Family Update - Birth Announcement!!

So I've been absent from the Withywindle Blog for good reason - the result of which I'm pleased to announce below...

Alder Maurice Menard was born on November 22nd, 2009 at 2:13 PM, weighing only 5 lbs., 14 oz., despite being 13 days past his due date. We brought Alder home from the hospital on Nov. 24, and he and I are both doing well (other than some sleep deprivation...).


Welcome to the family precious little boy!!

Back from Summer 'Vacation'

I've come to the forced conclusion that other than Readercon in July, I pretty much need to take the summers off from bookselling. As long as I'm working my current 'other' job, that is. With the family and work schedule as packed as they are in the summer months, there just isn't room for doing as much with the store as I'd like.

I don't mind this much, as taking some time away gives me a fresh perspective on what I'm doing and where the store is headed. However this fall and winter will be a bit different. We have a baby on the way, and he's due in the beginning of November. I will probably officially put the store on vacation for a few weeks (which even though I'm crazy busy in the summer, leave the Withywindle site, and all our listings active) while I get re-acclimated to life with a new baby. I'm planning on taking 12 weeks of maternity leave from my full-time job, but don't really have a sense of how much I'm going to be doing with the store in that time (other than my first few weeks of recovery, which will be all recovery)... I guess I'll find out soon enough. Will post pictures of our newest family member when he arrives. :)

My Weekend at Readercon 20... In Brief

Very brief... I had all this great stuff I was going to post, but (unsurprisingly) have no time in which to write it all. So the blurb below that I was able to get written on Sunday will have to suffice. I will add that this was the best set-up we've had with only one table at a con. Many thanks to bookstore coordinator extraordinaire Lois who treated us amazingly well, as always (home-baked cookies were over the top!).

I attended the Shirley Jackson awards on Sunday, which only lasted a ½ hr, much to my surprise. Fairly low-key, several winners were not in attendance due to international locations. Of the winners, now that I'm thinking on it, really only two were there to accept their awards – Jeffrey Ford and Michael Bishop. Michael Bishop won for best short story - “The Pile”, which he said was inspired by findings on his late son's computer. The rest of his acceptance speech was a poem written about his son. I defy anyone with children not to have been moved by this piece. Jeffrey Ford won for best novel - "The Shadow Year".

I'm pleased to note that Readercon has been quite busy (particularly given Boskone attendance in February and the state of the economy). Some highlights from the weekend include: surprising crowds and sales late Friday evening (the bookstore was open from 6 -9), getting books signed by Peter Straub and hanging out with and learning from the folks at Kuenzig books who were our neighbors for the convention. John and Sonya are not only great company, but hugely generous in their coaching and advice to [still feeling new despite doing these things for a few years] fellow booksellers.

Stephen King Store on Amazon

Shame on me, huge Stephen King fan that I am, for not finding this little homage to my favorite author sooner. Amazon has a 'Stephen King Store', complete with videos clips of interviews, and a few items worth noting. One gem I found of particular interest was an audio book of King's acceptance speech (titled 'Building Bridges') when he received the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Service to American Letters. If you're a King fan, it's worth a look (if you can stand the shameless marketing that goes along with everything Amazon). And if you're looking for Stephen King stuff not necessarily found on Amazon, have a look at our King catalog.

Shirley Jackson Award-Winning Authors Featured at Readercon 20

Readercon hosts the Shirley Jackson awards again this year, and we will be featuring Shirley Jackson award-winning authors at our table in the dealer's room. Included in the selection will be books by Joe Hill, Ellen Datlow (ed.), Dan Simmons, Christopher Golden, Lucius Shepard, and Readercon 20 Guest of Honor Elizabeth Hand.

In other - and very exciting - Readercon news, we've discovered that Peter Straub will be attending Readercon 20!! I'm so excited - I've been reading Peter's work for decades. Needless to say, once we've gotten him over to the Withywindle table we'll (presumably!) have a selection of signed books available including:


ARC (advanced reading copy):
The Hellfire Club

First editions:
The Throat
Koko
Ghost Story
The Talisman
and more...

Sci-fi Hardcover Book Club Collection

Here's a few of the new titles at Withywindle from a local collector....

Withywindle is on Facebook!

Well, I've been meaning to do this for a while, but we've finally got a Facebook page up for the bookstore. Visit us here. We'll do periodic discounts for our Facebook fans so join up!

Vending at Readercon

It looks like we'll be selling at Readercon this year from July 9 - 12 at the Burlington Marriott (whoo-hoo!). We'll post more info on the con shortly including a preview of the inventory we're bringing.

Additionally, we're in the process of uploading a collection of books recently purchased to the Withywindle website (most of which will coming with us to the con in July). We have a number of collections by a variety of authors including Larry Niven, Brian Aldiss, Gene Wolf, Rodger Zelazny, John Varley and more. They're all hardcover BCEs in VG/VG condition or better. If you're interested in hearing more about this collection (or individual titles) before it all gets uploaded drop us a line. We hope to have more info and pictures up here on the blog soon.

Boskone 46 Update, Day 2

Cross-posted at Off the Path Journal.

Boskone 46 has been underway since yesterday at 5 PM (for dealers, anyway), and I'm glad to see that today seems busier (in terms of numbers, if not sales) then yesterday. I don't know if it's the new location of the Huckster's Room, or if the space is actually larger, but it feel much more spread out and the number of people in attendance yesterday felt quite small. It doesn't help that we're in the back of the room (last year we were right up front, which was lovely) so it takes people longer to get around to our section. But even walking around, the crowd seemed smaller. I haven't done much walking around this morning but overall it's busier – much more like previous years.

I'm hoping to get out later on – I've got to at least head up to the lobby and check email; Greg Bear is signing today and I'm looking forward to meeting him. More later!

LARPing Camp

Cross-posted at Off the Path Journal.

Well, it's official - there really is a camp for any interest. At the camp fair I was working at on Sunday, there were representatives from a camp called Wizards and Warriors - day and residential camps where kids can learn swordsmanship and armor making, and participate in LARPing (live action role playing), by making their own characters and living in a medieval village!

This is so cool... I don't think I would have wanted to do this as a kid (I was way too horse-crazy), but as a camp professional (and fantasy freak), I think it's fabulous!