The Topic: Football, The Super Bowl, and specifically The Super Bowl in Houston
The Chatters: Annalia Luna (Shipping and Returns Manager), Augusta Bartis (Inventory Manager), and Ülrika Moats (Merchandiser and Gift Buyer)
AL: Welcome to our staff chat! This is the Girl Cave here, (Annalia, Augusta, and Ulrika), who work in the back of the store. We’re talking about football because the Super Bowl is this weekend and it’s kind of everywhere.
So, what is your first memory of watching football?
Ten or so chapbooks, laid out across a conference-style table: this is what I see when I walk into the Inprint bungalow on Thursday afternoon to speak with Rich Levy (Executive Director) and Krupa Parikh (Marketing and Outreach Director). I like catching up with our partners at Inprint because it always feels like visiting an interesting friend who has something new to show you.
Two anguished cries often heard in pseudo-literary circles, both usually experienced as something approximating all caps: INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES ARE FAILING (they’re not—but you already know that, BrazosBookstore.com reader), and LITERARY FICTION IS DEAD. That second cry is heard so often that not only has it become a cliché, the response to it—to point toward exciting new novels, young authors, book sales, etc.—now feels like its own kind of cliché.
Generally speaking, I try to practice a nonthreatening demeanor (for this, you’re welcome). The first time I meet you, I will stand as far away from you as possible. I will go out of my way to not squeeze by you in an airplane-tight place, fearing I’ll accidentally touch you and you’ll find this invasive.
Carolyn Hembree “know[s] how to fuck with the future” and the present and the past. In Hembree's second book of poems, RIGGING A CHEVY INTO A TIME MACHINE AND OTHER WAYS TO ESCAPE A PLAGUE, she writes a verse novel as a fractured multiverse set in Tennessee.
January: it’s a perfect time of year to start getting your life organized, whether with planners and journals, or with calendar alerts on your phone. But myself? I’m always trying to stay organized. In fact, over the summer, I fell down a rabbit hole of bullet journal blogs, posts, and videos—and, like any good friend (or enabler?), I took a few other people down the rabbit hole with me. We made plans to start our own bullet journals, which included multiple ones for different needs.
The Book: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTERRACIAL LOVE? by Kathleen Collins
The Gist: A posthumously published short story collection by Kathleen Collins, an important and newly re-discovered African American writer
The Chatters: Mark Haber (Store Manager) and Keaton Patterson (Book Buyer)
