Today, we're hitting the cobblestones of Charleston, South Carolina, unlocking the secrets of independent bookstores and the joy they bring to local communities. First, we're charmed by Polly Buxton, the passionate founder of Buxton Books, as she recounts how a single conversation with her (now) husband led to her dream of owning a bookstore. Polly, a resident cheerleader for local authors and issues, talks about the bookstore's unique book-based walking tours and important community conversations they host. Her love for books and Charleston is infectious!
Polly talks about the curation process at Buxton Books which is heavily influenced by the authors they host for events and stresses the importance of supporting newly published books and authors, and how this sustains the larger publishing ecosystem. She introduces us to a handful of popular local authors and discusses the distinct style of Southern writers. As the episode draws to a close, Polly shares her excitement about the Charleston Literary Festival, hosting author events, and discusses upcoming books hitting the shelves. So, settle in, sip that sweet tea and join us on this enchanting journey through the world of Buxton Books and book-based walking tours in Charleston, South Carolina.
Buxton Books
Redwood Court, Délana R. a. Dameron
New York Times Article 36 Hours, Charleston, S.C.
Today, we're hitting the cobblestones of Charleston, South Carolina, unlocking the secrets of independent bookstores and the joy they bring to local communities. First, we're charmed by Polly Buxton, the passionate founder of Buxton Books, as she recounts how a single conversation with her (now) husband led to her dream of owning a bookstore. Polly, a resident cheerleader for local authors and issues, talks about the bookstore's unique book-based walking tours and important community conversations they host. Her love for books and Charleston is infectious!
Polly talks about the curation process at Buxton Books which is heavily influenced by the authors they host for events and stresses the importance of supporting newly published books and authors, and how this sustains the larger publishing ecosystem. She introduces us to a handful of popular local authors and discusses the distinct style of Southern writers. As the episode draws to a close, Polly shares her excitement about the Charleston Literary Festival, hosting author events, and discusses upcoming books hitting the shelves. So, settle in, sip that sweet tea and join us on this enchanting journey through the world of Buxton Books and book-based walking tours in Charleston, South Carolina.
Buxton Books
Redwood Court, Délana R. a. Dameron
New York Times Article 36 Hours, Charleston, S.C.
Music. Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with authors, independent bookshop owners from around the globe, publishing professionals and specialists in subjects dear to my heart the environment and social justice. To help the show reach more people, please share it with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to Episode 230. Music. Founded by Polly Buxton in 2016, Buxton Books is an independent Charleston-based bookseller with a focus on books written about South Carolina and the American South. Buxton Books' mission is to support the local reading and writing community through book-based walking tours, author events and conversation. Hi, Polly, and welcome to the show. It's lovely to have you here.
Speaker 2:Oh hi, Mandy, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 1:Let's begin with learning about you and the story behind opening Buxton Books, because it is such a sweet, sweet story that is a favorite.
Speaker 2:I wish Julian was here because he loves to tell this one, but I do too. I tell a little bit abbreviated story though, but Julian and I this December will have been married 10 years, and it was on our first date 11 years ago that he asked me what my work dream was, and I immediately responded I don't have a work dream. I have work and I have dreams, but I don't think that they meet. But later into the night we talked and we're getting along so well and I circled back and said I don't know why I'm telling you this, because it's something that I've shelved long ago. But I've always wanted to have a bookstore in Charleston but it doesn't make any sense financially or just where the world was with bookstores at that point. And he agreed and we went on and flash forward. About three years later.
Speaker 2:By then we were married and my phone rang and, believe it or not, we had not talked about the bookstore in all of that time. But he said to me I'm standing in your bookstore and to have him tell it, it was kind of the first of some mystical things that happened, little miracles along the way, where he said that the door was just opened and beckoned him in to this little corner store over on the waterfront that had kind of absurdly low rent, which later found out is because it was prone to flooding. But anyway, it was the right place at the right time for us and, very long story short, because I was still a little bit reluctant because all of those obstacles were still there, of course. But I came to work full time and we he actually had a walking tour company, which is very interesting and maybe we can talk about that a little bit later, but he had a walker walking tour company. So the bookstore grew out of the walking tour company.
Speaker 2:So we started with a book room, we called it the Buxton Book's Room and we are now in year eight and we are on King Street, at 160 King Street now, and so that was another little miracle that happened is we were doing lots of pop-ups for authors, for author events.
Speaker 2:That's one of the main things we like to focus on. We're very community focused and event focused, and one of our venue partners was the Charleston Library Society, which is the second oldest circulating library in the country, and we were working. I had my wagon and my little Prius and I would show up with books there. And the then director she's now retired, but Anne Cleveland, she really transformed the Charleston Library Society and she invited us into a space that is on King Street that they actually own. So it's this kind of phenomenal partnership with a nonprofit that has some shared values and we still continue to work together. It's not all that we do, but we do have this wonderful space on King Street which in Charleston, which we otherwise would not likely be able to have a bookstore there. So it's again relationships and little bits of miracles.
Speaker 1:Yes, a little bit of serendipity for sure.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly yeah. We feel like all these little points of light kind of have been dictating and reminding us that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that feeling, that little tickling on your arms that says, yeah, you're on the right path. It's fun and it definitely puts a smile on your face.
Speaker 2:Well, again, Julian would love that it's also about the power of storytelling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Polly. Could you talk a little bit more about the connection between the store and the book based walking tours?
Speaker 2:So Julian and I both grew up here in Charleston. We both left Key to California. I was in France and did not know that we would move back to Charleston. I think both of us had kind of said we wouldn't live here again. But here we are, we're back home. Charleston has a way of pulling people back, but also it's not the same Charleston we grew up with. Some of those parts we miss, but a lot of it is good change and necessary change. And economically it is a stronger city but also it is just evolving and more diverse and more able and interested in supporting an independent bookstore. We just feel very lucky that we're able to do this and again celebrate the power of storytelling through books and author events, but also these walking tours from which we grew. And that's something that we do, it in a way, everything that we do. We try to honor the city of Charleston, try to honor our home and the people who call this home and new and old residents. You know it's good.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that Charleston is not the Charleston from your youth, and this reminded me of some of the events you hold at Buxton Books, because you not only hold author events, but events you feel are essential to your local community, such as talks on voting rights and the Supreme Court. How is the turnout for these events, and do you hold them within the bookshop or at other venues?
Speaker 2:Both so we do. We have a wonderful space again on King Street at 160 King and we can squeeze in about 60 people in the bookstore if we move furniture around, which we love to do. From the beginning we partner with other venues, so other organizations, churches, libraries, the Charleston Library Society, other theaters and venues, and so depending on the event and what the expected turnout is, we try to partner with the appropriate venue if that makes sense. But at all times it all goes into this concept. Really the heart and soul of the bookstore is about community, about connection and conversation, embracing the conversation and really making sure that we honor the authors, honor the stories, honor opposing ideas.
Speaker 1:Hearing you say opposing ideas. That is one of the reasons why I love independent bookshops. We can still go there and talk and have discussions about opposing views. That's one of the main reasons I support independent bookshops.
Speaker 2:I could not agree more. I think it's more important than ever. It's always been important, but more important than ever. And even as our libraries and other places that should be safe have come under attack and for all kinds of reasons, we've watched, really to our dismay, some of these places becoming less open and less able to host the difficult conversations, where there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation that's out there, a lot of censorship and independent bookstores we don't answer to anyone. We get to host and be a safe place, as you said, for conversations.
Speaker 2:Our experience has been that there is just a sense of respect. That happens within the space of our independent bookstore most independent bookstores that people do act civil. They may disagree, but they do so in a way that I have never felt. I feel the way that it should be the conversations should be both respectful and that we should not be afraid of having them. We have been. We have an incredible team of people working. We started as a mom and pop bookstore really it was Julian and me and occasionally one or two other booksellers but we have grown into something that's really quite special, and what we are capable of doing now we would never be able to do without the extraordinary team of people with whom I work and that we get to work as a whole. We are always talking amongst ourselves and encouraging one another to ask the hard questions, to disagree, and we try to host conversations and authors that challenge us as well our community, but also us personally.
Speaker 1:As an outsider looking in, I can't help but get back to serendipity. If I was writing your story, your and Julian's story, I would have to think that perhaps this was the reason you were both brought back to Charleston and that, as you said earlier, your journey is about stories. So here you are, both back in Charleston. You offer the community and tourists the book-based walking tours and all of these fabulous events, and I know that takes courage to do that. So kudos to you and Julian for making this happen. It's not easy and you do get resilience.
Speaker 2:It is. I will tell you it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and I don't again, I don't um, not to be falsely humbled but we really are doing what we feel we're supposed to be doing, but not in a not in a heroic way. We get up every day and again, are very grateful for the opportunity to do something that we love to do, work that we love to get to work with extraordinary group of people and to get to commune with our community, with the residents of Charleston and the visitors of Charleston. We're very much a Charleston community bookstore and there is an incredible visiting community that comes here and people tend to come back to Charleston again and again and back to the walking tours.
Speaker 2:My husband wrote a book called the Ghost of Charleston, which one of those first dates. The book was out of print at that point and I asked him about it and he said he was tired of being the ghost guy. And then we decided that a precursor to the bookstore was that we started a little publishing. We were trying to figure out how to make money and be married and live and when we looked at the numbers I said, oh, you get to be the ghost guy a little bit longer. It makes me think this is a good book. It was a really literary and fun to read. He's a historian, so it's kind of ghost stories from a different angle and they're really fun and interesting.
Speaker 2:And so the ghost tours leave from the bookstore at night, which is interesting. And then we also have. For seven years we've worked with a professor, damon Fordham, and Damon is a storyteller and has a teacher's heart and he gives his tour called Lost Royce Black, charleston, which he had a wonderful accolade many, but the most recent one was that the New York Times said 36 hours in Charleston that this was the first thing on their list to do was to go on Damon's, to come to Buxton Books, which they called a friendly bookstore, and to go on a walking tour with Damon. So we're very, very proud of how that works into the conversations and again encourages books sales but mostly encourages conversation and evolution of thought.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's a lot to do with people being curious, and humans love to learn through storytelling. I guess that's why I love fiction, because I'm able to put myself into a character's point of view and feel what they're feeling. I enjoy reading nonfiction and fiction, but I'm drawn to fiction.
Speaker 2:I do too. I mean, I love fiction and nonfiction, anything that's well written or well told, but again it's. I think it's actually that experiential thing that we're real people telling real stories or having these authors recommending a book. You know whether it's a bookseller recommending the book in person. And again, I'd love our e-commerce to be better. We're working on a website so that that can be even better, but really it's often just a person coming in and asking for this book and leaving with this one and it's, or leaving with two, I don't know. It's a. I love the experience of it, that it's an actual connection and real conversations that are happening in real time, whether they're collected conversations or individual, I don't know. I feel such. I feel very honored and grateful that we get to be a part of this and that the Charleston community and the visiting community embraces it.
Speaker 1:And that's a good segue into my next question Can you talk about the curation of Buxton books and how it reflects the local Charleston community and also your visitors from out of town?
Speaker 2:Well, that's funny when we I mentioned earlier that we started with a single room in our first store and then grew into the entire space. But we put a lot of thought into the curation. But it ends up being quite interesting because we are an events motivated store. Much is curated through our events, so a lot of what you find on our shelves is directly correlated to the authors that we host.
Speaker 2:Of course, we're doing front list and we're paying a lot of attention to what people want and what is getting the most publicity. But also a lot of it is is that we actually are hosting these authors and so we are featuring their books we have lots of signed copies and but also that those are the, those relationships that are built between book sellers and the authors and the publishers help us know what we want to promote. But we have a wonderful staff that ranges not everyone is my age, julian and I are older, we're the oldest people in the bookstore but we have college and grad students and post grad over qualified wonderful readers. We have lots of people contributing to the curation. But I would say that it's an interesting curation in the space because it's front list combined with a lot of author events.
Speaker 1:What is wonderful about author events is that if your audience enjoys the book that the author is talking about, their latest novel or latest nonfiction book they're more apt to go and look up the backlist of that author, and so that creates this flow of reader enjoyment and for them to come back to the bookshop to be getting the backlist as well as the frontlist Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And also I think it's important to note that we only sell new books. So that was a very deliberate decision on our part. I love collectible books. I love finding a beautiful old copy somewhere, but I don't know that. I had the language for this. But we talk fairly frequently about the ecosystem of publishing and that by buying a new book, especially from living authors Obviously we don't only carry living authors, but new books, keep books in print. It's how we get to have new stories from beloved authors, but it's also how we get to hear new voices. And so, and when you buy a new book from an independent bookstore, you are not only contributing to the ecosystem of publishing, but that stays within your own community and contributes to the conversation within the community.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I have written an essay about this which I'll put in the show notes For any readers who go into a bookstore, take a photo of a book and then go back home and order it online from that other place. Please remember that when you buy a discounted book, you're not only taking money away from the bookshop owner, the anti-bookshop owner and the bookseller. You are taking money away from the team who created the book. Firstly, the author, who may have spent years working on this book that you're going to enjoy reading. Then there's the rest of the team the agent, the publishing team, which includes the four matter the book cover designer, the marketing and PR team. These people all take a piece of the pie and as books are discounted, that little piece of the pie becomes so skinny that, by the time the author gets paid for that book, there's really not a lot left to pay him or her.
Speaker 2:It's actually a lot of bang for your buck if you think what goes into creating the book. Yeah, years and years.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. When you buy a book, it is like buying a piece of art. You get to take that creation home with you and read it, and I think that's worth quite a bit. Okay, now, while we're talking about books, I would love to hear about South Carolina's popular contemporary local authors.
Speaker 2:Well, charleston is quite a reading and writing community so we have lots of authors who call this part time home and lots of authors who come through here, who may come and do research here, right here, and then keep going. And as Charleston has become more popular as a destination, it seems that a lot of authors are using it as a setting. So authors who aren't from here will come and set their books here. But we have our great fan of the bookstore and she's been a wonderful, wonderful supporter is Mary Alice Monroe and she's still writing. She's working on a book now. That's wonderful and she's been good to us before we she believed in us before we really knew what we were doing. As far as bookstores go, she's been lovely and continues to be.
Speaker 2:Victoria Benton Frank, another Southern woman writer she would go into that category and I actually didn't read her mother Dorothy of Benton Frank. I didn't read her work but she was wildly popular as a national writer. But Victoria is doing great work and she comes into the store frequently and actually acts as an interlocutor with and does book clubs. Stacey Willingham I'm seem to be skewing towards the women, but Stacey Willingham writes thrillers and there hasn't said anything in Charleston, but she lives here and she's young and popular and doing great things and has a new book coming out in January. I need to think of men. Brad Taylor he's a thriller he writes. He doesn't write about Charleston either, but he lives here. Bernard Cornwell he lives here part time. He wrote the Last Kingdom. Anyway, we have wonderful Sydney Pike. I'm going to get in trouble if I don't mention everyone else. I better stop because I feel like I'm going to leave people out and hurt feelings. Wonderful poets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've had quite a few authors from your area on the show. As a bookseller and reader, what do you think it is that makes Southern writers style different from other writers around the United States?
Speaker 2:I know that might be difficult because I'm a, I'm a Southerner, so I just think of it as I just think of them as writers. But I do love when I mentioned earlier that I lived in France for a while but my children's father is French and I don't think that I knew at the time. I did not know that I wasn't going to live there forever. So instead of reading a lot of French literature, I tend to go down to. I would go down to Shakespeare and Company and by Southern writers. I was terribly homesick and I would read, read books about the, about the South. I loved being in Paris but I loved, I also loved reading about home and I think it's that powerful sense of place.
Speaker 1:Josephine Humphries and Sue Munkid, and I love Pat Conroy, I mean I read all of those when I was in Paris, which is kind of fun and different authenticity, voice that powerful sense of place and it's interesting because when I think of books written by Southern authors or poetry written by Southern writers, I kind of equate it a little to reading books in translation, which I love, as you mentioned. There is that sense of place. There's also a sense of identity and that little ting, cadence of the way they speak comes out in their writing and there's an honesty to their writing.
Speaker 2:And also I think it's a. For me it's always been a window into understanding this place where I live, because I don't know that we are as Southerners, I think we consider it impolite to be too honest, brittle when we speak right. So we, I think it's and I think that's an authentic part of us. I know, I know I know it's not always viewed that way from outsiders, but that we are. We're truly looking for the good. We're wanting things to be sometimes better than they are. We want ourselves to be better than we are right.
Speaker 2:And it is through fiction, I think, primarily that we get to have a window into our own kind of souls and why we're the way we are. And again, the changing landscape of publishing for Southern writers is exciting because we're hearing from voices from whom we didn't hear before. So we're getting to hear these perspectives and stories and it's an exciting time to get to be a bookseller and to be part of kind of shepherding these voices into a community and encouraging someone who walks in looking for, say, mary Alice Monroe, and encourage them to read a new book. A memoir by someone who doesn't look like them, doesn't come from the same background.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's so true, Good point. Okay, now, as we record this interview, you are right in the middle of the Charleston Literary Festival. I would love to hear all about it and how Buxton Books is involved in this event.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we're thrilled. This is our fifth year being the booksellers for the Charleston Literary Festival. Each year is better and better. We always say that we do this all year long. We do, we're producing, and we're either acting as just booksellers or helping produce events all year long. But for these 10 days the Charleston Literary Festival brings in really world-class authors and it is something to behold. We're all a little tired. I don't know if you can hear it in my voice. I'll probably listen back and think that I sound quite weary. But we're also excited. It's a thrilling time to have. We had Claire Keegan and Laurie Moore and Sophia Sinclair and Adam Gopnik and Terry Kidder and Richard Ford. I mean, we're not even halfway through, it's just been really exciting. This week we are on their own stage at the Doc Street Theater, which is this beautiful historic venue that still feels large but still feels intimate and beautiful Conversations that really just range everything from art to race and climate to fiction. It's just, it's really been extraordinary.
Speaker 1:It sounds wonderful. I know I keep going back to this, but I can't help but think when you and Julian landed back in Charleston and created your businesses and these events based around stories, that fate played a part.
Speaker 2:It's exciting. It is exciting Through the tears. I would make jokes that my life hadn't turned out as a theory diary. I hope I can move back to Charleston in my 40s and live in a suburb. It's in yet another Charlestonian, stephen Colbert. He said this so well.
Speaker 2:I heard him in an interview talking about life and that it is not a buffet. You don't get to choose the parts of your life. You get it all. And to be grateful for all of it, because it brings you right here to this day, to this conversation that you and I are having, to this, to Julian and I being able, to our ability to do what we're doing. I could not have done this 15 years ago. I couldn't have done this without both the good and the bad that happened in the life. It's fun to talk about the kismet and the miracles and the serendipity, but it's also you may have to include in all of that the ones that didn't feel good at the time. My grandmother used to say you're right where you're supposed to be, and I happen to really like where I am right now, but I happen to always like where I was.
Speaker 1:I hear you. I hear you. I think sometimes heartache that we go through is actually the icing on the cake. We just don't realize it at the time.
Speaker 2:It's certainly an essential ingredient right.
Speaker 1:Sure, yes. Okay, let's talk about books. What are you currently reading, like you have time to read right now?
Speaker 2:I know, I know, but we are reading and I actually just this morning reread Claire Keegan's so Late in the Day. It's a collection of stories and you may have read it so Late in the Day was in the New Yorker. But this collection that Grove has put out and I think I love the short story, I love that shorter format because you can read and reread it and it really merits that. It merits rereading and she's such a beautiful writer. I know everyone probably has been reading her now she's but I believe that this newest collection will make people go back and read foster and small things like these again. And you can because they're small. The format allows you to reread, which is really, it's really special.
Speaker 2:Also, absolution, absolution. We had the privilege pre-festival, we had the privilege and to me this was one of those points of life where I actually, at the end of the night, I had grateful tears streaming down my face because as I walked Alice McDermott to her hotel and then turned around and was standing across the street from the book store at night and I looked over and I thought I can't believe I get to do this. But, alice, we hosted Alice McDermott on the eve of the publication of Absolution, her latest novel, and it I think it's her best. Yet it is said in 1963, saigon it's American women, the stories, that, a perspective that has not been told yet. And she does it so beautifully through this novel and I encourage you to read it. I think she hit the. I know she did. She hit the New York Times bestseller list so we got to play a little part in that, which was fun.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, you know. It's really fun through the different stages of your life, and especially where you and Julian are now, when, as you said, it's night. You're looking across the bookstore and you think, wow, look, what we've created. I mean, that's what life's about, right, and it's something to feel proud of.
Speaker 2:It is it's the fuel that helps us get up when we're tired, like we are today, and go back and do another day of a festival, which is amazing. But thank you, I wanted to thank you for what you do to to champion bookstores. We need you and it is, and I love inviting people into the understanding, I think, when you tell the why behind the what. Yes, you can get your books cheap and easy. We all know that and that's not going away, right, but it's. But we invite people in to the process and invite them to. Maybe they are going to buy all of their books from an independent bookshop, but when they, when they see one, go in and buy a book, you can wait an extra day to let us order the book for you, let us deliver it to you, have a conversation. It all matters and I thank you for being a part of that conversation and encouraging that it. It's the world, it means everything, oh, thank you, polly.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. There was one thing that you said earlier about conversations in bookshops and I was thinking how many times have I been into a bookshop and I've overheard another customer talking about a book and I say oh, if you've read that, you've got to read this one. And before you know it, people have congregated together and are talking about books they love. And for me, that is what life is about bringing people together through stories, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I love it. I don't know whether to tell you about this. This is actually an advanced reader copy. It's called Redwood Court and it is from a South Carolina African American woman, south Carolina. It's set here in South Carolina. Her name is Delana Dameron and it is so beautiful and I'm we're very excited about this and it pubs doesn't pub until February. I usually don't talk about books that aren't out yet, but I think people should keep her. It's her debut novel and it's amazing and I think a lot of people are going to be talking about it, so I wanted to make sure that I get to mention Delana Dameron's book.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for that. That looks good, and I like reading debut authors. I'm currently reading the Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin, which is fabulous. I've just finished reading please unsubscribe, thanks by Julio Vincent Gambuto and that's because I'm interviewing him for next week's episode and I'm rereading a couple of books by David Pepper. One of them is Laboratories of Autocracy and Saving Democracy. I recently interviewed him again in person. David writes both fiction and nonfiction, but his nonfiction books about saving democracy I highly recommend reading, especially right now.
Speaker 2:It also dictates a lot of what I read. You and I have that in common. I read what I need to know before I'm going to be in someone's presence or in conversation, and I love it because it helps direct what I read.
Speaker 1:And that's another reason why I love doing the Bookshop podcast and in person events with authors. It encourages me to read out of my comfort zone and to read in genres that I normally wouldn't be reading. Polly, thank you so much for taking time out of your crazy schedule and being a guest on the Bookshop podcast. And for anyone heading off to Charleston, read the New York Times article about things to do in Charleston and treat yourself to one of those book-based walking tours. Please come to Charleston and see us. I'd love to sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, please come, and we would love to walk with you and have conversations and talk books, and we would just love to see you. Please come to Charleston.
Speaker 1:Yes, I will, and I got to tell you I'm a sucker for a ghost tour.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So walking tour out of Buxton books. Come see us. It's you know, isn't that a fun thing that people are doing now is that. I can't tell you how many people say we just got off the plane and the first thing we did was come to the bookstore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is. I think it's a very smart thing. You're going to get good recommendations, you're going to have a good conversation, and we say all the time books connect us, and they really do.
Speaker 1:Polly thanks again for being a guest on the show and I look forward to seeing you in Charleston Well such a privilege to talk with you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to my conversation with Polly Buxton from Buxton Books, an independent Charleston based bookstore. To find out more about the Bookshop podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy, adrienne Otterhan and graphic design by Francis Verralla. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.