Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day!

​by Kelly Carey

​Authors revere bookstores.

We peer giddily into bookstore windows, open the doors with happy wonder, and can often be found running our hands down the bounty of spines offered on the shelves. It is a mystical space where our stories find their readers, where many of us launch our books, where we first share our stories aloud to book-lovers, and where we get to meet fans face-to-face.  

Independent Bookstore Day is the perfect time to show our appreciation for the indie bookstores that we love. 

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Founded five years ago, Independent Bookstore Day is a national one-day party hosted this year on Saturday, April 27 and celebrated in 580 independent bookstores across the nation. Each store has a unique party and special events planned with its own twist on the day. Many stores will offer readings, special signed copies of books, live music, kid’s events, barbecues, contests, and exclusive books and literary swag offered only on Independent Bookstore Day. Boston, along with other cities, has a special trolley that will ferry revelers to multiple bookstores. Chicago and the Twin Cities have passports encouraging booklovers to visit several bookstores on the special day. And San Diego’s party has morphed into a bookstore crawl and features a live llama! 

Samantha Schoech, Program Director of Independent Bookstore day welcomes authors to the event and says, “Author support is a huge part of Bookstore Day. Authors can offer to do something fun for their local indie on that day — write in the window? Create reading lists? Do a story hour for kids?”  She encourages authors to “contact your local indie and offer to be part of the day. This is, after all, a celebration of the entire literary ecosystem." 
 
We are thrilled to be a part of this literary ecosystem and to celebrate the magical place where the story dreamed in our author’s mind is physically placed in a reader’s hand. Thank you indie bookstores! We are happy to RSVP ‘Yes’ to your celebration.
 
Please use this link to find out what your independent bookstore has planned for the day.