Back when Josie and I were wee lasses, just past 30, we had a little pipe dream to open up a bookstore. Well, that’s not exactly true. There was a space for lease in the tiny Vermont village where we’d moved after leaving New York City, and we didn’t want it to become a dentist’s office. At that time, the town center held only the fire station, Town Hall, a children’s preschool, and a wonderful little market/deli, The Old Brick Store. We desperately wanted to create something for the entire community to enjoy, and given our teaching and literature and literacy backgrounds, it didn’t take us long to decide on a children’s bookstore. We’d lived in the state for less than two months, but we took a giant leap of faith that Vermonters were readers, and that a town of 3,500 people plus tourists could support a small store.

We opened with 6,500 books and very little idea what we were doing. I’d been the manager of a Crown bookstore in L.A. back between college semesters one summer, and my dad had created a little shop, filled with fun items and jewelry and used books, for my sister and me, young teenagers, to tend for a couple of summers in the White Mountains of Arizona. The Not-So-General Store, he called it. I’d done retail work through high school, too, but that was the sum total of my shopkeeping experience. Josie was game and we leapt into the project.
The little Vermont building came up for lease in August, and we knew we needed to work fast if we wanted to open before the holidays. We did research on opening a bookstore by going to a library in Randolph, VT, and reading a three-ring binder on the subject in the library stacks. (This was before the internet had helpful archives on everything.) Somehow we learned about the New England Booksellers Association (now NEIBA, with Independent added to the name), and decided to go to the trade show in Boston. We had no credentials, but we had chosen our name — the flying pig symbolizing the success of an impossible dream — so I drew a little pig and we made up business cards the night before the show.
The NEBA show made everything possible. We looked at bookstore fixtures, and the folks at Skyline Design were extremely helpful. We met with distributors and publishers. Some of them weren’t sure what to do with us, but Lisa Dugan at Koen Books was a kindred spirit. She loved books the way I loved books; we shared a zillion childhood favorites. She helped us manage our opening order and gave us advice on what sold well in New England.
I think it was that first, or perhaps second, trade show where we met Carol Chittenden, the witty, dry, sharp-as-glass bookseller from Falmouth, MA, who took us under her wing, introduced us to publishers, and made them invite us to dinners even though we were barely on our own radar, much less theirs.
Josie and I divided and conquered. Together we created a general map of the store layout, and she worked tirelessly with the construction and fixture crews to execute our plan while I did all of the rest of the book orders and gathered extra furnishings for the store. It was a whirlwind of constant, constant motion.
Along the way, we had some missteps. A SCORE counselor advised us to go to a bookstore four towns away — 35 or 40 minutes from our store — and suss things out. It was too far away to be our competition, but close enough to check out what kinds of books they carried, how they displayed them, etc. “Do NOT say why you’re there,” she said firmly. And though I felt weird and obvious as we looked around the store and inquired about fixtures, and though I stopped in the parking lot after we’d left and almost went back in to introduce ourselves properly, I didn’t. I thought she must know something I didn’t. But I regretted it then and it still bothers me. Over time, I would learn that four town in Vermont is really no distance at all. I was 32 and new to the world of retail, but I should have trusted my own gut instincts. That last was a lesson that has stuck with me for 20 years.
We had only 10 weeks between the idea for the store and opening day. We knew we needed to open before the holidays, since bookstores typically make a third of their year between Thanksgiving and New Year. Ten weeks from the bare inkling of a thought to the day we hung the flag outside our purple door and candy-striped awnings. I really don’t know how we did it. I know we couldn’t do that again. It’s like those lines from Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth:

“That’s why,” said King Azaz, “there was one very important thing about your quest that we couldn’t discuss until you returned.”
“I remember,” said Milo eagerly. “Tell me now.”
“It was impossible,” said the king, looking at his brother, the Mathemagician.
“Completely impossible,” said the Mathemagician, looking at the king.
“But -” started Milo.
“Impossible,” they repeated together, “but if we’d told you then, you might not have gone – and as you’ve discovered, so many things are possible, just so long as you don’t know they’re impossible.”

I think that’s as good a way as any to describe the experience of owning an independent bookstore.
Running the Flying Pig has been an experience that has shaped most of my adult life. Josie and I really grew up at the bookstore.
We are still growing up. At the end of the year, Josie is stepping back to continue the work she’s been doing for the past year and a half at the Pride Center of Vermont, returning to her early NYC roots in nonprofit development. She will always be part of the bookstore as we move into our next phase, and it has been a hilarious and at times harrowing journey, building our little store from 6,500 children’s books to 30,000 books for all ages. We have been lucky with our customers, have seen children grow up and bring in their own children, hosted a wedding, and seen a baby take its first steps on our floor. We’ve had the honor of meeting hundreds of brilliant, generous authors and artists, who have shared their time and wisdom with us whether the crowds were large or small.
As I look ahead to the next chapter, my heart and head are filled with all the stories of the last one.
Here’s to a truly memorable 20 years!