Snowy Day Activities--Booking Events and Making Displays.

Once again I flutter around to different activities without too many customers to get in the way. Most of the ones here live within five blocks of the store and just hang out and read. Eh, it makes the store look fuller.

I've been booking a number of spring events--some big, some small. When you book an event, you see it at its fullest potential. A couple of hours before, you see it in full panic mode. The results are somewhere in between.

Our event last night at Sugar Maple is a case in point. A decent turnout for Hannah Pittard (pictured using primitive phone technology, looking like an impressionist painting) and Patrick Somerville, authors of The Fates Will Find Their Way and the forthcoming This Bright River, respectively, but when you consider what great readers they both are, I'm a bit disappointed. I'm somewhat bemused that I still here folks wondering why there isn't a store in Bay View, but I can't seem to get too many of them to come out for a literary good time. 

They were happy, but I want more. More, I tell you!

I love the Adrienne and Bruno's Sugar Maple space so much, it doesn't even bother me that I get a parking ticket at every event. Why? Because I have to get to the bar at about 6:40 for a 7 pm event and the two-hour meters are active until 9 pm. It's obvious that parking checkers patrol the lot until 8:59.

We'll try again, perhaps partnering with some Bay-View-based organization. Any suggestions?

It's been driving me crazy that we were behind on displays. I've come up with a few good ones, but it's a work in progress. Since we heard that Little, Brown is out of first editions of American Dervish, let's see if we can keep it going with a signed first edition display.

I'm still working on my two favorite display idea. One needs more books to come in and the other needs props.