Landmark Books celebrates our fourth year in business on October 1st. It has been an exciting year of readings, workshops and typing fun! We have come a long way from our humble beginnings in 2013. We opened our shop in a three hundred square foot fishbowl of a space and have now doubled in size in our current shop.
So what happened this year? We hosted a workshop on building a home library and a workshop on what to look for when buying a vintage typewriter. We sponsored a haiku contest with Squirrel Cane Press and published the winner, Ellen Lord’s poem “Lunacy”. Landmark Books sponsored the Audience Prize at Poets’ Night Out, a juried local poetry competition put on by the Traverse Area District Library. We hosted visiting Interlochen instructor Christina Nichol who read from her award winning book, “Waiting for the Electricity” along with poet Jennifer Sperry Steinorth. We were proud to be the bookseller for the book launch of poet Fleda Brown’s latest collection of poetry, “The Woods are on Fire”. In June we held our Fourth Annual Type-In which brought collectors and enthusiast from all over the state. In total we had 48 typewriters on display. Landmark Books also held a special fiction reading with first time novelist Chris Minnick and store owner Paul Stebleton who read excerpts from his soon to be published novel. And we closed out the year with a celebration of Banned Book Week.
Also celebrating four years in the business is Squirrel Cane Press which published their first chapbook this year and launched a new series of poetry books called the Condensed Poetry Series. Next year they will publish their first novel and a new poetry broadside.
What will the next year bring? Well, with your continued support we hope to bring more readings and events that will challenge the mind and grow your knowledge. We promise to provide you with some of the best rare and out-of-print books in the area in a fun and relaxing environment. So watch our website, ‘like’ us on facebook and most importantly stop by the store and see what’s new.