Books. Kindles. Nooks. iPads. Wave after wave of change rocks the publishing industry as tech titans Apple, Google, and Amazon carve lucrative new businesses from the digital world.

 

Amid the turmoil, many traditional book stores are closing or declining (witness the recent implosion of Borders), while others like Seattle’s celebrated Elliott Bay Book Company find ways to survive and thrive. How has Seattle’s iconic independent book store succeeded where others have failed?

 

It did not come easily. Despite its iconic status as one of the best independent book stores in the country, Elliott Bay was losing money in its former location in Pioneer Square, forcing a move in 2010 to try to revive it. Finding a new location in the bustling Capitol Hill neighborhood and using new media like Facebook and Twitter proved critical to turning things around.

 

“The new move has felt good,” says head book buyer Rick Simonson, who spoke to The Writer’s Workshop Seattle writing class. “But we’re still learning our way. It’s a volatile climate with ebooks and everything else. Will people read both eBooks and paper books? What will they read as eBooks? What as traditional books? We still don’t know what people are going to do.”

 

As the store finds its way in the new publishing world, they draw even larger audiences to the store’s signature reading series. Formerly, they would draw five to six people; now they draw 15 to 20. Well-known authors pack the store to standing room only. With some 500 author readings a year, the store continues to bring in customers.

 

Independent book stories like Elliott Bay are critical to the literary and intellectual life of the Seattle as well as that of the nation. David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, for example, gained national traction in part from the early boost the book received from Elliott Bay. Similarly, first-time authors often develop their audiences through independent book stores, even if they later gain national attention.

 

For all these reasons, it’s heartening to see Elliott Bay thriving amid all the transformations in the publishing industry. Their reading series continues to be one of the best bargains in the country, a great, free introduction to the riches of the literary world.

 

We try to partner with them in any way we can, ordering textbooks for our Seattle writing classes and online writing classes, publicizing readings, recommending them to our friends. Book stores like Elliott Bay Book Company are a critical part of the larger writing community, a community we try to foster through The Writer’s Workshop Review.

 

The current issue of The Writer’s Workshop Review features “Keep Candy Handy” a tasty excerpt from DeWitt Henry’s new memoir, Sweet Dreams; an excerpt from Jana Harris’s moving new memoir, Horse’s Never Lie About Love; Sue Pace’s “Can You Imagine How Much We Love Him,” a loving and unsentimental account of raising a special needs child; “Turnaround,” Kathleen Glassburn’s atmospheric tale of personal transformation while visiting the Dingle Peninsula; “In the Footsteps of Petrarch,” my account of climbing Mont Ventoux, first ascended by the Renaissance writer and often considered the first recorded alpine climb in history.

 

I'd like to thank the following people for their help with this issue: all the writers who contributed to it; DeWitt Henry for permission to use an excerpt from Sweet Dreams, Rusty Barnes for permission to use his interview with DeWitt Henry; Meg Cassidy of Free Press for permission to publish an excerpt from Horses Never Lie About Love; Managing Editor Kathleen Glassburn, Irene Wanner, Scott Driscoll and Thea Chard for their careful reading and editing of manuscripts.

 

We hope you enjoy the sixth issue of The Writer's Workshop Review. Please let us know what you think, and if you have a story that might work for us, please send it. We read all year and welcome submissions at any time. We look forward to hearing from you!