The Moth Loves Its Georgia Locals

Novelist George Dawes Green, founder of The Moth storytelling series and The Moth Radio Hour on NPR, wants to broadcast that the independent bookstore is an “unmatched local resource.” To do that, he’s “loading up a 1975 Blue Bird bus with Moth storytellers and musicians, and setting off to visit towns around Georgia where there are indie bookstores,” he said. The tour is set to begin October 11 on St. Simons Island, Georgia, and will stop in 14 cities and towns around the state.

Green, a Georgia native, was on a book tour last July for his latest novel, Ravens (Grand Central), when he saw first-hand how some of his favorite indies were struggling with competition from chain and online retailers. “Now the Moth storytelling series, which I founded back in ’97, always sells out its shows, since people can’t seem to get enough of raconteurs, and so I thought we could be of use,” said Green, who co-founded the Unchained Tour with Lisa Parker Fort.

Moth storytellers at each stop on the tour will be “asking folks to commit to their indie bookstores, and to break the chains of the Internet, to forego shallow web-surfing and get back to deep reading, to deep luxurious reading uninterrupted by hyperlinks and chat alerts,” explained Green. Event hosts includeThe Bookshelf and Gallery in Thomasville, A Novel Experience in Zebulon, and Retro Cinema & Books in Washington.

The Moth series shares a common value with bookstores, Green said: “Printed books are physical objects, objects of beauty. When we read a printed book, we enter into a kind of communion with it as a physical object. When a storyteller speaks at The Moth, it’s a living art form: there’s a primal, physical connection between the teller and listener. Nothing virtual can compare to the experience of hearing a story in person, just as nothing can compare to the utterly enveloping pleasure of curling up with a printed book.”

To explain why he chose to embark on a 14-stop, three-week tour to support independent bookstores, Green quoted a bookseller. “My friend Joni Saxon-Guisti, who owns The Book Lady here in Savannah, puts it beautifully,” he said. “‘They’re an unmatched local resource for the best in books, representing authors that are often forgotten or passed over by the big box super-bookstores, who won't take a chance on anything but a sure bestseller. They care truly about their customers' reading lives, and respond directly to them. They also take the time to reinvest in their communities, creating more vibrant communities: the kind of places we would want to live in.’”

As for why he decided to do the tour on a bus, Green said, “We’re wondering the same thing. This old Blue Bird is balky and fastidious and spoiled and indolent; why do we love it so much?”

For more information, including a list of stops on the Unchained Tour, visit theunchainedtour.org.