The Bookshop Podcast

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I chat with Jenna Todd, manager and bookseller at Time Out Bookstore. Jenna Todd (Kāi Tahu) is the manager of Time Out Bookstore in Auckland, which won New Zealand’s best bookshop for 2016 and 2017 and was named in the top three bookstores in the world in 2017. She is the chair of Booksellers NZ and is their representative on the Trust. Jenna was the first recipie...

Send us Fan Mail Beth Kirschner grew up in upstate New York and thought she knew everything there was to know about winter snows until she moved to Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula for college. There she discovered an average snowfall between 200 and 300 inches and a record winter snowfall of 390 inches. In addition to the harsh winters, she found a place rich with history, personality, and the world...

Send us Fan Mail Maldon Books is an award-winning independent bookshop located in the heart of the historical town of Maldon, Essex. Owner Olivia Rosenthall opened the bookstore in December 2019, just three months shy of the first national lockdown. She was overwhelmed by the support she received from customers and fellow book lovers up and down the country. In 2020, Maldon Books shared the Nation...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I chat with Michael Herrmann, owner of Gibson’s Bookstore.   Founded in 1898, Gibson’s is the oldest continuously operating retailer in the Concord, New Hampshire area. Michael bought the Bookstore in 1994, and in 2013 moved it to its current location on South Main Street.   In 2014, Gibson’s was awarded the coveted Independent Spirit Award. This award is given ea...

Send us Fan Mail Vina Lustado is the founder/owner of Sol Haus Design, a boutique firm focusing on sustainable design and building in California. After receiving an architecture degree and over 20 years of experience with high-end corporate clients, Vina decided to focus her career on smaller-scale projects that make a positive difference. Staying true to her values, Vina has lived full-time in an...

Send us Fan Mail Storysmith Books is an independent bookshop in Bristol, on North Street in Bedminster, England. Owners Dan and Emily Ross stock a tightly curated range of fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books. We chatted about books, babies, and what they love about living and being indie business owners in Bristol. Storysmith Books   Sing Backwards And Weep , Mark Lanegan   Brown Baby: A Me...

Send us Fan Mail Hi, and welcome to episode #95! As I record this episode, it's Winter Solstice. The sky is loaded with clouds and the promise of rain, and trees laden with golden leaves punctuate the green of oaks and citrus that flourish in our neighborhood. I've baked and eaten more cookies than I should and will no doubt eat more because 'tis the season and our home feels emptie...

Send us Fan Mail Green Apple Books in San Francisco has provided old and new books to the local community for fifty-one years. I caught up with co-owner Pete Mulvihill to find out what makes Green Apple Books somewhat of an institution in Northern California and how they look after their employees, who, in return, provide outstanding service as booksellers and store managers.    Pete and I chat ab...

Send us Fan Mail James Fahy is the acclaimed author of both the Fantasy series ‘Changeling’, and the Urban Gothic ‘Phoebe Harkness’ books. While he lives in the rural North of England with his wife and two adventurous children, James keeps a small part of his heart in Oxford for safekeeping. When not writing, James is very active on Social Media, connecting with and supporting both other writers a...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Malik Muhammad and I chat about Nipsey Hussle's impact on the Crenshaw District community in Los Angeles, the history of the area, and discovering and celebrating his deep African American roots and sharing this with his local and wider community. Malik Books is an independent African American Bookstore in Los Angeles, specializing in books and African Americ...

Send us Fan Mail It’s my pleasure to welcome author Maria V. Snyder back to the show! After a hectic few years of writing and meeting deadlines, Maria took time off to gather her thoughts, travel, and finish the final book in the Archives of the Invisible Sword series, The King of Koraha . Maria has a degree in meteorology, and while forecasting weather wasn’t in her skill set, she harnessed her k...

Send us Fan Mail Darling Reads is located at 17 High Street, Horbury, Wakefield, West Yorkshire. The bookshop is co-owned by Laura Iveson and Asher Woolford, two mothers who took a leap of faith and opened a bookshop during the pandemic! Darling Reads Wheel of Time (series),  Robert Jordan   Where the Crawdads Sing , Delia Owens   Amari and the Night Brothers , B.B. Alston Christina Dalcher books...

Send us Fan Mail Katie Stokes is the owner, publisher, and editor in chief at Edible San Diego. Katie works with dynamic organizations dedicated to creating more value and well-being in the world. She is a leader who helps diverse teams meet and exceed goals. Her entrepreneurial spirit and abilities deliver new opportunities and value for the Edible organization. Her specialty is finding and creat...

Send us Fan Mail Since launching The Bookshop Podcast in October 2020, I’ve spoken with over 85 indie bookstore owners worldwide. If you are a regular listener, you’ll have often heard the name Libro.fm mentioned in episodes. Libro.fm is an online audio bookstore that splits the profit from customer purchases with their local bookstore.  In this episode, I chat with Mark Pearson, co-founder of the...

Send us Fan Mail Peri Chickering is the author of Leadership Flow: The Unstoppable Power of Connection. She holds a master’s degree in human development and a Ph. D. in human and organizational systems. Her early career as a mountaineer and wilderness guide took her traveling around the world. Out of these years, she created wilderness-based leadership schools in South Africa and Bulgaria.  Taking...

Send us Fan Mail Located in the town of Westport, County Mayo, Ireland is Tertulia, a bookshop like no other.  Brid Conroy and Neil Paul opened Tertulia with a mission to contribute to a positive change in the way the world thinks, and a vision to live in a world where every story matters, to live in a world that understands that (our) stories are interconnected. Brid and Neil believe this underst...

Send us Fan Mail While his wife and two-year-old daughter watched TV in the living room, David Poses was in the kitchen, measuring the distance from his index finger to his armpit. He needed to be sure he could pull the trigger with a shotgun barrel in his mouth. Twenty-six inches. Thirty-two years old. More than a decade in a double life fueled by depression and heroin. In this interview, David a...

Send us Fan Mail Hi!  Today I’m chatting with Jennifer Jackson, director of Paper Bird Children’s Books & Arts in Freemantle, Western Australia. Paper Bird is a creative hub for children where they can interact with writers and illustrators, attend workshops and books clubs, and listen to children’s stories told by local indigenous authors. Jennifer has worked in London, Perth, and Melbourne i...

Send us Fan Mail Hi, and welcome to episode # 83 of The Bookshop Podcast ! Today I’m chatting with Jessica Barksdale Inclán , the author of fifteen novels, including the award-winning The Burning Hour , Her Daughter’s Eyes , The Matter of Grace , and When You Believe . Her debut poetry collection, When We Almost Drowned , was published in March 2019, and her second poetry book, Grim Honey , was pu...

Send us Fan Mail Hi, today I’m in Edinburgh, a UNESCO City of Literature, chatting with David Bloomfield and Julia König from Golden Hare Books!  Golden Hare Books carries an ever-changing collection of fiction and non-fiction for readers of all ages. Their titles cover all genres from cooking to travel, kid’s picture books to science fiction, and everything in between.  In 2019, Golden Hare Books...

Send us Fan Mail Hi! I’m super excited to bring my interview with author Jane Yolen to you today. Jane is 82 years young, has published over 400 books, and in my book, she is a true storyteller and an inspiration to writers of all stages.   Enjoy! Here’s Jane Yolen’s full bio: Beloved children's book author Jane Yolen has been writing and publishing since the early sixties when she sold her f...

Send us Fan Mail Today I'm chatting with Susan Kehoe from BROWSEABOUT BOOKS about Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, keeping our purchases local, reading out of your comfort zone, and what the actual job of a bookseller entails. Founded by the Crane family in 1975, BROWSEABOUT BOOKS has expanded and reinvented itself many times while evolving into one of the nation's top independent bookstores. B...

Send us Fan Mail As I began the week interviewing Leah Koch from The Ripped Bodice, it fits that today’s episode should be with a romance author. Melissa Sercia is an award-winning Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance author with a passion for philosophy, mythology, and all things supernatural. She is the author of the Blood and Darkness and Beautiful Dark Beasts series’. Melissa lives in Californ...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode, I’m closer to home. Just a 90-mile drive and I'm in Culver City, home of The Ripped Bodice, where I chatted with co-owner Leah Koch.  Here’s a short blurb about this romance-only indie bookshop!  The Ripped Bodice, owned by sisters Leah and Bea Koch, is the only exclusively romance bookstore on the West Coast. The store is proudly Woman and Queer Owned and...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine your children were stolen from you…by your ex-husband. That’s what happened to Jeanne Baker Guy, my guest on today’s episode of the Bookshop Podcast. Here’s what Dan Rather had to say about her book, You’ll Never Find Us: A Memoir . “This is a book about courage. Any parent’s nightmare is to have their children disappear. It is even worse to learn the captor is the other p...