by Eva Smart

Created on: October 26, 2007

I was lucky enough to take a trip of a lifetime to Paris a few years ago. On of the first things I did was make a pilgrimage to Shakespeare & Company, the independent bookstore once owned by Sylvia Beach. In the 20s, this bookstore was a home away from home to ex-patriots and the greatest minds of the times, including James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. You can read about some of their experiences in Hemingway's masterpiece "A Moveable Life."

Shakespeare & Company brought those great artists together, provided them with space to experiment and break away from the tradition, supported their relationships and development, published and sold their work. Sylvia Beach is especially responsible for helping James Joyce's groundbreaking work find it's way into publication and readers.

I've also visited the great Beat poetry mecca of San Francisco's City Lights books store. There you can climb up the back staircase to an attic room full of books and memorabilia from the amazing days of the emergence of works of Kerouac, Ginsberg and the great Beat movement. Like many independent bookstores, City Lights served as an incubator, as a meeting place, and as a publisher and promoter.

Independent bookstores today still do many of these things and are vitally important to communities of writers.

Independent bookstores value writers, and they value diversity, which isn't always true in big brand stores that value consistency across their brand and value profits. Independent bookstores make sure that communities have access to books that aren't carried in brand stores, including experimental or alternative work that keeps literature moving and exciting. More importantly, they are usually owned by book zealots, and they hire people who love helping a reader find the perfect book. This isn't always true at chains.

They host writer's meetings and readings for local writers, whereas chains usually only do this for authors making money for their stores. Independent bookstores are usually focused on the written word, whereas many chains now dedicate real estate to music and to gift items. It is in independent bookstores where writers tend to feel the most connected with their craft, their community and the great history of support that small bookstores have offered to writers.

Sadly, independent, locally-owned bookstores are a dying breed. It is challenging to sell enough quality to communities when competing with large chains that can get books for the lowest possible price because of large purchases. The ability to buy any new or used book easily on line also affects their sustainability.

Writers should support small booksellers, though, even if a few dimes are given up in the transaction. Supporting an important part of our community, history and our own sustainability is worth more than a few cents. If we see our successes as mutually supportive, we could be a part of preserving independent bookstores for our art.

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