The Written Nerd

On Monday, I was part of an amazing panel discussion as part of NYU's Summer Publishing Institute. It was inspiring and thought provoking, and I plan to write up some notes and thoughts that came out of that soon. But not today. Today I would like to point out two things that made me laugh out loud in my bathrobe, and caused the ALP to shake his head at the wonder and ridiculousness of it all. They involve two of the things I love the most: books and Brooklyn. First, Shelf Awareness linked to the Green Apple Core , the blog of the amazing Green Apple Books in San Francisco. It seems Green Apple has a fantastic program wherein they recommend one book a month, guaranteed good or your money back. And every month, they shoot a two-minute video promo for the book -- every one of which is freaking hilarious. This month's book is Werner Herzog's Conquest of the Useless , but my favorite video (I watched them all) is for Little Bee . This cracks me up. What's most awesom...

After the chaos of selling books at the PEN Festival (a week of 12-hour days organizing, hefting boxes of books, ringing in hundreds of sales by hand, and processing returns), I'm finally getting my wish: A day with no obligations. If the weather holds, here's where I'm going this afternoon.

Okay, I've got internet, but not wireless or phone. Stuck in text-only land until a friend comes by to figure out my network issues on Saturday. Sigh. In the meantime, some stuff. I love the Brookline Blogsmith's reference to Bambi : we are all "twitterpated" now. I've been tweeting (ugh, finally a word more embarassing than "blog") incessantly as @booknerdnyc and @mcnallyjackson, and learning a lot about books, book news, and what folks had for breakfast. My new favorite Twitter use: at last night's event at McNally Jackson , John Wray discussed his ongoing Twitter novel (@John_Wray). He allows as how he doesn't think it's the "wave of the future", but he likes the challenge of making something happen in every 140 character installment, as well as serving a larger narrative. Seventy-one years ago (that's before Twitter), writers already valued "talks, rum, argument, politics and laughter", and a quiet place to wr...

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 rsvp_fortgreeneindie@hotmail.com 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 bri...

Whew, this week sets a new standard for busy-ness. Debriefing and follow-up work on TitleWave is consuming at BookStream; there's a full slate of events at the bookstore; and biggest of all, Tuesday through Thursday I'll be taking part in the ABA Focus Group Meetings here in New York. The funniest part: the meetings will be taking place for three straight days at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge Hotel. So I'll be spending two nights in a hotel that's 15 minutes walk from my house. Ah well -- kind of a treat at that. So that's where I'll be this week. Hope y'all have a good one -- I'll try to pipe up on Friday.

As a last treat before you start your weekend, you gotta read this brilliant piece by Colson Whitehead about being a writer in Brooklyn. He lives here (in Fort Greene), he loves it, but he hilariously pierces the hype about "Brooklyn writers." Sometimes it's a relief to admit it's just the same here as everywhere else. And Whitehead ends with an extended metaphor from The Warriors . What could be better? Enjoy, you kooky literati borough-dwellers. And happy reading.

A couple of summers ago, on a weekend ramble through the neighborhood, the ALP and I stumbled on signs directing us to a used book sale at the Methodist Church. We followed them, of course, and found ourselves in a basement full of the best castoffs Park Slope had to offer. The ALP, who has an astounding memory, remembers purchasing Death Ship by B. Travern (author of Treasure of the Sierra Madre ), and a hardcover edition of a little-known Victor Hugo novel called 'Ninety-Three; I think I bought an early Joan Silber novel whose title I can't remember (holy cow, get your hands on a galley of her new novel if you can, or reserve it for when it comes out in June), and another find or two. So I was delighted to get an email from book sale coordinator Nancy letting me know that it's Methodist Book Sale time again! I'm just pasting the whole press release below. If you're a Brooklynite or can make it out here this weekend, it's a great chance not only to find...

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 longi...

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...

So much going on there's just not enough time for everything! I'm working some extra hours at the bookstore this week because some of our staff will be gone at the ABA Winter Institute . It looks like a fantastic program this year -- I'll be thinking of all of you who are there! (And if you're going and feel like writing up your experiences, I'd love to have some guest bloggers about WI3 on Written Nerd -- send me an email if you're interested.) Wednesday evening is the awards ceremony for the Brooklyn Public Library's PowerUp! business plan competition -- the ALP and I will be there to hear the winners announced. I'm looking forward to seeing what great businesses are being planned in Brooklyn, and getting some feedback on my bookstore plan... so send some good vibes my way if you think about it. I've got some new writing assignments lately -- I'll let you know when there's something to read, but I don't want to jinx myself by promi...

Naturally, I've had my eye on Brooklyn Was Mine , an anthology of essays by Brooklyn writers on the borough of dreams. I'd planned to ask for a reading copy, as usual, but actually, I think I'll buy it. I hadn't realized that proceeds from the book are going to Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn , the non-profit that's fighting the crazy, terrible, eminent-domain Ratner development of the Atlantic Yards (thanks to GalleyCat for the heads up). The Fort Greene Courier has more about the book, and about several readings with contributors happening in the next week or two to raise money and awareness. (Just for the record and because I'm even more steamed about it now, I tried hard to set up a reading at my bookstore for the anthology, but by the time the publicists at Penguin responded to my multiple queries, it was way too late to set a date.) Coincidentally, I'm currently working through another anthology that benefits a Brooklyn nonprofit. The Book ...

There's lots of good news and bad news in Bookselling This Week. On the one hand, bookstore sales are apparently down over last year for the 12th month in a row. And there's another piece on the c losing of Bennett Books . On the other hand, eleven new independents opened in the month of July. And the California town of Stockton (named after some distant relative of mine, I've been told) successfully passed legislation that will keep out big-box stores. And there's also a piece on how bookstores are using MySpace for publicity and community building. And the future just keeps on coming on. HarperCollins has announced that it will release free samples of new books in an electronic format that can be read on the Apple iPhone (I first came across this on a fellow LBC member's blog, but now I can't remember whose). You can download them here on the HarperCollins Browse Inside page . The language suggests the brief downloadable passages are meant to replic...

I'm trying really hard to buckle down on the business plan this morning, so here are some quickie links. * HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman is optimistic about the future of publishing. Here's a sample of her interview in Forbes : I think the book business is the healthiest I have seen it in a very long time. We are seeing a breadth of titles selling in many different channels of distribution. We are no longer publishing for the independents only, the chains only, the big box merchandisers only, the online sellers only. We are selling across the board. The health is the breadth, diversity and range. That's good for business, and more importantly, it's good for society. *I so totally want to go the New York Public Library and print a free instant book on the Espresso Book Machine -- especially after the great stories about indie bookstores doing great business with Print on Demand I heard at the Digital Task Force. *A victory for shopping local: thanks largely to the ef...

It's always risky to put your dreams out where people can see them. Some of the responses I've had, in comments and emails, to my posts about my "ideal Brooklyn bookstore" have caused me to rethink – or at least think through – a few of my assumptions. One of those, of course, is that adjective "Brooklyn." What do I mean by that, people want to know? It's a big place, after all – how could a bookstore possibly reflect all or any of what is meant by Brooklyn? First of all, I had to remind myself of what I already know, and have already said, in places like the Litminds interview I did a few weeks back. Brooklyn – like New York as a whole – is a city of neighborhoods, and each of them has its own distinct character. Those neighborhoods encompass an almost unfathomable range – from the Russian store signs in Bensonhurst, to the painfully hip bars of Williamsburg, to the posh baby strollers of Park Slope, to the West Indian restaurants of Crown Heig...

I can't wait until all my fellow booksellers converge on Brooklyn for BEA starting May 30! You may have noticed my major passions are books and Brooklyn, and I'm giddy with excitement as the two get lots of attention this season. Bookselling This Week has Brooklyn restaurant recommendations from local writer Pat Willard. I have a special soft spot for Convivium, which is where the ALP proposed, and 5th Avenue in Park Slope is becoming a real foodie's paradise -- in addition to Pat's choices, I'd also highly recommend Bogota for exciting Latin American food, and Biscuit for mouth-watering barbecue. But Smith Street is even closer to Hotel ABA , and you can't miss with the strip's array of restaurants. I love Bar Tabac for the sweet Gypsy jazz often being played by a live band, as well as for their juicy burgers, and have to add to Willard's list my favorite pan-Asian restaurant Faan -- the ALP and I love ordering a couple of sushi rolls, some Pad T...