Founders Celebrate 25 Years of Politics and Prose

This month, Washington, D.C.'s Politics and Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse kicked off its 25th anniversary celebration with a calendar of 25 events that extend through the beginning of December. "Our entire autumn author schedule is full of history and connection," said co-owner Carla Cohen.

On Sunday, September 20, the bookstore hosted a "marvelous community celebration" -- a party and picnic with live music for 500 fans. Other events slated throughout September and October include appearances by Lorrie Moore, Sherman Alexie, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Chabon, Edward P. Jones, and Ron Suskind, and several children's events, including a bookmark-making contest.

Sunday's party was a "chance to say thank you and we love you to our customers," said Cohen. The celebration started with an interview of Cohen and store co-owner Barbara Meade by Washington Post op-ed columnist E.J. Dionne. "We talked about why we think our partnership worked well and why we located in upper Northwest Washington (which has so benefited us)," she said. "Then we had a big picnic in our parking lot behind the store. We had tables with red-checked tableclothes set up. We provided salads and sangria and cake for the guests. The restaurants on our block sold food, and our coffeehouse sold drinks and cookies and such. We had a Zydeco band for dancing and music and children's activities." The bookstore also held a raffle and raised more than $600 for the Washington Literacy Council.

"On the eve of our anniversary I realized that Politics and Prose has consumed more than a third of my life, a much greater chunk than I had realized," Meade told BTW. "The time has been so enjoyable and so fulfilling that I never even noticed it was passing. The party was a great expression of that because so much of our pleasure has been getting to know so many interesting customers and authors as well as the constant influx of books. I learn more every week than I have in any other period of my life, and at the party I learned another new thing, how to dance Zydeco."

Celebrating a silver anniversary feels a bit strange, said Cohen. "Honestly, it doesn't seem so long ago when we started the store or moved across the street.... We opened in the era of discounting and knew that we would have to prove to people that we added something that was worth paying for. We have a fantastic neighborhood in Northwest Washington/southern Montgomery County."

One of Politics and Prose's founding goals was to present authors to readers, and today it hosts about 40 authors each month. Among them are a number of children's authors. "We were lucky enough to be able to invite the remaining partner from the venerable children's bookstore The Cheshire Cat to remake our children's department," Cohen explained.

Another key to success, she added: "We pay our staff reasonably well (for the industry), which means we have little turnover and a long time, knowledgeable staff."

In 1999, Politics and Prose was honored as Bookseller of the Year by Publishers Weekly, which acknowledged the important role the bookstore plays in the D.C. community. --Karen Schechner