The Curious Cat Bookshop, an all-ages bookstore that debuted as a pop-up shop earlier this year, has found a permanent home in Winsted, Conn., the Register Citizen reported.
Owner Stacy Whitman, who is also the publisher of Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, described the opening as a soft launch. For the time being the shop at 386 Main St. is open only on evenings and weekends, and Whitman has launched an Indiegogo campaign to help raise money for the bookstore. The store's hours will expand once Whitman hires someone to run things during the week (she will keep her full-time job in publishing), and she hopes to have a grand opening sometime in the fall.
The store carries a wide variety of children's books along with plenty of titles for adults. The inventory is all new, and Whitman also stocks nonbook items like candles, greeting cards, bookmarks, and cat-themed merchandise. Whitman has already started a book club, and her future event plans include author signings, story hours, Dungeons & Dragons nights, poetry nights, and more.
"The most important thing I want to do with the bookshop is offer the community a gathering place," she told the Register Citizen. Winsted, she noted on the store's Indiegogo page, has not had an indie bookstore like hers since the Corner Bookstore closed in the 1990s.
Whitman started working on her business plan in 2020. Around the same time she began collecting furniture for an eventual bricks-and-mortar space. The Curious Cat debuted earlier this year as a pop-up inside of Live at Home, and Whitman has also done a few school book fairs.
With the Indiegogo campaign, she hopes to raise enough capital to secure an SBA loan, which would serve as the "final piece of the funding puzzle," after her own personal contributions, a $10,000 forgivable loan from the town of Winsted, and an investment from Audry Taylor, former creative director of Go! Comi.
"Obviously there's still a lot of work to do, like art on the walls, more bookshelves in the space, more inventory, but it's a start," Whitman said.