When thinking about your local bookstore, what comes to mind? Is it a familiar friendly face greeting you as you walk in? Is it a sense of comfort and calm? There is a simple magic to independent bookstores, and they’re a refuge for many in the neighborhoods they serve, playing an important role in benefitting the community. Local independent bookstores are vital pillars in the community. Writer’s Digest states that unlike big chain stores, “Independent bookstores directly serve the community and the individual. Their contributions are invaluable… Independent bookstores support core values of community, creativity, convening, civility, and contact.” They provide a place to connect with like-minded individuals and to feel recognized in a world where we often feel like just another face in the crowd, a safe haven of comfort in our ever more fast-paced world. Booksellers at indie bookstores focus on personalized service for each individual and fostering longstanding relationships with people in the community. The Reader’s Loft, an independent bookstore in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a mission statement that says, “Our goal at the Reader’s Loft is to create an atmosphere where people can come together to browse the shelves in search of something not yet known, to meet in our gathering space to discuss the latest book club pick, to hear poetry performed by our area’s fellowship of poets, or to meet a favorite author. We invite you to get lost in the stacks, to connect, and to grow.” Thomas A. Lyons Fine Books in Neenah,…

For twelve years, the Fox Cities Book Festival has been connecting writers and readers of all ages and interests, and this year the festival will take place over the week of October 7-13. Different this year compared to previous festivals, “Each day, a different Fox Cities community will become the focus of the festival with all, or most of the events taking place in one location,” states their website. This means no competing events and no rushing across the Fox Valley to get to the next event. Instead, festival attendees can sit back and relax without having to worry about too much travel time. The headliner for this year’s festival is Elizabeth Letts, “the #1 New York Times bestselling author of both historical fiction and non-fiction.” She will be at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel on October 13 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. to discuss writing her newest novel, Finding Dorothy. “This richly imagined novel tells the story behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book that inspired the iconic film, through the eyes of author L. Frank Baum’s intrepid wife, Maud,” reads the book’s description. Find out more about Elizabeth Letts and her event at the Fox Cities Book Festival here. No matter what your favorite genre is or how old you are, Fox Cities Book Festival has something for you. Hone your writing skills at a workshop, enjoy a reading or performance by authors from every genre, get advice on publishing and writing craft, and attend a presentation…

Social media gives us new ways to connect with others and pursue our interests, which can include following our favorite authors, publishers, and bookstores. While it may seem an unlikely place, Instagram is one of these platforms with a rather large book-loving community. Recently, I became the new admin behind the Swenson Book Development Instagram account, but of course, there are many others in the literary community that have been #Bookstagrammers for much longer. Author and filmmaker Elizabeth Rynecki – who documented in both book and film her “emotional quest to find the art of her Polish-Jewish great-grandfather, lost during World War II” – is an experienced member of the Instagram literary community and models the best practices of #Bookstragrammers. As a guest for Swenson Book Development, Rynecki has written about writing book reviews and using Instagram, and I am excited to share it with you. Elizabeth Rynecki: Last year I posted 50 mini book reviews on Instagram. That might seem like a large number of books to read in a year, but it’s notably smaller than the number of books I started and then decided, for various reasons, not to finish. Not all books are for all readers. It seems like an obvious statement, but as an author myself I have come to understand this in a much deeper way, to the point that I’ve almost made it a mantra. My recent background as an author [Chasing Portraits was published by Penguin Random House in 2016] leads some people to…