presenter described someone who had worked for seven years in the book industry, made lots of contacts, who wrote a bookselling blog. I started to cry. The ALP told me not to cry, so I started to laugh instead. They called my name, pronouncing the difficult hyphenated last name correctly but getting my first name wrong. I somehow made it up to the stage. They handed me a gigantic posterboard check with my name (spelled right) and the words FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. The Daily News photographer took pictures. All I could hear was my own ragged, laughing/crying breath.

The MC apologized for asking me to say a few words. I hadn't thought seriously about having to speak (okay, it had occurred to me, but I shoved the thought away with an eye-roll at myself and didn't prepare anything), but I found I wasn't afraid. Here's what I remember of what I said -- a bit paraphrased, and minus the stutters and repetitions.

"Luckily I host events at the bookstore four or five nights a week, so I'm used to being in front of a microphone... but it's not usually this important. I love what the guys from Bogota said -- one of my favorite restaurants -- about what an affirmation this was for them. I know there's a perception out there that independent bookstores are a dying breed, a bad bet. I know that's not true, because I've seen the ones that are working, that are doing vibrant wonderful things in their communities. And I've gotten so much support from people in my industry -- from publishers, from our trade organization, from other booksellers -- especially from other booksellers, who are such a great community to each other. But I wasn't sure what the response would be when I took this plan to people outside that community, to business people. Would they think I was crazy? And it's so wonderful that you thought this was worthwhile. I honestly was thinking there at the end it's all or nothing, and it's probably nothing, and that would have been okay, because I have gotten so much already out of PowerUp, I've learned so much, and the librarians have been so wonderful. But this money is going to be the seed that I can use to make this dream happen. So... thank you. So. Much."

And then about fifteen thousand more pictures, and I could see the ALP still standing there in our row while everyone went out for the reception, and I just wanted to go and hug him, but it was great to be up there with the other laughing/crying winners and their own big posterboard checks. And then I did get to hug him, and we went out and had empanadas and champagne, and I handed out about fifteen business cards and got fifteen more, and heard from a dozen people why I should open my bookstore in their neighborhood, and talked about collaborating with half a dozen other entrepreneurs, and met people who read my blog, and gradually came down to a less ragged high. Then the ALP and I left the library, which was already closed (we showed the check to the security guards at the door, who pulled out pens to joke about having me sign it over to them), and picked up a bottle of champagne at a Park Slope wine shop on the way home. I called my mom, we watched the Muppet Show on DVD, we talked about having the check made into a coffee table. Then we went to bed.

There will be a lot of details to work through -- where and how to receive and deposit the money, how to use this as leverage to get additional grants and loans. To be fair, it's less than a tenth of what I've calculated I'll need. But it's fifteen thousand dollars more than I had before, not to mention the $5,000 in in-kind gifts: consulting services, marketing services, a Chamber of Commerce membership, even a gift certificate to Bogota. And perhaps more importantly, the experts of the Brooklyn Business Library think my plan is viable -- is the MOST viable, out of all the ones they've seen. Kathleen, the Citibank rep responsible for creating the contest and the head judge, told me that it was my presentation that made the difference -- that the judges were skeptical about the wisdom of opening an independent bookstore given all they'd heard, but I sold them on the idea with my data and my passion.

If I can do that -- and I guess I did -- maybe I can do anything. Maybe I can make this dream happen, after all.

Thank you to all of you who have also given your affirmation. Thank you for saying yes in a world of no's.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bask in the glow for a little while longer.

P.S. They tell me I'll be in the Daily News on Tuesday, in the Brooklyn section or the business section, if you want to take a look.

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I've been feeling like a bit of a bad blogger lately. As my RSS feed clearly indicates, the blogosphere is filled with retrospectives, best-of lists, summaries of the year in reading, analyses of the state of literacy, bookstores, publishing, etc. in the year that's just ending. Last year I posted a list of all the books I'd read; this year I can't even do that, because I've lost track. (Resolution #1 for 2008: write down all books read, preferably on paper, so I can look back at them.)

While I find myself unable to offer a sweeping, overarching point on the year in books, I have been having, rather typically, some personal year-end sorts of thoughts – about where I (and things) have been, where we're going, why are we doing this again, etc.

(As Little Pete from Pete & Pete, the cult TV series of my youth, says in the New Year's Eve episode, "Everybody gets all wiggily on New Year's Eve thinking next year they're going to be better. But every year it turns out they're just a bunch of feebs." His frustration, if I recall, stems from his thwarted resolution to save enough money to buy a rocket pack, with which he planned to fly around and solve all the problems of the world.)

It's a tough time to be a dreamer. The vague somedays of your imaginings have suddenly thudded into the solidity of another year in which your dream has yet to materialize. All your momentum seems, if temporarily, to have petered out, leaving you, a little winded, wondering if it's worth getting up the energy for another run at it.

(In the world of bookstores, this may have something to do with the extraordinary amounts of energy expended in the leadup to Christmas, and the attendant stress and exhaustion, which can leave one longing to just get off the world for a while and let things take care of themselves.)

I'm thinking, a little, of Larry Portzline. As I've thought about his precipitous abandonment of the project of Bookstore Tourism – largely because he was unable to get funding from indie bookstores and trade organizations to fund his awareness-raising nationwide bookstore tour – I've come to somewhat agree with many of those who commented on my post on the matter. That is, it perhaps would have made more sense to seek funding from those with money to spend on cultural projects (for example "tourist bureaus and the Main Street programs" as Barking Dog Books suggests, or even benevolent corporate publishers, or traditional grant initiatives), rather than from the indie bookstores themselves, notoriously strapped for cash and hesitant to take a financial risk – or rather, another risk, since the store itself is a very risky thing to begin.

However, I sympathize a great deal with Larry's frustration and sense of rejection. To have put so much (unpaid) time into what is largely a philanthropic enterprise, and then to receive insufficient concrete support from those whom the enterprise is designed to benefit – it's enough to make anyone throw up their hands and walk away.

It's hard not to see myself in parallel. My own dream, of opening a really great independent bookstore in Brooklyn, seems sometimes further away than ever. I had formed a tentative mental timeline of opening by fall of 2008, but that's been scrapped in light of the ongoing, obvious problem of lack of start-up capital. (For the record, even if I win the grand prize in the wonderful Brooklyn Public Library competition, it won't be nearly 25% of my projected startup costs, the rule of thumb for personal assets required to get a business loan.) I do sometimes get frustrated at the world: that there's so much money out there getting spent on silly or failure-bound projects, but no one has recognized the inescapable genius of my idea and offered to pony up cash, no strings attached. More often, I get frustrated at myself. Something must be wrong with me, that I haven't yet found an investor I can work with, that I haven't been able to save up enough seed money yet to even ask for a loan, that I still have work to do on the business plan, that I'm spending my energy on so many other things rather than the one dream, that other people have managed to open bookstores and I haven't. Maybe I don't really want this enough; maybe it's just a prop to keep my pride intact while working in retail. Maybe I'll want it all my life, and never quite make it.

My last email from Larry was full of anger and frustration. On the one hand, it seems like a good thing for him that he's taking the time to work on a novel in progress, spend time with his newlywed wife, focus on other things. But he sounded hopeless about indie bookstores, and about booksellers, and about the future. He sited the NEA study about the decline in reading, and asked me how I could be among those to discount its ominous findings.

The world is full of problems, ain't it? And there are plenty of people and organizations and statistics and task forces to tell us what they are. There are those whose role it is to tell us what our weaknesses are, so perhaps we can combat them. There are those whose role it is to gather up the range of opinions and find a consensus, or represent the views of the knowledgeable few. There are those whose role it is to challenge our convictions, so that we're forced to think about what we really know and believe.

Turns out, I've staked out a little role for myself too. In the world of books, I'm not as important or influential as many of the people I've quoted and interacted with this year: as John Mutter, the editor of Shelf Awareness; or Judith Rosen, journalist for Publishers Weekly; or Avin Domnitz, CEO of the American Booksellers Association; or Lance Fensterman, director of Book Expo America; or Johnny Temple, director of the Brooklyn Book Festival; or Russ Lawrence, president of the ABA; or Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon; or Len Riggio, head of Barnes & Noble; or the owners of big, wonderful independent bookstores, like Carla Cohen of Politics and Prose or Rick Simonson of Elliot Bay or Sarah McNally of McNally Robinson; not to mention the authors who give us our work to do, this year, every year, like Michael Chabon of Yiddish Policeman's Union or Geraldine Brooks of People of the Book or Michael Ondaatje of Divisadero or Edwidge Danticat of Brother, I'm Dying or Kate Christensen of The Great Man, or….

I'm grateful to be able to talk to and read about and talk about these folks. Their art and their work have made a world I want to be a part of. Which is why I've taken on my little role, of being one voice of optimism about books and bookstores. There are plenty of voices talking about what's wrong, and why we must change, or even why we won't change or can't change. I want to talk about the joy and the hope part of things: the good things that are, and the potential for more good things on the horizon. It's not the whole picture. It's just the part I've got covered. No matter my occasional despair, I can't help coming back to the good things that I know and believe, from business success stories to wonderful reads to great technological developments to communities and relationships. It's one of the only things I know worth doing.

I certainly can't fault Larry in his decision to move on to other things – it seems to be the right decision for him, and he's planted the seed of an idea that is already bearing fruit through others who have picked it up.

But for me, I can't quit yet. Give me a day or two to catch my breath, and I'll be at it again. I want that bookstore, because I want to build something good and solid in the world. In the meantime, I can't help celebrating all the good and solid things that have been built by others. It's what I did last year. It's what I'll do in the year to come.

Maybe this year, I'll get a rocket pack. Either way, I'm going to keep dreaming. Luckily, there are a lot of other folks with rocket packs to cheer on.

Thanks for reading.

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The people who read the February issue of School Library Journal read my article Curl Up With A Cup Of Tea And A Good Blog and also saw this photo. (Edited to add: New! Startling! Revelations about the photo shoot at the bottom of the post.)

When SLJ said they needed my photo for the article, my first thought was I'd ask my sister to take a few photos. I didn't realize they meant a REAL photo. Or a real photo shoot. As happens with these things, it turned out that it was a week I could not take a day off from work; and a weekend when my sister (Pixie) and her husband (her husband) were out of town on business so I was babysitting Cheetah and PeterParker in their house.

Which meant that the photo shoot took place at their house, not mine.

Things I learned during my mini session as a star: it takes a long, long time to set up lights. Even longer than you think.

Children insist on being involved in everything. Until they get bored and go do something else.

This one photo was the result of about 4 hours and hundreds of photos. I am not making that up. The photographer, Will Taylor, was great.

I adore Nicholas Mosse pottery. You can just see the top of one of his mugs.

Because it was at Pixie's house, I brought a bunch of ARCs and books with me, partly for the photo shoot, partly for the kids to look at it, partly in the hopes of getting some blog work done. Me being me, I made a list of the books I brought. The ones in bold are the ones you can see in the photo:

Tips On Having A Gay (Ex) Boyfriend by Carrie Jones
Good Girls by Laura Ruby
Pale Immortal by Anne Frasier (this is on the sofa)
Bindi Babes by Narinder Dhami
The Fat Girl by Marilyn Sachs
Devilish by Maureen Johnson
The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless by Ahmet Zappa
Mommy? by Sendak Yorkins & Reinhart (this is a fave with Cheetah & PeterParker)
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: A Pop Up Book by Stephen King (illus. by Alan Dingman, paper engineering by Kees Moerbeek) (another fave of the kids)
The Day of the Scarab by Catherine Fisher
Ancient Egypt: Archaeology Unlocks the Secrets of Egypt's Past by Jill Rubalcaba (right by the laptop)
Goy Crazy by Rachel Lowenstein (between Egypt and the tea cup.)
The Fetch by Chris Humphreys
River Secrets by Shannon Hale
Chloe Doe by Suzanne Phillips
Julia's Kitchen by Brenda A. Ferber
Beige by Cecil Castellucci
The Braid by Helen Frost
Martha Ann's Quilt for Queen Victoria by Kyra E Hicks, illus by Lee Edward Fodi
Kali and the Rat Snake by Zai Whitaker, illus by Srividya Natarajan (PeterParker is reading it. I cannot figure out which book Cheetah is looking at.)
Santa Knows by Cynthia & Greg Leitich Smith, illus by Steve Bjorkman
Poetry Speaks to Children
One White Wishing Stone by Doris K. Gayzagian, illus by Kristina Swarner

I also brought:
Knopf Delacorte Dell (Random House) Young Readers Group Spring 2007 Catalog
Random House Golden Books Young Readers Group Spring 2007 Catalog
Book Page November 2006
Kane/ Miller Spring 2007 Catalog
Chronicle Books Children's Spring/ Summer 2007
Book Page December 2006

I think Cheetah was looking at one of these catalogs.

Edited to add: Robin Brande asks, Liz, you're such a celeb! Great photo!Did you do your own hair/makeup/stunts? If so, all the more impressive!

Oh, go on. No, seriously, go on!

Hair: As soon as I knew I was getting the photo taken (and it was a short time frame) I called the salon and BEGGED for an appointment to get rid of the gray (I started going gray in my early 20s) and get my hair cut & styled. De Jensen was awesome & fit in me in.
Makeup: I am not a big make up person. I use it, but as with everything, I take a minimalist approach. I used a combo of Benefit (I adore Dr. Feelgood) & Bobbi Brown products.
Stunts: I did them all. This is when I learned how the models & celebs have stand ins for things like setting up the lights; I'm the one who sat there, instead of a stand in.

And have I mentioned? I'm one of those people who dread getting my picture taken!

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