The following is the first part in an ongoing series highlighting those hidden caches of awesomeness, the independent bookstores that pepper this great land. Subterranean Books is one of the many rad bookstores inhabiting the St. Louis area, and not only are they surviving, but they’re thriving. This short interview with owner, Kelly von Plonski, was conducted via email.

What’s Subterranean’s origin story?
I was working at another bookstore and knew that I wanted to open my own store using my ideas and vision.  I had a business partner and together we borrowed money from relatives and opened Subterranean as a mixed-stock new and used bookstore, in October 2000.  Along the way I’ve transitioned the store from the mixed-stock to all new books, and shed my partner.  This year is our 10th anniversary and we’re still going strong.

What’s the curatorial process when choosing books to stock?
Short version: Gut.  Long version: Everyone on staff has input and the stock is reflective of our personalities. If anyone knows something or feels something about a book or a subject, we’ll stock it.  We also eavesdrop on our customers, pay attention to what’s being special ordered, read blogs, magazines, newspapers…everything to stay up on what would be interesting to carry.  We also carefully track what is already selling so that we are carrying what our customers want.  But especially, since we’re a small store we know our customers–we have conversations with them and we always take what they have to say to heart.  Many many books are on the shelves now because a customer told us about them.

What’s the arts/literature scene in St. Louis like and what role does Subterranean play within it?
The arts/literature scene is thriving.  There are so many small galleries operating right now.  So many drama troupes and poetry groups.  We’ve had an art gallery in the store pretty much since we opened and we’ve had exhibits by almost 100 different artists up.  We help out with Noir at the Bar, a semi-regular literary event that focuses on crime fiction and takes place…in a bar. We’ve hosted traveling authors from Melville House, Soft Skull, Akashic Books, Found vs PostSecret and other really cool edgy publishers.

What helps a book sell? What’s been the most successful book at Subterranean?
A passionate bookseller.  People come to us because they trust us so when someone wants a recommendation they almost always take us up on the suggestion.  When one of us just loves loves a book, that excitement comes through and customers respond.  We have recommendation labels (shelf talkers) on a number of books and sales of those titles directly correlate.  Sales will all of a sudden spike for a title and I’ll check, and sure enough, someone has written a shelf talker for it.  By a landslide our bestselling title is ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’, second up is ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’.

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

Because you can touch them, smell them, flip through the pages and hear that lovely page-flipping sound. Turn the cover over to see the back.  You can have a real live conversation, standing at the counter. You can run into someone you haven’t seen in a while or that lives next door. People really appreciate that we curate, that they don’t have to dig through the dreck to get to something good.  They like it that they can ride their bicylcle over, take a coffee break next door, and ride home with a book from the Staff Picks shelf.

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

My mom and grandmother were horribly allergic to cats so even though I don’t have allergies, I am very sensitive to those that do and we’ve never had a store cat for that reason.

(image via)

We’re joining forces with a handful of publishing power houses this weekend to sell books at the Brooklyn Flea. Are you in the area? Come visit us and pick up some quality books. And why not grab a a corn dog and a vintage ottoman while you’re at it? See you there!

While it may not have been as cool as the reading that took place last week, the second edition of Soda Series, brought to you by Greg Gerke and John Dermot Woods, happened in Prospect Heights last Sunday. Holy crap did it have a good line-up. Matt Bell, ladies and gentlemen.

Matt read from his new story collection coming out on Keyhole later this year. If you’re a fan of Matt’s writing then you should start getting very excited because it is very, very good. He had a couple gallies to pas around. Mr. Peak and I fought for a copy with our teeth.

The inimitable John Madera. John and I got into a heated discussion over literature, which inevitably lead into a discussion about the meaning of art and, subsequently, to the meaning of life. Shit got a little deep and that was just fine with me.

I’m glad I went cause I got turned on to Jeff Parker. Jeff is a very funny man with very insightful things to say. And apparently he’s a skateboarder from Central Florida, which makes him nothing less than a King among men in my books. I bought his book and he wrote his favorite quote from T.S. Eliot in it: “Hello Mr. Death. How do you like your blue-eyed boy now?” So good.

I didn’t get a good pic of Amber Sparks, unfortunately. It was her first reading and she did a bang-up job. She got all high tech and read from her iPhone.

The writers in discussion. Thanks to John and Greg and all the writers for making it happen! Soda Series is swiftly becoming something very good to look forward to.

Last week I went to probably the best reading I’ve ever seen. Ladies and gentlemen, the graduation reading of Page 15’s Young Writer’s Camp 2010. In the reader’s chair here is Izabelle. She had a whip-smart piece about a couple of students competing for a marine biology scholarship. She dropped some serious wildlife science on a crowd.

This here’s Vincent. He wrote a story hot on the heels of the the biggest sporting event of the decade. It was about a fútbol player named Xavier who worked his way up from the bottom to win the World Cup. A dude literally gets kicked in the face in his story. Sports are rough.

Melik here unfolded an epic super hero tale about a dog named Dookie and his quest to defeat the evil Black I Peas. Have you ever written a story with sentient onions with the teeth of alligators? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Melik beat you to it.

The writing was phenominal, but here’s where most readings pale in comparison to this one: Pizza was served afterward. I’ll bet people would be a lot more interested in readings if ‘roni ‘za were involved.

Keep an eye out for these writers. Their imaginations are going to be making waves very soon. Thanks to Julia Young, Ryan Rivas, Jana Waring and all the volunteers for letting Annalemma be a part of Page 15’s 2010 Young Writers Camp.

And thanks for the card!

My blood pumped a little faster when I opened up my RSS feed this morning and saw two things that I loved were combined into one great thing: The Rumpus had interviewed  Jesse Hlebo. To be honest, I’d let Jesse fall off my radar a little bit since he sent us some photos for a piece we ran in Issue #4. What a mistake. For the past year, Jesse has been putting a lot of his contemporaries to shame with his never-ending enthusiasm and work ethic. Check out Swill Children, a small press and record label started by Jesse and a few of his friends. Already they’ve released  a fistfull of 7″ records, a zine featuring the photography of David Potes and a lit and arts broadside called _Quarterly. Oh, and he’s only 21.

For your dedication to positivity and community within the arts, for your inspirational work ethic, for your accomplishments in creating beautiful things, Annalemma salutes you, Jesse Hlebo.

Happy Birthday,  USA.

I hope you did something yesterday to make you feel patriotic and I hope you didn’t work, like more than a few people did.

If you did work, you probably felt like you were in Communist Russia. And last time I checked, this was still America. Tell that Rooski boss of yours to quit treading on you.

I hope you ate some American food.

And saw some things that reminded you why this country does, on occasion, kick much ass.

Books and film rarely give skateboarding the treatment it deserves. Sometimes the activity becomes inconsequential. Other times it’s treated with laughable sincerity. Corey Adam’s first feature film Machotaildrop seems to deliver the most appropriate image of skating: fun, slightly scary, and full of the potential to change your life. Adams’s short, Harvey Spannos, (which scored the funding for MTD) serves as a reserved precursor to the whimsical fever dream of his first feature. Can’t wait to see this one.

An interview with Adams at Fecal Face.

The idea behind 48 Hour Magazine is an interesting one: Using all the tools of media available today to create a magazine that’s cool, fast and cheap.

In the opening letter the editors state they’re trying to marry the immediacy of the web with the permanence and beauty of print. A few weeks ago they announced a call to submit, people gave them their email addresses and the editors of fired off the starter pistol in the form of announcing the theme. Then a 48 hour frenzy of writing, photographing, illustrating and designing an entire 59 page magazine. Using a print-on-demand service called Mag Cloud, they uploaded a PDF file, figured out how much to charge for the magazine (Mag Cloud charges 20 cents per page) then folks go online, order it and it gets printed and shipped to them in a couple of days. Take a moment to catch your breath.

The only thing I’m having a problem with is this “beauty of print” part of the equation. While the print design is clean and straightforward, the images colorful and immediate, the actual quality of the book itself is inscrutable from anything you’ll find on the newsstands. I guess when I think of the “beauty of print” I think of magazines like Cabinet or McSweeneys, publications that treat the magazine as an artifact, another arena and opportunity to make something beautiful, to make a statement, and hopefully differentiate itself as much as possible from anything you could ever find on the web. But maybe that’s just me holding unrealistic standards.

The content is fun and resonant, the charts and graphs are colorful and informative. But the words seem to only skim the surface, a roadblock they no doubt hit due to their time constraint. It’s hard to come up with in-depth writing in less than two days.

The most impressive and appealing thing about 48HR is the speed with which it was created, a speed that speaks to the youthful feel of the book. The energy and exceitment, even the theme of the issue (Hustle), radiate this kind of vibrancy and possibility that’s downright sexy.

Final verdict: awesome (revolutionary?) media experiment. Future of print? Debatable.

Gonna be in or near Brooklyn tonight? Come out to Soda Series, a new event where a bunch of talented writers get their brains together to talk about literature and writing and such. This evening’s line-up: Dawn Raffel, David Peak, Ana Božičević and Edward Mullany. Count on seeing me there.

While futilely researching small press magazine distributors I came across a good article at Publishing Perspectives by Gabriel Levinson, reviews editor of Make: A Chicago Literary Magazine. The article concerning “cause publishing” is an essential read, but the thing that hit me most was Gabe’s frustration with the form of book reviews and what that frustration evolved into. Enter the book bike.

Gabe decided that it was the duty of editors and writers to get the books out to the people. So he loaded up an old ice cream bike with books, peddled it out to the North Ave beach and put up a sign saying the books were free for the taking. All the books Gabe gives away are donated from publishers who want their books read. To date, Gabe has distributed some 3,000 new and used books throughout the city of Chicago. Gabe also goes on to explain that this isn’t a new idea and that Biblioburro is worth your attention.

For your commitment to your community, and for your mission of getting them invested in books, Annalemma salutes you, Gabriel Levinson.