From the street this past month, Imprint has looked like a construction site. What you couldn't see from the sidewalk is that the work didn't stop at the building. In case you missed it on social media, we had the good fortune of purchasing our historic building back in February — an opportunity that came faster than we ever anticipated. With so much uncertainty in the world right now, especially economically, the chance to ensure our rent remains something our meager book margins could afford was one we couldn't pass up. The great news is that Imprint Bookshop will remain right where it has been for over 45 years, for what we hope will be decades to come.
With ownership also comes the responsibility of maintaining its historic facade, which sorely needed some structural repairs to better withstand the elements and a fresh coat of paint. Needless to say, this work has made for slower sales as of late (some folks have questioned whether we were even open for business) but we know the investment will be well worth it. And fortunately, the work was done with expert precision and right on schedule, which means the scaffolding comes down on Monday, June 1st, and we could not be more excited for the big reveal!
Throughout all of this, I have been struck by how often the outer world mirrors the inner one, if we're paying attention. That this work fell in the month of May — which also happens to be Mental Health Awareness Month — feels worth noting. I had originally planned a window display reflecting the month's theme but lost steam when I realized barely anyone would see it, given everything happening out front. The scaffolding outside came to symbolize something deeper for me this May: a month that holds some big grief, with the anniversaries of my brother's, mother's, and two cousins' passing, as well as a blessing with my birthday tucked in there. Somewhere along the way, I became so outwardly focused — on establishing ourselves here in Port Townsend, running this new (to me) business, being of service to the community — that I neglected to tend to my own mental health. Quite fortunately, life has a way of giving you what you need exactly when you need it, and this slower-than-usual May gave me the time and space to look inward and recognize where my own scaffolding was lacking.
Now that I am nearly on the other side of this month, I feel so grateful for the ways in which grace showed up for me right when I was running on empty. Thanks to the reliable stewardship of our incredible staff I've been able to take some time away from the shop to attend to my inner emotional landscape, which in turn helps me make better decisions for my overall health and well-being. The work on the building, and the scaffolding it required, synchronistically mirrored the work I needed to do within — as above, so below. And the way this has all played out, personally and professionally, has me thinking about how much we might miss when we rely so heavily on outward appearances to understand what's really happening, or how someone is truly doing.
This month I read Douglas Stuart's new novel, John of John, a book I had been eagerly anticipating, I'll admit, partly because of the name, but also because I have genuinely loved everything he has written. It's the story of a father and a son sharing one small croft on a windswept Scottish island, each one certain he already knows the other, each one quietly hiding a whole life the other never sees. Early on, the son comes home and we learn it took him ten minutes to pack four years of his life, but a good deal longer "to fold himself away, to hide all the bits of himself." I haven't stopped thinking about that line. How much of our energy goes into the folding. How rarely we let one another see what's really there behind the scaffolding.
We've heard it said before, but you never really know what someone else is holding just by looking at them — which is one of the reasons why this month matters so much. In these difficult times, and very likely always, so many of us are carrying things no one can see. But it doesn't have to be that way. Reaching out to one another with genuine curiosity and care, extending a comforting hand over the counter (thank you, Julie Coryell), sharing resources as best we can (thank you, Lara Barnum), all of these seemingly little gestures mean more than you'll ever know. Slowing down and giving yourself permission to step back and attend to your own needs isn't just self-care — it serves the greater community as well. My resilience is your resilience is ourresilience. Thank you all for being part of my journey, and for the scaffolding you provide me as we do this hard work of being human together.
None of us should have to fold ourselves away. If you or someone you know is carrying something heavy this month or beyond, please know you don't have to carry it alone. Below are a list of resources that might help.
In deepest gratitude and regards,
John
If you or someone you know needs support, here are a few places to start.
In an emergency, call 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available by call or text, 24/7. Or dial 911.
Salish Regional Crisis Line — Free, confidential, 24/7 crisis support for Jefferson, Clallam, and Kitsap Counties. Call 1-888-910-0416.
Discovery Behavioral Healthcare — Our local community mental health center, offering free crisis services and ongoing behavioral health care to all East Jefferson County residents. Walk-in crisis services available at 884 W. Park Avenue, Port Townsend, Monday through Friday. discoverybh.org | 360-385-0321
NAMI Jefferson County — The local affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness offers free drop-in support groups on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, for individuals living with mental illness as well as family members and caregivers, along with peer-led education classes. namijeffcowa.org | 360-385-1716
Dove House Advocacy Services — Confidential support for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other crimes in Port Townsend and East Jefferson County. 24/7 crisis line: 360-385-5291. dovehousejc.org
Crisis Text Line — Free, confidential, 24/7. Text HOME to 741741.
Headway — 70,000+ therapists and psychiatrists. All covered by insurance. headway.co
Behind The Scenes: Stories from Three Writers’ Lives Thursday, June 25th at 5:30pm at Imprint Bookshshop
Join best-selling authors Erica Bauermeister, Anna Quinn, and Louisa Morgan for an unfiltered conversation about obsessions and mildly unhinged writing habits, rabbit holes, false starts and new drafts, strange notes from editors—and those themes we return to over and over.
Lindy West is the author of three books: the New York Times bestselling memoir Shrill as well as the essay collections The Witches Are Coming and Shit, Actually. Lindy is a former contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and her work has appeared in This American Life, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Vulture, Jezebel, and others. She is the co-host of the comedy podcast Text Me Back and the author of the e-mail newsletter Butt News. Lindy was a writer and executive producer on Shrill, the Hulu comedy adapted from her memoir, and she co-wrote and produced the independent feature film Thin Skin. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in rural Washington state.
Samantha Ladwig is a librarian. Her writing has been published by The Cut, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Vulture, Real Simple, Vice, and others. She is a longtime book critic at BUST.
Please join us in the Carnegie Reading Room for an evening discussion with authors John Larison and Annie Bartos. John was the Port Townsend Library's 2020 Community Read author of Whiskey We're Dry. He has since written The Ancients, "A richly imagined, intricately woven novel of hope, love, and adventure set in the unforgiving world of our own descendants." [Read more here.]
Annie Bartos' creative writing appears in The Rumpus, The Bellingham Review, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. She has a PhD in Geography and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She’s an alum of summer workshops at Bread Loaf, Tin House, and Kenyon Review. Her debut essay collection is forthcoming with the University of Georgia Press. Prior to the pandemic, she was a professor in Aotearoa New Zealand.
BOOK CLUBS
Since October, we have been running a small store-sponsored book club together — call it a prototype, a way of learning what we wanted these gatherings to be and what seems to motivate readers within our bookshop community. We're putting that club on pause for the time being, because what we learned is that there is enough demand for concurrent book clubs exploring differing themes, authors, and interests. So this summer, Imprint is offering two book clubs instead of just one!
But the bigger story is that book clubs and literary-focused programming are becoming a real part of what Imprint does. We're also hoping to launch a YA club for our younger readers — that one depends on finding the right person to lead it, and we are already in conversation with a couple of folks around this. And we'd love to hear from anyone who might want to lead a more topical or special-interest club out of our space. Poetry, science fiction, books in translation — whatever you've been hungry to read with others and haven't found the right space or folks to network with. We have the room and capacity to support you with this.
John is launching a Steinbeck Summer Study — a closed cohort of twelve readers spending four months with two Steinbeck novels and one biography. We'll start with To a God Unknown, then read William Souder's Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck, and close with East of Eden, which I can confidently say is my very favorite book. The arc of our study is to follow Steinbeck forward — first into his strange, mythic early work, then through the life that shaped him, and finally into the novel he believed he'd been training his whole life to write.
We will meet four times at 5pm, on the last Sunday of June, July, and August, and then meet one last time to close on Sunday October 4th with our discussion of the second half of East of Eden. Incidentally, the Western Flyer — Steinbeck's restored boat (of which there is an art print hanging above our sales desk) — returns to Port Townsend May 28th through June 7th, just as we open the first book, and all of this leading up to a new limited series adaptation of East of Eden arriving on Netflix this fall.
Click here to learn more about the Steinbeck Summer Study. Use this form to register.
Misty's new book club is called She Says. It's a quarterly club focused on women-identified voices, and this summer she's chosen three books in three different registers — a literary novel, a historical novel, and a thriller. That club will meet on the last Tuesday of June, July, and August at 5:30 in the evening. It's a lower-commitment club: three good books, three good conversations, and paced well for the summer.
Introducing Upstairs at Imprint
One more thing worth mentioning. We've recently opened the second floor of the shop as a small rental space — we're calling it Upstairs at Imprint. A warm, quiet room for book clubs, writing groups, and small gatherings of all kinds.
Three rate tiers, and the reasoning behind them says something about how we think. The Community Rate is for book clubs that source their books through the library, through audiobooks, however they come to reading — because we believe in book clubs as a public good. The Reader Rate is lower, for groups that buy their books directly through us. And the Program Rate is for instructors and practitioners running paid sessions. We also offer add-ons — coffee, pastries, charcuterie, and local wine from Marrowstone Vineyards.
The flyer below has the full details. If something about it sparks an idea, we'd love to hear what you're thinking.
And a poem to end on...
To close, here is a passage I've been carrying lately from Naomi Shihab Nye's Kindness — a poem that brings me genuine comfort and I hope it does for you as well:
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voicecatches
the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for,and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
— Naomi Shihab Nye, from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (1995)
Read the full poem at poets.org/poem/kindness. Words Under the Words is available at Imprint, or we'd be glad to order it for you.
