Behind The Curtain

Celebrating Ann Arbor's Literary Legacy with Rachel Pastiva

• Rosanita Ratcliff • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Behind the Curtain: Celebrating Ann Arbor's Literary Legacy with Rachel Pastiva

In this episode of Behind the Curtain, host Rosanita Ratcliff converses with Rachel Pastiva from the Ann Arbor Book Society. They delve into Rachel's lifelong passion for reading, her journey through various book-related roles, and her mission to highlight the vast network of independent bookstores in Ann Arbor. Discover how Rachel's efforts are fostering a vibrant literary community, supporting local booksellers, and nurturing a love for reading among residents and visitors alike. Join us for an inspiring discussion on the importance of independent bookstores and the rich literary culture in Ann Arbor.

To learn more about the Ann Arbor Book Society, please visit them at their website

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Rosanita:

Welcome to Behind the Curtain. I'm your host Rosanita Ratcliff. In this week's episode, Binding the Com munity I'll be talking with Rachel Pastiva from the Ann Arbor Book Society. Rachel is the driving force behind the Ann Arbor Book Society. Discover how her efforts are creating a vibrant literary community, fostering a love for reading, and connecting authors, readers, and independent bookstores in a thriving network of shared passion. Hi, Rachel, welcome to the podcast. I'm really excited to talk with you this afternoon about the Ann Arbor book society and how it got started and what it does for the booksellers and the readers here in Ann Arbor. And from what I could tell kind of around the county and part of the state to before we get into that, though, I did want to talk a little bit about your. Sure. Owned background in history. When did you decide that you loved, that you enjoyed reading and how did that take you where we are now?

Rachel:

Well, yeah. Thanks. First of all, Rosanita, thank you so much for having me. I'm really grateful to be here. Excited to talk about the Ann Arbor Book Society. You know, it's really interesting to kind of think back on my life now and see the threads of how reading brought me to where I was still where I am. And I think my earliest. Memory of reading was really my dad reading to me as a kid. We had this collection of Disney books, you know, and he would read, read when I went to bed. But then I also really remember being at our local really small library. Came from a small town. And I remember the librarian reading Charlotte's Web to us. And that really started my love affair. with libraries and reading and libraries really became a big part of my growing up. Whenever I was in middle school, the town built a new library near, near the middle school. And so I would ask to stay after school so I could walk to the library, you know, and when I got my driver's license, the first place I went by myself was the library. So I felt like reading for me, it's just, you know, I was always a really shy kid. And so one of the significant moments in my life in reading was when I was in the seventh grade and I was getting some books out of the library and the school librarian said, I think you might like this author. And when you're in the seventh grade, you just feel so invisible, you know, and you feel invisible, but you also don't want to be seen, you know, it's kind of like, you're just feeling awkward. But she saw me and she saw what I was reading. And she turned me on to. An author. And so, you know, I fell in love with this author, Lois Duncan at the time. And, you know, it just kind of, yes. So you, yes, you know, yes. Stranger with my face. I think it might've been, but yeah. And so. That being with books was something that I just never felt alone when I, when I had a book, you know, and I lived in a really, like, I always call it a suburb of a suburb, it was just a really small town and our bookstore was like a Walden books at the mall, 45 minutes away. So we didn't really have access to books. And so when there was a book I wanted to get, I'd have to, Wait until we were going to the mall and then, you know, I'd go to the bookstore, get it. And I was halfway done with it by the time we were going home, you know, but when I was in college in the mid nineties, that's when borders started to pop up all over, all over, you know, the States. I I'm originally from Northeast Ohio. And I remember near the mall, them opening up this border store and. The moment I walked into this place and this was, you know, back in the nineties, there really weren't like a lot of the big box stores like you see today, especially when it came to books. And so when I first walked into borders, I was just blown away by all of this subjects that I never even heard of. And just, you know, there was music and books and DVDs. Actually it wasn't DVDs back then it was VHS, but you know, there were magazines, all kinds of stuff. And so when I graduated from college, I moved back home. I got. My degree, I got a bachelor of fine arts and creative writing, and so I always like to joke that if I couldn't write the great American novel, I might as well sell it. So I found a Borders that was opening near where my parents lived, and I started working there. And I loved borders so much. I was such a, you know, cheerleader for borders. And when I found out that borders originated in Ann Arbor, I needed to go to Ann Arbor. Like I needed to find this place that this came from, you know, and I wasn't disappointed. I mean, I remember the first time I came to borders, Ann Arbor, I had to go see store one, you know, store one, which wasn't even really its original location. But I mean, I, I came. Parked at Liberty Square, get down on Liberty Street and there was Don Trudder and David's books and there was Kaleidoscope on State Street and Volta Midnight was like a block away. I mean there were seven or eight bookstores just within Three or four blocks right there, you know, and I knew that this is where I needed to be was in Arbor. So I actually transferred from a borders in Ohio to Arbor land and worked there for a few years. Then I left there, got my master's of library science. And while I was getting my master's degree, I ended up getting a job at crazy wisdom bookstore, which was on main street. And I, I always kind of. Thought of myself as a solo librarian because I was the only full timer. I hired the staff, I developed the inventory, I programmed events. But when I was there, I really got a sense of how hard it is to like sustain and grow a bookstore. And at the same time, I was also getting to know some of the bookstore owners in the area. And I could really see. What a labor of love it was to have a bookstore. So at the same time, I started to be on the board of the Ann Arbor book festival, and I was really saddened to find out how few book people really knew how many bookstores there were in Ann Arbor at that time. And at the time that I moved here, it was about eight, but Literati was going to open. This was like 2013 when I was on the board of the book festival and Literati was going to open and the newspapers were all saying, this is so great. Ann Arbor is getting a bookstore again. This is so great. And I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, the Ann Arbor has all of these bookstores, you know, but the consensus. In the media seemed to be that after borders closed in 2011, Ann Arbor had become a book desert. And so I was definitely thrilled that Ann Arbor was gaining another bookstore. And in fact, we gained two because Book Bound opened around the same time that Literati did over on the north side. But I just felt really sad that even local media wasn't aware of this incredible book community. And I had personally moved to Ann Arbor for the bookstores because of And I just assumed that Ann Arbor People understood that as part of their identity that Ann Arbor's identity is, you know, books. I mean, we have access to so many books and it really wasn't the case. And so I just really felt like people needed to see it from an outsider's perspective who didn't grow up having access to this great book community that it is something we should be valuing. It's something we should be supporting and celebrating. And so I really felt like that was going to have to be my mission that I was going to be the 1 to do that. And in fact, actually, there was a consortium of bookstores in the mid nineties who had started, it was called the Ann Arbor Independent Booksellers Association. And it was surprising to me. I read a bunch of things on the Ann Arbor district library's old news collection, you know, around that time. And they were struggling even back then when there were all these bookstores, they were still struggling. And so a lot of the bookstore owners got together and pulled their resources and But ads in the paper, so you could get discounts at any of these bookstores and they wrote articles talking about the stores and what kinds of things we're selling and they even designed a map that actually became the basis of our book town map that we distribute in Ann Arbor, but that really inspired me. Cause what I'm doing now, it was done before the book sellers really tried to. Come together before and make a name for Ann Arbor through what they were doing. And I want to carry on that legacy, you know, and I want to try to get it to stick this time.

Rosanita:

This is so interesting to me because. I was born and raised here in Ann Arbor, so I think I just took all of this for granted here. Right. My book borrowing experiences were with the district library back when we had the loving branch library, which was, you know, just a cute little adorable branch that I think now it's a piano store. But to a little kid, it was huge. And my goal in life back then was just to read every single book the library had to offer. And, you know, part of me was like, darn this place, because they continuously buy new ones. Never going to reach my goal. The other part of me was like, this is so fantastic. They keep buying new books for me to read. And so, you know, you mentioned in crazy wisdom and these other stores, it's just like my childhood kind of coming back and especially in the borders because I remember the original borders, it was tiny. And then the 1 where it took over where Jacobson's used to be, and then it moving to Arbor land and then when it went away, there were still other bookstores. So it never really felt like a book. Desert here, and I think maybe that's kind of a difference between people who were here and kind of townies or spend a lot of time downtown. Maybe it wasn't like a secret club, but we were just known as book town or book city.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Rosanita:

Right. And so I wasn't living in Ann Arbor. I don't think when. Literati opened, but I remember the excitement about it, but it just felt like kind of a yes, we're getting another bookstore and it's opening over here. It's going to have this and it just just sounds so great. And I don't remember the slant of it being that we were a book desert, but I also wasn't living here and I wasn't paying close attention. I was just Having that other side of the excitement, and so it's disappointing to hear that there are people who didn't understand how many bookstores were still around. Right,

Rachel:

right. Well, and I think that said, it's like, for me, part of wanting to, you know, bridge that gap of knowledge of the people like you, who grew up there. And it was like an assumption. Of course, you knew that Ann Arbor is a very transient population, right? Because of the university, all the universities. And so there really needs to be something that's kind of. Perpetually reminding people and I realized that there really wasn't a resource like if you were writing an article about this bookstore literati, and you wanted to kind of understand the history of books in Ann Arbor or what other bookstores were available. There really wasn't. A place that you could go to. Like, it was really like, you'd have to do all this legwork and find these, and, and I thought I wanted to be a resource to everybody, to the media, to visitors, to Ann Arbor rights, to, you know, just anybody who's interested in, in learning about what the options are in this town. You know,'cause it, it just wasn't. There because like you said, I mean, I love the fact that you said that, and there were articles written at different times about Ann Arbor being a book town. You know, Joe Gable, who was a, a manager of the Borders downtown. I think he wrote an article how Ann Arbor was becoming a book town, like Chicago or someplace else. But it, it needs to be celebrated like that, right? When I go places, people ask me about the football team. I'm not, I'm not a fan of football, but there's another legacy that Ann Arbor should be known for. And, and I really believe as somebody who moved here for the books, well, first of all, I mean, I know that every single one of Ann Arbor's bookstores, independent bookstores have people who travel from out of the city, sometimes probably out of the state just to go to that bookstore. And if they knew, which they're starting to learn that there are all these other bookstores, sometimes within walking distance, all within a couple miles of each other. You know, why not make a weekend of it? We have these beautiful theaters, great restaurants. Why not come to Ann Arbor and experience it as a book community? There's plenty to do.

Rosanita:

That's so true. And I've lived in other cities that were like how you described growing up, where there was just one library and then, you know, you having to travel to go to a bookstore, right? And having seen that difference and then being here is making me reflect a lot. And even when I was living elsewhere, I was reflecting on how lucky I was to have grown up here, surrounded by that, not just because of. You know, I could basically lose myself in a story and find myself in some other world, but it was also where kids here are able to gain so much more knowledge about whatever subject they want to be able to learn about, right? Not just because of the library, which is amazing, but because there's access to it. All of these different independent bookstores and not everyone's as lucky to have that, but it also fed into why I wanted to talk with you is because I was like, here's someone who saw all of these independent stores and was like, how is it that we can shine a light on them and what they have to offer?

Rachel:

Right. Well, and I think part of it for me too, was when I met these bookstore owners, a lot of them were. Still the people behind the counter. And it's still like that, you know, for some of them and they don't have the time, the money, or, you know, or the resources to really be going out and doing that work for themselves. They've, some of them have been here for 30 or 40 years. And so I really felt like that was my love letter to the bookstores in Ann Arbor was to be that person to shine that light on them. And, and, you know, one of the things I want to speak on. is my experiences with bookstores so that to me, I really feel like they are part of the foundation of the consciousness of Ann Arbor. I mean, I really do. Ann Arbor has been considered a really progressive place for a long time, and I think the bookstores are a big part of that. But The bookstores are just part of the book community, like you said. We have an award winning library system. We have the Zell Visiting Writers Series at U of M, so interesting authors come through here. And we have great local non profits, like there's the AAUW Annual Book Sale, and there's the Midwest Literary Walk, and we have book festivals. So there are a lot of ways to be connecting with books in our community. And so sometimes I think Even as the book society, we get tunnel vision on just the bookstores because they're really concrete and they have events every month. But we want to make sure that we're celebrating all the ways that books manifest in our community and how people interact with them.

Rosanita:

We're also a community with a lot of authors. A ton of authors and writers who, yeah, they, they give book talks at the local bookstores, at the local libraries, at the university, everywhere. I don't always like the term literary community because it kind of sounds a little highfalutin, if you will, because sometimes you just want to read something that's fun when you don't think. Yes. Someone's not going to deem it great literature, but on the other side of it, it's, it's a really good read. Because it serves its purpose to right because we also have those authors here too. And it's kind of like, you can find whatever it is you're looking for. You can kind of find here. What's not at 1 bookstore. It's at another bookstore, or they may not have heard of it, but they'll look into it and they'll order it or the library will order it. Right? And I think that having the out of a book society. Because like you said, we are a transient community, but having something where you have a website you can go to that shows, oh, yeah, here's all the bookstores here, you know, if you didn't find it at this one, and you didn't know that there were like, seven other bookstores, right? And how do you know that you can go to to one of them to ask because some of them are specialty stores like an antique bookstore. Right? And so, because I learned a lot just looking at the website about the different stories, the different activities that are happening now. Right?

Rachel:

And so we really wanted to be. Just basically aggregating information, you know, go from all these different places so that instead of having to go to literati's website to find their events and going to the library's website to find their event. It's like, oh, you want a story time. Let's go to the book societies comprehensive events calendar and see where there are story times this month. You know, so that's a big part of what, what we're trying to do.

Rosanita:

Yeah. I looked at that calendar and I was like, how can I fit all of these things into my schedule? I can't, and then I was like, who's kid can I borrow? We all know you can't just show up to some things as a grownup saying, Hey, I want my face painted as somebody who's reading a book. It's okay. If you've got your niece or nephew with you, right?

Rachel:

Well, I don't know if book suites still doing them, but there were those grown folks story times that I know Patty Smith, the local author organized with some local authors, she'd come in in her pajamas, you can come in wearing your pajamas and you're being read to as an adult, you're being read a book. So maybe there's room for that.

Rosanita:

There is, and see, and again, that's why we need something like the Ann Arbor Book Society. I moved back during COVID, so a lot of stuff, I don't know, like, I've been living in a cave, right? So to hear that there was a grown up pajama book party, I'm like, this is so awesome. Yes. I'm having way too much fun right now. Thank you for putting up with this. Before we started recording, one thing we touched on and what I said is that I'm fascinated by how it is that people are able to go, you know, I see this gap. And gosh, darn it, I'm going to go ahead and jump in and try to create something to fill it. I love hearing how it is that people made that decision to go ahead and do it right? Because there is the level of courage in that. Now, I know that you said that there was. a previous society or association of the independent bookseller. I mean, you weren't a bookstore owner. Right. Right. And so it's still where you jumped in and you recreated something and took it a step further. I I'd say, because I mean, now we're in the 2020s. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a difference in how we let people know about events. Right. Right. And you have to kind And so how is it that you were able to be like, okay, I can do this?

Rachel:

I really think it was meeting some of these bookstore owners, knowing the labor of love that it was for them, knowing the time and energy they put into it and knowing that if more people knew about it, more people would love it. Love that, you know, going into those places and that so much of it really is just about exposure and my experience being someone who was an outsider coming to Ann Arbor, I know that there are a lot of other people who have that same experience and that more people would again, if they just had, you know, had that understanding. And so I think for me, I really felt called to do it. Like, I really felt like I was this vehicle because I did feel like I had this unique perspective of. Having come to Ann Arbor because of the bookstores and working in an independent bookstore for a long time and seeing the challenges of that, I just, I don't know, I just felt like it was like I didn't have a choice, you know, that it was just kind of like, this is, you know, This is where I'm, I'm supposed to go next.

Rosanita:

Were you doing this on your own or did you have other people to, to help with setting the foundation?

Rachel:

One of the things that's so humbling about starting a nonprofit is you really are starting it from nothing. And if my dream was to open a restaurant or a bookstore, I could have gone to the bank. I could have gotten a loan and then I'd have money to hire a staff and rent a building. But here, when you start a nonprofit, you start with an idea and that's all you have. Right. And then you hopefully get people to believe in that idea and want to invest their time and their energy and hopefully their money into building it. So really it was that I had found people at different times who can help. One of my earliest collaborators, there was this consortium of bookstores in the mid nineties. And there was this particular article I read called independent bookstores unite written in 1994 by Kay Marsh, who at the time was the manager of little professor. And I knew of Kay. I knew her daughter. And so in 2016, I actually was able to connect with Kay. And she became an early collaborator for the book society. And you know, she had worked at Borders for a long time in the eighties. And so, you know, she, and she owned Main Street News. So she also had been embedded in the book community for a long time. So she really just instantly got it, what I was trying to do. And actually the funny thing is, is When I started, it was also called the Ann Arbor Independent Booksellers Association because I was thinking in terms of the bookstores, but we realized early on that not only is that such a long tongue twister of a name, it confuses people into thinking it's an association for bookstores. For the bookstores, like it's a membership association when it's really an association for the community, for the readers. So Kay really helped me in the beginning, refine what our focus was. And then slowly over time, I built a board. I did all kinds of research on applying for nonprofit status. I filed all that paperwork myself and was one of my proudest moments when I got the IRS. Nation is a 501c3. And so it's just been over time, just like building a board, getting volunteers. The same kind of exposure that I was trying to gain for the bookstores and the book community, I'm also trying to gain for the book society. So where we are now is just really getting people to know that we exist. And honestly, one of the main things we do is our book town map. Which is a free map that we distribute to all the places on the map, which is the independent bookstores, the Kiwanis or share house places that you can get really affordable books. And we're trying to get it distributed into hotels now. And I'm always so excited when somebody, I mentioned to them that I founded the Ann Arbor Book Society and say, I have that map on my refrigerator, you know? So I feel like, okay, we're making it. People have heard of us outside of me talking about it. They're seeing us. and around town.

Rosanita:

That's s having the map placed in when you were mentioning a weekend of it? I fully I went to Vegas, I was at But there's a bookstore there. It's an antique bookstore. And I was like, no, no, you can go ahead. I'll be here amongst the books from Oh, this was published in 1874. I'll be right here with this. Right? So what that map being in a hotel, someone who came for, say, the game, right, and they're tailgating downtown or celebrating a victory. They could also wander into one of those bookstores and I just, I think that's great.

Rachel:

Oh yeah. And, and really I'm always getting really positive feedback from the booksellers. They say, you know, they love giving these maps to their customers and their faces just light up when they go, Oh my gosh, it's a trifold map. You open it up and there's all these. places and they're just so surprised and delighted to see this thing. They thought, Oh, I'm just going into this bookstore today. And now they're like, Oh, I might be going to several more bookstores or I might go to, you know, Kiwanis or share house or the PTO for shop, you know, and find some great deals on books. So yeah, I'm really proud of the map. Our being able to distribute the map is only limited by the funding that we receive, which hasn't been much because we're really just, you know, donation based at this point, but I just recently started asking for sponsorships. for our map. And so our goal is to try to print and distribute 10, 000 maps this year. So I think up until now, since we started in 2016, we've distributed 17, 000 maps. So if we could distribute another 10 this year, that would be a real victory for us.

Rosanita:

So to donate, would people just go to the website? Yes. Yep.

Rachel:

Yeah, we do have a page on our website for donations.

Rosanita:

Yeah, you, you mentioned just donations. Is there a friends of kind of membership program potentially in the works for later on,

Rachel:

you know, we haven't really thought about that, but, you know, that's a possibility. Yeah, that's a good idea. Right now. We've just been. You know, I'm giving Tuesday or something kind of reminding people of who we are. But I mean, I I've been grateful that there are people who believe in what we do and they, they want to support it. So, and really we were lucky because when the Ann Arbor book festival dissolved. They actually donated the rest of their funds to us. So that really helped to sustain us early on.

Rosanita:

Oh, wow. What is it any other nonprofit? They do have to donate what's left to an organization. But I think that says a lot about the belief that the board had in what what it is that you guys are trying to do.

Rachel:

Yes, I agree. It was a real honor. And yeah, we really appreciated the funds, but you know, it was bittersweet because that meant that the Ann Arbor book festival was dissolved, which was really a great festival that we loved having in Ann Arbor for many years.

Rosanita:

Yeah, but we still have the Kerrytown Book Festival, the, is it Antiquarian?

Rachel:

Yeah, Ann Arbor Antiquarian Festival. Yep. And the Kerrytown Book Festival just recently changed its name to the A2 Community Book Festival, I believe. So, yes, we still have those two and, you know, the literary walk is in Chelsea every year and there are some bigger like Detroit started having a festival about maybe five years ago. So that's that's actually a pretty, pretty big thing. So, so we do try to. You know, promote things that are happening in other places. And one of the things, like you mentioned, going to Las Vegas, one of the things I love to do is a bookstore road trip, because anytime I'm traveling, you know, in the state of Michigan or anywhere else, of course I'm going to find a bookstore there. So, so we, we have a feature on our website called Bookstore Road Trip, where we will go to bookstores around. you know, Michigan and interview the owners and take pictures and talk a little bit about those places to encourage people in their travels to find a bookstore wherever they end up.

Rosanita:

It wasn't a bookstore road trip, but I do know that whenever we go visit my grandparents in Grand Rapids, my grandmother would always have either books waiting for us or little gift cards for what's called Pooh's Corner after Winnie the Pooh. And it was. Just this little cute, independent bookstore in one of the malls there. And what always stood out to me is, yeah, like, they had a great variety of the authors you'd see every day, but for a city that was considered pretty conservative, they also had a really good selection of African American books. Books with black characters and by black authors for kids. I mean, it was an entire kids bookstore, right? And, you know, now when we talk about it, it was kind of like, it's this new thing about multicultural books, but it existed in the past. It was just a lot harder to find back then there weren't as many authors, but we still had it. And it was in some of these independent bookstores that we could. That we could find the books for kids that, you know, where we were like, Oh, there's a character that looks like me, or, you know, that we could relate to on that aspect. Yeah,

Rachel:

yeah. And I think that's what makes independent bookstores so special is that. I mean, everyone you're going to walk into is going to be different because they're informed by the buyers of that store. Right. And, and hopefully they're finding things to reflect the community that comes into that store. Right. And so I think that that's, you know, it makes it so special as opposed to going to Barnes and Noble, where, you know, that these are, these are the New York times bestselling books. I mean, I personally go into the bookstore to find those books. under the radar books that you're not hearing about. That's what I think a good independent bookstore does well, is to introduce you to something. That you didn't already know about. Right.

Rosanita:

Right. Oh, no, for sure. That's what my mom does when she's looking for books for all the kids who she's adopted as honorary grandchildren, but she'll go in and, you know, there are all the books that are on display, but she'll spend Um, and then I would spend the time for the ones that are tucked into the shelves and pull them out and look through them and, you know, really go, okay, which kid is going to like this, or I'm looking for this specific kid and, you know, let me look through all of the ones until I find the perfect book for them.

Rachel:

Yeah,

Rosanita:

yeah, it's a great scavenger hunt being yes bookstore. Right? Because oh, yeah, once you make your way through the different sections, you found that 1 book or 20 that right?

Rachel:

Yeah, it's more likely the case.

Rosanita:

That's it for this week's episode of Behind the Curtain. Thank you for joining me and Rachel Pastiva in our fascinating discussion about the Ann Arbor Book Society and the vibrant literary community it nurtures. Rachel's passion and dedication are truly inspiring and we can't wait to dive even deeper into her journey and the impact of the Ann Arbor Book Society, and our next episode. Stay tuned for part two, where we'll explore more about the challenges and triumphs of fostering a love for reading and connecting authors, readers and bookstores. Remember, if you enjoy today's episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends. For more updates and behind the scenes content, follow us on social media. Until next time, keep exploring the stories that inspire you and don't forget to support your local independent bookstores. This is Rosanita Ratcliff signing off. Happy reading.

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