INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE DAY

Here’s how much I love indie bookstores. It’s Saturday, 6:18 am. Rather than dreaming about Viola Davis narrating AFRO PUFFS ARE THE ANTENNAE OF THE UNIVERSE I’m propped in bed, typing, searching out photos, wanting you to feel a deep deep urge to be with books today. There are few places that come close to feeling like the sacred space of a library. I’ll put money down on an indie bookstore often accomplishing that.

This Saturday is INDIE BOOKSTORE DAY. Where I am as a writer would be leagues away from what I want to be if not for indie bookstores. My first readings? Indie bookstores. My first signings? Indie bookstores. When local authors delight with their brilliance so much that I have to run, not walk, to get a seat? Indie bookstores. Indie bookstore events are always a party. Always.

I’m thinking about making today an adventure. You can too. See how many local indie shops you have, then do a book crawl. I did that one year and came back drunk as a goose off book love, with bags where bestselling authors chilled with indie poets, chapbook makers, and local novelists. Go be surprised at how many indie bookstores your area has! For me it's Blackstone in Ypsilanti. Source Booksellers, 27th Letter Books, Next Chapter Books, & Pages scattered throughout Detroit. Booksweet in Ann Arbor. And that’s not all of em. Michigan has major book love. Indies foster that love. The amount of sweat, injury and aches that go into building a brick-n-mortar store, filling it with books, and hoping a great neighborhood of THEY will come? Daunting. Daunting af. But people do it, not from any need to attract the hobs and the nobs, but because the old guy down the street loves mysteries, various kids are super into gaming and manga, poets go feral without new word blood, school librarians know what the schools won’t order, book clubs need a gravitational center, and there are people entering college who have not yet read an obscure book that will change their lives. That’s a tremendous amount of multi-faceted dedication to something other than profit.

If it’s hyperbole to say indie bookstores help you to rehumanize yourself, I can live with that.

Can we for one day stay the hell away from Amazod (seriously, one does not kneel before Zod on Indie Day) and the other big places? Entirely your call. The big uns will survive without you for one day. But this one day (annually, the last Saturday in April) lifts indies in a major way. They have bottom lines they can actually feel under their feet, so this celebration matters to them. You’ll never be able to do a Barnes & Noble book crawl. It’d be like in the Twilight Zone entering the same place over and over. Instead, visit a local oasis. Indie offerings vary. Variation is spice. They even carry authors local to you you might not know about. You could walk into Next Chapter Books right now and get a Detroit-made fantasy (Breath Warmth & Dream)! If you can't make it to a store, order via indie websites! THEY SHIP. They ship with pleasure, not the intractable anonymous sadness of Zod. Zod will never change. Amazod silently cries for the ability to dream. My friends, today is a day of light, delight, and exploration. Consider it independent learning at its best, only with credit cards.

Touch grass, be among trees, read books.

~ Zig