Around Indies

Posted Tuesday, Jul 17, 2012

Once Upon a Time’s Jessica Palacios Honored

Jessica Palacios, a college-bound staff member at Once Upon a Time Bookstore, has been nominated for a Los Angeles-based Cool Kid Award and was featured in a weekly TV segment on the local ABC affiliate. Jessica, the eldest daughter of bookstore owner Maureen Palacios, was recognized for her love of books and how, over the past 10 years, she shared the joy of reading with others. “I want them to see that it’s fun, that it’s not something that is tedious, that you have to do,” Jessica told the station. “There’s joy and imagination.”

When she was just eight years old, Jessica Palacios wrote to the Los Angeles Times because she wanted to help the founder of her favorite neighborhood bookstore find a new owner. She wanted to know “Where am I going to buy my fifth Harry Potter book if Once Upon a Time closes?” said proud mom Maureen Palacios. The Palacios could not envision their neighborhood without the store, and they eventually bought it from the founder in 2003.

“Fast forward almost 10 years, said Maureen Palacios. “The store, which is going into its 46th year (we are the oldest children’s bookstore in the country), is enjoying a 30 percent increase over last year and is targeted for seeing the best sales in its history.” Jessica, who will be leaving for college next month, was a big help, as well as some key hiring and a huge increase in outside sales and author events.

Duck’s Cottage Turns 10

On July 22, Duck’s Cottage Coffee & Books will be celebrating its 10^th anniversary, but it “seems like just yesterday we were so happy to be selling Craig Lee of California our first book (a Garfield treasury, go figure)! ” said store manager Jamie Layton. “There were a lot of things we hadn’t figured out yet, and we’ve made a lot of improvements over the years but one thing has stayed the same for all 10 years... we still bring you the freshest coffee, the finest espresso drinks and the best selection of books.”

To mark the occasion, Duck’s, which recently opened a second location in Manteo, has freshened up its logo and is featuring it on several special edition 10^th anniversary signature gift items.

Beehive Books to Mark Fifth Anniversary

As Beehive Books approaches its fifth anniversary this November, store owner Linda Diamond told ThisWeek Community News that it is in excellent shape. “Better than we’ve been in a long, long time,” she said.

The Delaware, Ohio, bookstore has hosted dozens of book-related programs in its first five years and has added Wi-Fi and tables and comfortable red couches. It also features a café offering locally baked goods, which is expanding and adding loose leaf teas. Beehive’s non-book inventory includes one of the best greeting card selections in the city and Ohio-made gifts, as well as jewelry and other items that Diamond and her husband, Joe, find on their travels. The store also sells concert, theater, and other tickets for local nonprofit groups.

With the departure of one of the store’s co-owners earlier this year, Diamond hired a new manager, Richard Brulotte, a former Borders employee, who told the paper: “This is truly a gathering spot for all different people in the community.”

North Carolina Indies Recognized

North Carolina’s Independent Weekly recently named its 2012 Indie Arts Award honorees —”outstanding artistic figures in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area,” who have “demonstrated long-term commitment to the region and have a history of spreading our cultural wealth as widely as possible.”

The first four indie bookstores honored by the weekly for keeping the spirit and practice of literature alive are Tom Campbell and John Valentine’s The Regulator Bookshop; Nancy Olson’s Quail Ridge Books & Music; Keebe Fitch’s McIntyre’s Books; and Jamie Fiocco, Land Arnold, and Sarah Carr’s Flyleaf Books.

Of these four bookstores, Independent Weekly said, “‘Change’ is always threatened, but the business remains primarily about books.”

St. Mark’s Bookshop Readies for Mob

Vanishing New York is calling for a cash mob to descend on St. Mark’s Bookshop this Saturday, July 21. The first 20 people to spend $10 and say “Jeremiah sent me” will receive a $5 gift certificate toward their next visit to the bookstore, according to the New York Observer. The cash mob, which starts at 3:00 p.m. will be followed by a meet-up at a local bar.

St. Mark’s is looking to move to a smaller, less-expensive location after winning a one-year rent reprieve from its landlord, Cooper Union. It has also applied for a $250,000 small business grant from Chase Bank in partnership with Living Social and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to finance the relocation.

Tattered Cover’s “Theater of Ideas” Virtual Tour

Tattered Cover’s Colfax Avenue store is featured in a new YouTube video: Take One: Tattered Cover “Theater of Ideas”: A Virtual Tour. The location, built in 1953 as the 550-seat Bonfils Memorial Theatre and later renamed the Lowenstein Theater, was closed from 1986 until 2006, when it was renovated and reopened as the Tattered Cover Book Store.

The virtual tour shows viewers the store’s “stage, orchestra pit, original theater seats, downstairs cabaret where authors now perform readings and sign their books, and a graceful main lobby featuring the original etched windows and retro light fixtures that remind us that this building was designed and built in the early 1950s.”