Well, it's been a fun week!
The sunshine (sporadic though it may have been) saw the the tables and chairs being set up outside for the first time this year, and Michael even put a few books out for any lucky people turning up. I wasn't at the shop yesterday, so I hope no books were ruined in the thunder storm.
On Thursday the shop hosted the monthly Fire & Dust poetry open mic night. It looked to be a fairly quiet night until 20 people turned up and ordered a LOT of hot chocolates in one order - who knew making hot chocolate required teamwork? We had some lovely poets come and share their work with us, with topics ranging from the personal to the political, and it was great fun.
If you've been living under a rock this week and hadn't been following us on Twitter, you might have missed it on Friday when Michael found himself in heaven when Jack Hopkinson, Sharon Lewis and The Willows all came to the shop for the Big Comfy Folk Club. There were a lot of tweets and photos, I think Michael was in his element.
He even used heart emojis. HEART EMOJIS
You can almost imagine it. Him standing behind the bar with heart eyes as The Willows played at the bookshop. What a sight to see.
Okay, I'm gonna stop teasing Michael now, because there's one final exciting thing for me to tell you.
It's a secret.
A secret I'm only telling you.
Why?
Because you're our faithful blog reader, obviously.
That, and I'm terrible with secrets anyway.
Okay, here goes.
Are you ready?
I'm tingling with excitement.
I might need to break out my own heart emojis.
Phew.
Okay, I'm ready.
The Big Comfy Book Festival Is Coming
That's right. We're hosting the first ever Big Comfy Book Festival at the end of the summer. Here, at the shop. Where the books live. It's a fitting venue, really.
We're taking over Fargo along with our lovely neighbours Astral Gypsy to bring you a whole weekend filled with authors, novels, poetry, comic books, music and a market offering a whole chunk of book-related memorabilia. You can meet some of the Midlands' local literary heroes, some brilliant authors and comic book artists from around the country, get your books signed by them. There will be a whole program of things to do throughout the weekend featuring a plethora of genres, talks, workshops, and activities. You can eat, drink and be merry in celebration of the written word. We're even having book-related bands here. Everything will be books!
I'm not giving away all the details now because that would spoil the fun (sounds like something a villain would say), but I STRONGLY suggest you stay tuned for more news, because this is gonna be awesome, and you really don't wanna miss out.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to read this gem out in the sunshine while I try and calm down.
Abigail
