Rule #32 of the internet: if there aren’t pics, it didn’t happen. These days, our actions aren’t validated without documentation. You can plan for a party all you want, but if you forget your camera, it may as well be happening in the Arctic Circle. Thankfully the long arm of Electric Literature can always be counted on to pick up the slack.

Personal Observations:

– When there’s Draper and Schwartzman to be watched on a Sunday night in a warm apartment, people will instead come in droves to a tiny bar in Brooklyn to watch poets read. This is a shocking.

– The crowd loves Sasha Fletcher. They respond to his calls. They do what he tells them to do.

– When Ben Mirov gives people a choice between Sadness and Confusion, people will choose Confusion.

– Melissa Broder is a delightful co-host.

– Lauren Ireland wears amazing tights.

– Krystal Languell would like to destroy Florida. This is upsetting.

– While the poets get sad and ruminative, Paul Kwiatkowski does drugs with an ex-con, ex-girlfriend.

– Despite their drummer falling asleep in the van, Adam Robinson‘s band, Sweatpants, is a cathartic exercise in garage rock.

– John Madera can play guitar and drums.

– Jesse Hlebo is much taller in person than in photos.

– David Peak is a tireless supporter of the scene.

– Dylan Suher takes his name being misspelled in print in stride.

– Rose Wind Jerome cheers on her friends even in the face of death.

– Greg Gerke and John Dermot Woods are going to get their asses handed to them this Friday at the Monkey Bicycle Reading.

– Friends who don’t normally come to readings should be thanked profusely. Thank you Anna, Emily, David, Cara, Brent, Sandra, Kristen and Margaret.

– A digital camera is usually hiding in a forgotten corner of a messenger bag. This will be revealed the day after the event requiring documentation.

Technical problems be damned. We’re having a party in Billy-burg this weekend. If I don’t see you there I am coming to your apartment and I am going to stand in front of the TV until you put on some jeans and come hang out with us. If you are intimidated by this flyer, here is one that Melissa made that is much more pleasing to the girly eye:

Got an email from the printer representative this morning, a lovely gentleman by the name Marteinn Jónasson, saying that 50 copies of Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance have been express shipped from the plant and should be here tomorrow. A few of these copies will go to staff members and press outlets but the majority of them will be available Oct. 17th at Bruar Falls when Lapetitezine.org and us throw our dual release party, Enduring Freaks. The bulk of the shipment should arrive by boat sometime at the end of the month. Yeah, by boat. Why? Because it’s coming from Iceland.

Why Iceland? Because that’s where Oddi Printing calls home. Reykjavík, to be precise. Love saying that word, Reykjavík. (It means Bay of Smoke. How cool is that?) Why Oddi? Because they are able to offer high quality printing at extremely competitive prices. Iceland felt the crush of the global financial crisis of 2008 greater than most countries, but things are looking promising.

Issue Seven ships November 1st to stores and the intelligent, attractive people who have pre-ordered online. Are you intelligent and attractive? Of course you are. Pre-order here.

PANK, Mud Luscious and Annalemma are combing powers dark and light this February at AWP. Come join us for Divination in DC, a gathering of writers reading work that will change your future.

This weeks image contributor Matthew Genitempo is part of Austin based creative collective Public School. Check out their store where you can find a generous helping of original screen printed posters they’ve made for bands you are probably a fan of. I don’t really have much more to say on this subject other than I really like Austin and I really like art and design and Public School merges these things in a way that makes me pump my fist something fierce. Well done, fellas.

Ever wanted to know what it’s like to run a lit mag in an age when doing such a thing is considered neither popular nor wise? Sign up for the Annalemma newsletter by typing your email address in the field at the top of the right hand column of this page to receive monthly emails on the business of small press publishing, discounts on print issues/subscriptions, and a genuine opportunity to connect with a genuine human being.

Chicago’s Gabriel Levinson (of Book Bike fame) is trying to earn his place in my books as raddest dude ever.

He’s coming pretty close to it too.

Thank you Gabe. You are a gem of a human.

As if Rhode Island couldn’t get any more radder, it’s home to one of the best indie bookstores in the country, Ada Books. Humble owner and proprietor, Brent Legault, was kind enough to answer some questions over electronic mail.

What’s Ada’s origin story?

It started with the publication of Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle in 1969 (which is, coincidentally, the year I was born).  The book was not a hit with critics but it hit home with me after I first read it twenty-five or so years later. If I were the type to maintain a mountain of my favorite novels (I am not), Ada would likely sit at its summit. It seemed logical and fair-minded then to name the shop after it. Originally, I planned on calling it Ada or Ardor: A Family Bookshop but my wife wisely put a stop to that. (We’ve saved a bundle on signage.)

What’s the curatorial process when choosing books to stock?

The process, if you can whatever it is I do a process, is simple: I choose the books and magazines that I like or think I’ll like and hope that others agree with me. They don’t, usually, in spite of my excellent taste.

What’s the arts/literature scene in Rhode Island like and what role does Ada play within it?

The scene here is mostly serious, or artists taking themselves seriously. Humor comes in smirks rather than guffaws. My role in it is a minor one. I host a reading series, which is run by Kate Schapira (an excellent poet), where I often drink a little too much beer. I also eat more than my share of cashews or almonds and clap, politely but genuinely, when others clap.

What helps a book sell? What’s been the most successful book at Ada?

Though I’ve been selling books for more years than Justin Bieber has been alive, I still have no idea how to make a sale. I know that “weird” works, as does “obscure.” But those things sell themselves. I’m no salesman. I never “upsell” anything. I just put it on a shelf or a table and see what happens. (I will give out opinions when prompted.) The most successful book at Ada has been. . . oh, I don’t know. I don’t keep track. But I’ve probably sold more copies of Mat Brinkman’s Teratoid Heights than anything else. These days, it is shamefully out of print.

How does a brick-and-mortar store not only survive, but maintain relevance in the age of Amazon?

I don’t think my brick-and-mortar(and-paint-and-plaster) store is at all relevant “in the age of Amazon” except perhaps in a negative way. That is, I think that my customers reject or at least look down upon the Kindles and the iPads and ordering books online in general. Or perhaps they do those things but also feel a kinship with books and booksellers and want them to stick around for a little while longer.

Please describe the cat that lives in your store. If you don’t have a bookstore cat, please explain why.

My shop cat is a pure white American short hair with a pink nose and mismatched eyes. Her name is Paper and she is imaginary. I’m only at the shop 7 or 8 hours a day and I feel it would be neglectful to leave her alone for so long. Therefore, Ada Books is catless, although my wife and I have three cats at home named Ratsy, BeeBong and Pancake. They are adorable.

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If you find yourself in Louisville, Kentucky any time soon be sure to stop by the best bookseller in town, Carmichael’s Bookstore. This interview was conducted with owner Michael Boggs via email.

What’s Carmichael’s origin story?

My wife, Carol Besse, and I started Carmichael’s in 1978 in Louisville with a little capital from a Small Business Administration loan and a hefty amount of bookstore experience. We had worked for 5 years for Barbara’s Bookstores in Chicago and learned most of the mechanics of the bookselling business there. We both had Kentucky ties and at that time Louisville had no urban bookstores.

What’s the curatorial process when choosing books to stock?

I wouldn’t call the process “curatorial” since bookselling is an exercise in commerce, and we have to be mindful of stocking books that will appeal to our customers. That said, the stock in our stores is comprised of about 70 % “backlist”, which are the titles that sell over and over, year in and year out, and 30 % “frontlist”, the titles that are newly published each year. Backlist titles change slowly as authors fall in and out of favor, and as interests change over the years. Because our stores are small, I have to select stock carefully and each publishing season I buy only a fraction of the thousands and thousands of new titles presented to me by publisher’s sales reps. The process is more art than science, with hundreds of factors going into each decision: Does the book fit with our customer’s taste? What is the quality of the publisher? Does the author have a track record? Is the subject of the book original? Does the sales rep have any helpful information? What does the cover look like? And on and on.

What’s the arts/literature scene like in Louisville? What’s Carmichael’s role in the lit/arts community?

From the beginning Carol and I conceived of Carmichael’s as a so-called “third place” — a locale ingrained in the community that isn’t home or work. We have anywhere from 75 to 100 author events a year, many with local poets and beginning writers. We have wonderful independent publisher in Louisville called Sarabande Books that has a first-rate list of poetry and fiction. And, in the region, we have number of nationally recognized authors with ties to our area: Wendell Berry, Bobbie Ann Mason, Barbara Kingsolver, Silas House, Sena Naslund and many others.

What helps books sell? What are the more successful books at Carmichael’s?

Word of mouth is the best seller for books–one reader recommends titles he loves, that person tells 3 people, and suddenly you have an exponential groundswell for a book. As for national media, NPR programs provide the publicity and interviews that our customers respond to best. Other venues that are good for us are The New Yorker, especially exerpts of Non Fiction, The New York Times, The New Yorker Review of Books, with most other magazines trailing behind. We get little play from blogs or internet sources.

How does a brick-and-mortar store not only survive, but maintain relevance in the age of Amazon?

When it comes to relevance and Amazon, that’s kind of a no brainer. In the world of books, Amazon is a place of commerce and little more. Books were simply an easy entre into creating a mail-order of WalMart. They don’t care much about books because so few people actually buy them–they really want to sell all the other stuff that large parts of the population desire and that have higher profit percentages. And that’s not books. And the Kindle is a toy that is unlikely to have more longevity than cassette tapes. Whatever the paradigm that lasts for 20 or 30 years, it defninitely isn’t Amazon or the Kindle.

Please describe the bookstore mascot.

We’ve had cats in the store over the years, but are currently without any mascot.  Maybe the closest we have to a mascot is local legend Hunter S. Thompson.

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Chicago is a reading town. Reading towns demand good bookstores and it doesn’t get much better than Quimby’s. A landmark in Chicago’s literary scene for almost two decades, Quimby’s is the archetype for what a good bookstore should be: weird, intriguing, fun, surprising and a bit mysterious. Owner Eric Kirsammer answered a few questions about how Quimby’s achieved this level of awesomeness.

What’s the origin story of Quimby’s?

Quimbys was started in 1991 by Steven Svymbersky.  He was doing a zine called Quimbys in Boston then he decided to move to Chicago and open a store by the same name.  Steven sold the store to me in 1997.

What’s the curatorial process when choosing books to stock?

We look for any type of publication that is about things out of the mainstream.  Anything weird and important.  There  are so many things being published that just do not get the exposure they deserve.  For zines we take a very broad range of things on consignment.  This allows us to carry a lot of different zines and allows someone just starting out to get their book on the shelf.

What helps a book sell? What are some of the more successful books at Quimby’s?

Quality writing in an interesting package.  We do well with things that hit it on multiple fronts.  Some of the books that we do well with are anything by Chris Ware, Dan Clowes or Dave Eggers.

Quimby’s has achieved this legendary status among independent bookstores. How did this happen and how do you maintain relevance in the age of Amazon?

We have stuck to our mission of carrying the offbeat and being very open to people just starting to publish.  We also hold a lot of events which has built community support.  We try to stock the books our customer wants.  Quimbys is a niche bookstore are we have never had the desire to become mainstream.

Please describe the cat that lives in your store. If you don’t have a bookstore cat, please explain why.

We do not have a store cat for several reasons,
1.  I would always be worried about the cat running out the door.
2.  I don’t think the cat would get the attention it deserves.
3.  Our store mascot is Chris Ware’s Quimby the mouse and cat and mice just do not mix.