Two of our favorite booksellers are teaming up.
Effective at the end of August, Jenn Northington, who has been events and marketing manager at the King's English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, Utah, for nearly two years, is joining breathe books, Baltimore, Md., where she will be general manager--although maybe not by that name.
"General manager is kind of boring for a New Age store," her future boss, Susan L. Weis, said, so Northington's title, which is yet to determined, might be general goddess or guardian angel.
Northington earlier worked as a bookseller at Changing Hands Bookshop, Tempe, Ariz., and has been very involved in the Emerging Leaders Project. With the move, she will reluctantly step down as the Emerging Leaders council member from the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association region but said she looks forward to continuing to work with the group and with Stephanie Anderson of WORD, Brooklyn, N.Y., who's the member of the council from the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association area.
Speaking of the King's English, Northington said that it had been "a privilege to work at such a prestigious store with such dedicated booksellers."
Likewise Weis said that she is "really lucky and honored to have someone come work for me who's worked for two of the top booksellers in the country."
Weis stated that she needed someone like Northington to help take breathe books, which celebrates its fifth anniversary in October, "to the next level. She has lots of enthusiasm, great experience and great ideas--and knows how to implement them."
Part of the next level includes "bringing in more literature and general books while staying a New Age bookstore," emphasizing the Indie Next list, working on coop, doing more business-to-business sales, selling books and other items on the breathe books's website and expanding the store's already extensive events calendar to incorporate more mainstream authors.
Weis said that she is hiring Northington also so that she can teach more and lead more trips to sacred sites. This year she started teaching meditation and ayurveda classes and recently led a trip to Peru and will lead her fourth trip, to India, in the fall.
Northington already has e-mail at the new store and can reached at Jenn@breathebooks.com.