Indie bookstores are the places where I've developed as a writer and a reader. I feel like I went to graduate school, a little underread in contemporary literature. I used to spend a lot of time in class listening to other students mention writers or books that they loved, and I would dash off to the indie bookstore--in St. Louis that was Left Bank Books--to see if they had it. They always did. I would buy it and go home and read it in one sitting. It was like the experience of reading as a child, where I was just constantly amazed by what I was reading, and all the different types of writers that were out there and always in these indie bookstores. That just set off my exploration of all that was possible in fiction and who I wanted to be as a writer and a reader.
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| Allison Espach | |
I live in Providence now, and I spend a ridiculous amount of time at indie bookstores, we have so many amazing ones--Riffraff, Twenty Stories, Books on the Square, just to name a few. My friends and I were actually just joking around that Riffraff has become our entire social scene.... So, they're still a huge part of my life, and I'm extremely grateful that booksellers and bookstore owners are out there making these spaces for people.