No, this is not a post on the merits or calamities of marking your place in a book with a bent page.
Dog Ear Books is a lovely little independent bookstore attached to Wild Fox Coffee in Brookhaven, MS. The bookstore opened last fall after Hurricane Baby was released, and it came to my attention in an email I got at work from Shelf Awareness. Earlier this year, I decided to give them a call and try to work out an event with them. So that event was where I spent most of my day yesterday,
The bookstore/coffeeshop is located in an old home place–the coffeeshop is in the back, likely where the kitchen would have been when people lived there. The other rooms are filled with books, tons of comfortable seating, and bookish items. They have a used-book room, a romance/fantasy book room, a classic book room, and a kids’ book room as well.
We got there before lunch and asked where a good place to eat would be, and they directed us to Friends, a Mexican restaurant across the street. Had a lovely meal there, then came back for frappes and setting up the event. They had a very nice table in their romance room, so I sat there to greet people.
The neatest thing about this event was that there were two events going on around the town–a baseball tournament and a four-wheeler race. Almost everyone who bought a book was in town for one of those events! Some came because of the social media posts about me being there, but I signed books for people from Oklahoma, Louisiana, and surrounding towns in south Mississippi.
The staff, particularly assistant manager Ashley, could not have been nicer. I sold half of their stock of my books and signed the rest so they could offer the signed copies to their customers. It was a good trip, and a good time was had by all.
Next event is another Mississippi Writers’ Guild event for the coastal chapter on June 18 and then a signing at Coffee Prose, our own coffeeshop/bookstore in Highland Village in Jackson. Hope to see some of you out and about! Happy reading and writing!
Julie Liddell Whitehead 