Creating Conversations in Redondo Beach, Calif., will close its storefront on Friday, February 26, owners Terry Gilman and Maryelizabeth Yturralde announced.
In a message to customers, they explained that a series of challenges led them to this point. After the pandemic forced Creating Conversations to cancel all of its 2020 events, they decided to focus on the bookstore and website sales, as well as virtual events. Later, the store flooded and thousands of books were damaged, and last week the store was vandalized and broken into.
Despite the storefront's closure, Creating Conversations will continue its virtual event programming and will sell books through its website. Beginning today, February 1, everything--books, sidelines and greeting cards--in the store are on sale.
"We will continue to host a wide range of author programs," they wrote. "We hope to be here for the foreseeable future doing what we do best as booksellers: working with our partners to create valuable programming, selling books on our website, and making great book recommendations."
After operating for years without a storefront, Creating Conversations opened its bricks-and-mortar location in 2018 as a partner of Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, which continues to operate in San Diego under separate ownership. (Jenni Marchisotto and Matthew Berger bought Mysterious Galaxy in late 2019.)