Bookstore With a Mission
Winston-Salem’s Bookmarks bookstore brings people together and helps them discover the power of books including poetry.
By Mark Caskie
Join Inventory Manager Caleb Masters on a tour of Winston-Salem’s Bookmarks bookstore.
Look carefully around Bookmarks bookstore and you’re likely to see signs with statistics displayed prominently on top of—or tucked into—bookshelves.
For instance, one reads, “In 2022, $24,199 was donated at checkout by 9,734 generous customers.”
These signs—serving almost as an abbreviated annual report—all point to what makes Bookmarks so special. The bookstore is one of only a handful of nonprofit independent bookstores in the country.
Community Focus
Bookmarks bookstore is part of a larger literary arts nonprofit, also known as Bookmarks, which has undertaken as its mission to cultivate community by bringing people of all ages together with books and authors to challenge, entertain, educate and inspire.
The bookstore is key to this mission. “We want this to be a place that gives back to the community and brings community together,” said Beth Seufer Buss, the organization’s program & festival director. “We take authors to schools, we donate books into the community, but we’re also a space for the community to come together to discuss books,” she explained.
Perhaps the best known of the literary arts nonprofit’s many outreach programs is its annual Bookmarks Festival of Books & Authors. The festival, which began in the early 2000s, was the organization’s first venture. Today, the festival is the largest free book festival in the Carolinas.
Other outreach programs include Books with Purpose, which engages the Winston-Salem community around an important topic through reading and discussing a book during the summer months, and the Authors in Schools program, which connects authors to children and young adult readers.
“We look at the bookstore as another arm of Bookmarks’ programming and outreach,” said Caleb Masters, the bookstore’s inventory manager. “We serve as a kind of community hub.”
Books To Explore
The bookstore opened in its downtown Winston-Salem location in 2017, and since then has become a pillar of the local reading and writing communities. (See “From Wheels to Words” for some history on the bookstore’s transformation from abandoned auto repair shop to bookstore.)
Lera Shawver, the bookstore’s general manager, says that the most frequent comments the staff receives from customers are remarks praising its curated book selection. That’s true across its wide-ranging collection of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children’s and special interest books.
Masters, who curates the store’s offerings, explains his approach. “What I love most about going into an independent bookstore is discovery,” he said. “I always find something that I’ve never seen at another bookstore, and I want to make that an experience for everyone who walks in here.”
Poetry Stacks Up
In a bookstore where most of the bookshelves are waist high, the poetry section stands out because its bookshelves are taller than the customers who browse it. Located against a wall, the shelves are full of classic and contemporary titles.
“I love the amount of space we’ve dedicated to poetry. Poetry books tend to be slim so we’re able to carry a lot of them,” Masters said, “and I think it’s a great way for us to support independent presses as well.”
Among those independent presses is Press 53, a Winston-Salem press that has published numerous poetry collections.
“We have so many poetry readers on staff, and everyone is into different types of poetry, so I think we’re providing a space for people to discover poetry,” Masters added.
Clubs, Launches and Readings
Bookmarks sponsors several book clubs, which are building community around books, including its Bookmarks Book Club. The club works together to set its reading agenda for the year and is always on the lookout for new voices. They are just as likely to read nonfiction as fiction.
“It’s so popular that we have expanded to include two meetings, so we have a lunchtime club as well as an evening club,” Shawver said.
Other book clubs include Bookmarks Latina Book Club, LGBTQ Book Club and the Well-Read Black Girls Book Club.
The bookstore has many readings, including ones by nationally known authors, as well as book launches by writers who have connections to the local area. In the past year, the store held book launches for collections by poets Jacinta V. White and Terry Kirby Erickson. Poetry superstar Ross Gay also returned to the store for a reading.
It’s From the Page showcase (formerly known as Four on Fourth) spotlights new books by local authors and poets. In the past, the series has traditionally sponsored four poets for its April showcase in honor of National Poetry Month.
“In the case of From the Page, it provides authors a platform to reach readers, a place to interact with other authors and encouragement for all,” said Matthew C. McLean, a member of Winston-Salem Writers who coordinates the reading series with the bookstore. “It helps build a sense of community around reading and writing, which are typically very solitary.”
MacLean added, “Bookmarks is a literacy organization that encourages people to read and explore, which is great for every author who’s a reader, which is to say, all of them.”Find out about the bookstore’s upcoming events on its website, Facebook or Instagram pages.
(Photos courtesy of Glenn Fulk.)
From Wheels to Words
When renovations of the building that houses the Bookmarks, bookstore began in 2017, its parent literary arts nonprofit had its work cut out for it.
“When we first came to this space, there was a metal garage door right where the front door is,” said Beth Seufer Buss, the organization’s program & festival director.
That’s because the building, which had been sitting vacant for many years, had once been home to an auto repair shop.
The Bookmarks team soon got to work converting the former auto shop into a welcoming space for book lovers while also preserving much of the building’s original character. They left the ceiling exposed and sealed the former shop’s concrete floor. They kept the building’s original windows, although much of the glass had to be replaced.
Occasionally customers still come into the shop and remember having visited the building when it was a garage, often when they were kids. Some recall the garage as the site of epic parties on New Year’s Eve and other holidays.
“We tried to keep a lot of the original feel of the building, being downtown and being on the edge of different historic neighborhoods,” Buss explained.