Indie bookstores? Texas has 'em, east to west

 First in an occasional series about Texas independent bookstores

A Facebook friend posted about a bookseller's West Coast vacation visiting independent bookstores. And I wondered: are there enough indie bookstores in Texas to populate a blog post? Turns out there are enough even within a half-day's drive or less to populate multiple posts. Since I began this indie odyssey a few years back, I've been saddened to see old friends fall by the wayside but gladdened by new startups.

I'll begin with the east side of the state and work west to the Dallas/Fort Worth area and beyond in later posts.

I had first headed east from Dallas along the 1-20/1-80 corridor. Originally, I located three independent bookstores in Tyler. Since then, old friends Fireside Books and Once & Again Books are no more. 

However, the venerable Pea Picker Bookstore, 2803 University Boulevard, is still going strong. The selection of romance volumes at this shop near the University of Texas at Tyler is jaw-droppingly amazing. But that's not all, including a section of new books. Hours are 9:30-5:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. I lost track of time during my stay and browsed until closing, buying an early Elizabeth Peters archaeological mystery, Alfred Lansing's nonfiction volume of Antarctic explorer Ernes Shackleton, and an Illustrated Classics version of Treasure Island for my then elementary-aged grandsons.

Pea Picker books galore

Continuing east, I reached Gladewater. Don't be put off by the drab Highway 80 entry to this little town. It has a lovely antiques district, including a bookstore, Gladewater Books, 109 E. Pacific Avenue. It's open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Tuesday - Saturday. The proprietors have turned an antique building -- the pressed tin ceiling alone is worth a look -- into a store filled with used books, toys, and ephemera, with emphasis on books. I bought a hardback copy of Tanith Lee's Black Unicorn with dust jacket. The best contact option is the store's Facebook page, since the website is seriously out of date.

Luckily for my search, Texas writer Gary Borders (who I know from his interest in stories of my great-uncle, Milzie Williamson, lists several newcomer East Texas bookstores. I'll give a list, but for more details, see Gary's full article in Texas Highways magazine. Stores include:

• The Bosslight Bookstore, 123 E. Main St., Nacogdoches
• Absolutely Fiction, 903 S. Redditt Dr., Lufkin
• The Blind Pig, 129 S. Main St., Paris
• The Bookstore in Kilgore & The Coffee Cherry, 1023 Houston St., Kilgore, for books with a side of joe!

We’re all in this together: writers, artists and community

The first thing the speaker at this month’s meeting of the Writers Guild of Texas did was move his chair from behind the desk at the front of the room. There he was, sitting little more than a foot away from the rest of us, with no protective piece of furniture in between. Was there a sigh of contentment in the room? A frisson of fear? After all, we’d once had a speaker who tried – with limited success – to make us sing along during a presentation. We were wary of change.

We were wary of getting close.

Which, it turned out, was the point Dallas writer/poet/teacher Joe Milazzo wanted to make. “I think if there’s an occupational hazard to writing – it’s not writers’ cramp or writers’ block. It’s isolation.”

image: pixabay

Although as writers we’re told, necessarily, to just sit down and write, “the seclusion you need can easily grade into isolation. The material we work with as artists – and I call writers artists – is language. Language is inherently social. One way to remind ourselves of the inherent social nature of language is to join communities. Like this one.”

“The action arts – theater, visual, musical – they are really good at social connections.”

Social connections. Those things extroverts do. If there’s a standard personality type for writers, it’s not extrovert. Yes, some of them do exist, rarer than unicorns or the fabled 1 percent of the fabulously wealthy. Most writers, the other 99 percent, so to speak, are introverted. Make that, very introverted.

Milazzo sympathized, admitting, “I find it draining. I think this is a challenge we face as writers. It can be hard to think of socializing as networking when it takes so much out of you.”

But “writing requires readers. It’s a way to communicate. . . To find an audience – I hesitate to use the word ‘compete,” – but we should take notice of the way other arts groups socialize.”

Yes, we’ve watched from safe distances as musicians gather together with each other and their audiences. As do theater and acting ensembles. The thought of an orchestra, a dance group or troupe of actors performing to an empty hall is unimaginable.

But how can dedicated introverts like writers find – form – communities?

First, we need to banish the idea of networking, socializing and community as things that require us to push ourselves in ways that aren’t authentic. Real networking isn’t about how many business cards we distribute, or collect. “It’s showing a genuine interest in others. (And) the amount to which you’re willing to reach out to someone is totally within your control.”

“One way to have readers is to serve as readers ourselves,” he said. Community members can be the first readers and supporters of writers. “You never know when the good you do will come back to you.”

And that other fear of writers – that if we share our ideas, someone will steal them? 

Milazzo cited the MFA program he participated in at California Institute of the Arts, in which people from multiple artistic fields study together. “We really believed that a success for one of us was a success for all of us,” the antithesis of an attitude all too common among writers, “a jealous protecting of one’s own ideas. I get it, but that’s still an attitude I think has to be protected against. Writing, indeed, any artistic endeavor is a hard road to walk. The more people that can walk it with you, the better.”

What other potential members are there for a literary community? “Libraries and independent bookstores are part of that community that deserve patronage.” Also among the components of literary communities are “reviewers, visiting authors, independent publishers. Literary citizenship (even) extends to anyone who can benefit, whether writers or not.”

How about online communities, an audience member asked?

Milazzo admitted, “It’s fraught. It is hard to be genuine sometimes. (But) if there’s a publisher out there or a publication, or an author you admire, connect with them and see what they’re doing on social media. The thing that builds community is still basically correspondence. It may be email, it may be direct messaging on Twitter. . . A good review is not necessarily the same as having a reader write and say, ‘this book mattered to me.'”

Wordcraft -- All Booked Up in Archer City

Booked Up

216 S. Center (on the courthouse square)

Archer City

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When author Larry McMurtry left his hometown of Archer City, Texas, he promised himself that if he ever returned, he’d bring a copy of every book he would need. He’s more than kept that promise with Booked Up, the bookstore that now occupies four buildings around the courthouse square in the tiny North Texas town.

When I left Dallas, I worried that I hadn’t googled a map of Archer City, although I knew, at least, that the bookstore was near the courthouse. No need to worry. The stone courthouse in Archer City (county seat of Archer County) is the most conspicuous sight for miles in the short-grass prairie landscape. And as Highway 25 transposed into East Main Street, a storefront labeled Booked Up, Building Four, appeared near the stoplight. I turned in front of the courthouse onto South Center to find the remaining buildings within a block of each other.

The most impressive storefront belonged to Building One, the only place I found employees on my weekday visit. The front room contains an array of rare and first editions. Although shelf space at my house is limited, I knew I’d have to have a souvenir of this visit. But there was so much more to see -- more than 400,000 volumes, according to the Archer City website, www.archercitytx.com/ The back of Building One contained a cat and a warehouse worth of shelves housing genre fiction and biographies in the only un-air conditioned room I found. But the annex adjacent to the rare books room was cooled, with a wonderful collection of Americana and Texana, including works by Texas authors.

A list in Building One describes the contents of each store, but I had to peek in all of them before working my way around to Building Four. I couldn’t be expected to resist temptation much longer, not when the floor was stacked with back issues of Firsts: The Book Collector’s Magazine, at a dollar each. I’d made my choice, vowing to come back for more someday, when two other browsers mentioned that there was a twenty-five percent off summer sale. I asked the cashier back in Building One how long the sale could last, and she said, as long as McMurtry decides it will.

Booked Up is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. However, signs in the buildings advise shoppers that the individual buildings close at 4:45 p.m., and that purchases of more than five items need to be brought to Building One no later than 4:30 p.m. The stores don’t list a website, but for additional information, call (940) 574-2511 or email bookedupac@aol.com/


　

Wordcraft -- BookPeople standing tall since 1970

603 N. Lamar Blvd. (corner of Lamar & Sixth)

Austin

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Writing friend Robin -- the one who used to be a real estate agent -- looked around our favorite book store gathering spot in Dallas and said something only a person who calculates square footage could say: wasted space. Hard to believe when every bookstore still open seems to have cut back on the space allotted to tables and chairs such as those we sit at to sip, diss, and yes, sometimes, write.

So when I was in Austin recently for the Writers League of Texas conference, I went by BookPeople to see what it does to retain its title as the state’s premier independent bookstore. Ceilings were mostly low -- why waste space only dust motes can use? No spacious, uncluttered stairways. BookPeople stocks its stairs so thickly with merchandise I could barely push my way past all the other customers to get to the coveted second floor children’s section. All the other customers? On a weekday evening? Ka-ching and halleluiah! It’s a book lover’s paradise.

Of course it helps that BookPeople also has a great selection of books. Reading the many index cards of staff recommendations taped to the shelves was enough by itself to make my mouth water. And one of the things contributing to the traffic jam on the second floor was an author signing. Chain stores in my current city probably have to take orders from management at the national level on whether to host readings by local authors. BookPeople goes out of its way to sell books written by locals.

And don’t even get me started on the magazine section, with a significant stock of literary publications I haven’t seen on shelves in Dallas. And yes, there’s an unglamorous but functional coffee shop conveniently near the racks. If you need more sustenance, Whole Foods is located across the street. Read, leave to eat, and come back to read and buy.

BookPeople is open daily from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m. They’re closed on Thanksgiving Day and close early on a few holidays. For more information and the calendar of events, see www.bookpeople.com/

(Next Wednesday -- Larry McMurtry's all Booked Up, in his hometown of Archer City, Texas)