Lots of fun in store at the Leaf and String Festival June
13-14 in Galax, Virginia. Check
here
for details of where you can find me!
Come visit "As the Page Turns," Greenville's newest
bookstore, located between Cherrydale Shopping Center and Furman University, at 5000
Old Buncombe Road. My friend Lisa Nichols is the proprietor and her grand
opening on June 21st will feature a whole host of authors, including moi, Joan Medlicott, Teresa Hill, and more!
Like Edith
Wharton? She needs you! Read about it on my
blog!
Many thanks to
Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC, for hosting Dana Wildsmith and me last month.
Great store! Good time!
I'm so excited. My
friend Lisa has just welcomed her long-awaited baby into the world:
a fabulous independent bookstore in an area where no bookstore has
gone before! (Cue the Star Trek music!) I feel like a proud aunt, or
maybe a privileged godmother. All I know is, I--and many others;
Lisa has a lot of loyal friends!--have been there to clean out, dust
off, line up, thumb through, catalog, and shelve (okay, and
occasionally swipe) as often as
possible in recent weeks. I've never been privy to the birth of a
bookstore; it's like the blossoming of some wondrous flower...or a
new spout springing forth from the Fountain of Youth...or a
wonderful surprise popping out of a magician's top hat. I want to
stand on U.S. 25 and yell, "HEY! DID YOU PEOPLE KNOW THERE'S A NEW
BOOKSTORE OVER HERE? ISN'T THAT AWESOME?!?!?!"
I never met a
bookstore I didn't like. I like some better than others, of
course--those that sell lots of my books are right there at the top
of the list!--but I don't think I've ever been in a bookstore
that didn't have some appeal. I visited the infamous
City Lights a few years
ago, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti's legendary haunt in San Francisco. Despite its
cramped, tiny rooms and distinct lack of air conditioning, it was
like walking on hallowed ground. In Denver a couple of summer ago, I
stopped in the famous
Tattered Cover and enjoyed seeing firsthand this renowned
repository of the written word. This month I was in
Chapters Bookshop in
Galax, Virginia--a fabulous store owned by a fabulous woman and
proudly leading the way for a revitalized Main Street in a town that
was struggling to stay alive not too many months back. During my
years as a writer, I have personally visited probably 500
bookstores--small and large, independent and chain, with latte and
without. I never tire of them. I always find something to buy. I
always spot at least one book I've never seen before and
immediately want to read.
It seems
everywhere I look, there's a new bank or a new drugstore going up.
Personally, I don't get a rush when I enter banks and drugstores;
how about you? Wouldn't it be cool to see as many bookstores as
Starbucks? Imagine if we spent as much money on books as on Double
Mocha Caramel Frappacinos! To quote Louis Armstrong, what a
wonderful world it would be! I don't imagine you're willing to give
up your coffee, tea, or whatever socially acceptable opiate you down
on a daily basis, but here's a suggestion: help an author, help a
bookstore, help yourself, and help humanity by spending that next
five bucks on a book. Your brain will thank you.
P.S. Here's
Newser's choice for the ten best bookstores on earth, in case you
happen to be in London or Kyoto--or even L.A.!--sometime soon.
Savor your summer,
Jayne
Welcome
to my website! Whether you're here by intention or accident, I invite
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