Last week, booksellers from all around the country converged on Portland, OR for a conference on children’s books and bookselling, hosted by the American Booksellers Association. Some lucky participants registered for half-day and full-day bus tours of Portland area independent bookstores, hopping from neighborhood to neighborhood for 20-30 minute drop-ins (Woefully short!). Here are some …
René Kirkpatrick got her bookselling start at the University of Oregon Bookstore in 1978. At first she worked part-time while getting her degree in elementary education, and then she went full-time, becoming the children’s book buyer in 1985. In 1992, she and her husband moved to Seattle, where she worked with Chauni Haslet as manager and …
Wednesday night a delighted crowd gathered at Book Larder in Seattle to celebrate Renee Erikson and the incredible team behind the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) Book Award-winning cookbook, A Boat, a Whale, & a Walrus. The bookstore’s Culinary Director, Kyle Wisner, served up delicious nibbles from the book including pâté and crostini. Lara Hamilton, …
Last week, hundreds of booksellers, authors, and publishers converged on Seattle for the American Booksellers Association’s ninth annual Winter Institute (Wi9), an industry celebration and education opportunity. Was your favorite local bookseller there? Enjoy some photos from the Elliott Bay Book Company-hosted opening ceremonies to get a taste of the spirit of the event.
A perfect start for your summer reading, He’s Gone is about love, loss, marriage, and the secrets we all keep. I’ve been a Deb Caletti fan for years, since that very first hot pink ARC of The Queen of Everything arrived at the store in the early ‘00s. It was the dawn of true young …
Ah, BEA. I could feel the gravitational pull of Javits from our hotel. For 3 whole days, Javits Convention Center in New York, New York, that angular, light-filled building, was packed with brilliant booksellers whose brains swim in letters and words, authors who make it all possible, and the wily publishers and publicists who bring …
Big news from Bainbridge Island yesterday! Eagle Harbor Book Company owner Morley Horder announced two new partners, current bookstore manager Tim Hunter and long-time NW bookseller (and NWBL contributor!) René Kirkpatrick. Horder says Hunter and Kirkpatrick will work as the managing partners, taking care of the day-to-day operations of the store and he’ll work on …
It was an overcast day in June when we met with Ivan Doig and his wife, Carol, at their home. We settled into the study where Doig writes, next to a wall of windows facing the Puget Sound and the islands. Sitting high above the pewter-colored water, we watched the Kingston ferry making its way …
I was caught up in The Flight of Gemma Hardy, by Margot Livesey, when this passage stopped me cold and made me remember a scene from the children’s bookstore I worked in: “I was at the kitchen door when Robin started to scream. A few seconds later he barreled into me, his cheeks scarlet. In …
Ah, Ray. Like most people my age, I discovered Ray Bradbury in high school. It was Mr. Beckman’s English class, to be precise, at Pacific High School, Port Orford, Oregon. My freshman class of 75 kids was the largest in school history, with a graduating class of around 40. The mill closed that year and …
