Often when people plan to write a book, they dream their book will get published by one of the big publishers – Hatchette, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, or HarperCollins. My story is different and I’ve always been grateful to have gotten in on the ground floor with a small publisher. When my son was about 6 months old, I began working very part-time in a wonderful local Ithaca bookstore, McBooks. It was started by Alex Skutt (the store’s name was a nod to his political hero, George McGovern.) I brought my son to work during his nap times and he slept in a carrier under my desk in the back office where I did the bookkeeping. One day the bookstore owner mentioned he was going to venture into publishing, starting a company called McBooks Press. His first project was to publish a book of poetry written by his girlfriend. I somewhat jokingly asked him if he’d be willing to publish something that I wrote. “Well, it depends on what you write,” he replied, reasonably so. At that point, in 1978, I was a vegetarian. In those times, vegetarianism was considered a questionable nutritional choice for adults, and I could not find any information about feeding a vegetarian baby. And so at home, I was trying to figure out how to give my son a healthy diet now that he was ready to eat solid food. Then I realized I was already doing deeper research on a topic that…

After years of research and writing, author Sharon Yntema has published her latest book, Ithaca Area Bookstores: Two Hundred years of Bookstore History in Tompkins County 1819-2019. A compendium of retail operations dedicated to purveying books offers a history of a reading community through the lens of bookstores. Sharon agreed to an interview about her new release. Q: When were the first bookstores opened in Ithaca? The first bookstore in Ithaca was opened in 1819 by Ebenezer Mack, who also founded the Ithaca Journal. His bookstore was small, and located in the area where the Tompkins County Public Library now stands. He imported a few books, according to Ithaca Journal ads at the time, but also owned a paper mill and published books at his printing press. Cornell University was founded in 1865, forty-six years later. Q: How long have you lived in Ithaca and what was the first bookstore you visited in Ithaca? I moved to Ithaca in 1975. The first bookstore I visited was McBooks, which was also the first bookstore I worked in. The owner, Alex Skutt, taught me how to do bookkeeping for the store which served me well in jobs over the next 50 years. In 1980, McBooks Press published the first book I wrote, Vegetarian Baby, which was translated into 6 other languages. I owe my introduction to all levels of a bookstore to Alex. [McBooks Press is now an imprint of Globe Pequot, the trade division of Roman & Littlefield.] I have worked in bookstores since 1978, starting…

There is a new book out from Shambala Publications: On Being Stuck: Tapping into the Creative Power of Writer’s Block by Laraine Herring. Her approach is one of “making friends with your stuck places,” with a great tag line, “We will see windows where we once saw only walls.” I love to write. There are other activities that make me happy, but when I am able to write about something that interests me, my life has a purpose which gives me a deep feeling of satisfaction. But most of the time, I don’t write. I blame my lack of writing on various things: procrastination, laziness, ineptitude, getting side-tracked. These cause me to lose my curiosity, which is my prime motivator, the aspect of being alive that makes me start writing. Procrastination: I used to be the opposite of a procrastinator. I finished my term papers at school within days of the assignment. I never stayed up late to finish a paper. My anxiety about getting it done spurred me on to complete the writing as fast as possible, because only then could I breathe a sigh of relief. Over the years I have become really good at procrastinating when it comes to writing. My favorite excuse lately is “good weather.” Beautiful sunny days are rare enough where I live (Ithaca, NY) that when the weather is good, I feel I have to take advantage of it by going outside – gardening, a walk, birding, biking. I have a laptop but it’s hard…