Dear RiverRead Books supporters,
We have just sent a press release to the media announcing the closure of RiverRead Books effective January 31, 2017.
We are heartbroken to say the least. When Pat, Jane and I sat down to plan the store and order the 10,000 books needed to offer a good selection, we had stars in our eyes and were so excited to be creating this great ‘third place’. We took almost an entire year to plan, design and order for the store. We wanted to do it just right. To this day, we still get comments from locals and visitors from away, about the beauty and atmosphere of our store and the great selection. Our plan was to offer a gathering place for all things literary and artsy, a place to share ideas and converse with the community. Well, we did just that … in eight years we held almost 900 events. Planning those events was important because we wanted to offer something for everyone. We wanted to highlight the very talented local authors, to give them a chance to share their words with those who might never have known about their books. We hosted monthly poetry open mikes, facilitated by the ever faithful J. Barrett Wolf, to whom we own a great debt of gratitude. We enjoyed hosting musicians once or twice a month for everyone’s listening pleasure and we ALWAYS hosted a new visual artist every month. We designed the store with a gallery wall specifically for that purpose! We wanted people to drop in, browse the stacks, have a cup of coffee (or warm cider), ask some questions, compare notes and in general, share our enthusiasm for books. Due to limited space, we needed to curate carefully … to be sure to offer titles to cover all interests. And we established ourselves as the ‘go to’ place for ordering books.
When we moved into the store, the surrounding area was pretty sad. Although the Riverwalk was completed, it was underutilized. The old Fair Store became empty when the county employees who had temporary offices there returned to the newly refurbished County buildings. We were visited daily by homeless people living out of shopping carts and on benches on the Riverwalk. We became involved several times when someone was stricken with illness or were huddled in the cold. We collected bottles and cans for them. As the city has changed and more shelters were offered, the homeless moved on and the city began to host events at the Peacemaker’s Stage. Every other month or so there were some very nice events there. Downtown has been transformed with all of the new student housing and eateries and we are happy and proud to have been a part of that. Even though it didn't work out for us, we hope people will make an extra effort on behalf of all those who have taken a chance on downtown and support businesses, new and old, by spending their dollars locally. We will miss having the store and for that matter, the entire bookselling community, other booksellers, authors and publishing reps. But most of all, we will miss the people who came in regularly and visited with us. We will miss you each and every day.