The Watchung Booksellers Podcast
Watchung Booksellers' community of writers and readers dive deep into what they do for the love of books.
Watchung Booksellers is located in the heart of Montclair, NJ, a literary beacon filled with writers, journalists, publishers, and avid readers. Each year we host hundreds of author events and every day the most interesting and dedicated readers walk through our doors. Their insights and enthusiasm have inspired us to share our conversations with book-lovers everywhere. We invite you to listen and be a part of our community!
The Watchung Booksellers Podcast
Episode 8: ... How It's Going
We launched the Watchung Booksellers podcast with "How It Started": an episode with Margot Sage-EL, the owner, now owner emeritus, of Watchung Booksellers, reflecting on the last 30 years of the business. Today we take a look at how it’s going with Maddie Ciliotta-Young, who left a career in education to take the reigns on running the bookstore, in conversation with her friend, filmmaker Contessa Gales. One year into the opening of the Kids' Room, Maddie talks about the career transition, reading, and the need for diverse books in schools and in store.
Guest bios:
Maddie Ciliotta-Young is the owner and operator of Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, NJ. Maddie grew up in Montclair and at the bookstore with her mom, Margot. After college she was a teacher and principal for over a decade at a New York City public high school. As a school administrator, Maddie had a focus on equity for underserved schools and a passion for teaching literacy. She joined the Watchung Booksellers team in 2022 and when she’s not in the store she can be found enjoying Montclair’s restaurants with her husband or on the soccer field cheering on her two children.
Contessa Gayles is a non-fiction film director, writer, cinematographer, editor and an Emmy-nominated producer. She tells stories about identity, socio-political movement, healing, Black liberation and the radical imagination. Her forthcoming feature documentary visual album, Songs from the Hole, world premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, Visions category. Her documentary short, Founder Girls, which was executive produced with Queen Latifah, premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast on BET. Previously, she was a producer at CNN, where she created, directed, produced, shot and edited award-winning original series and documentaries, including the feature documentary, The Feminist on Cellblock Y.
Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.
Resources:
Scholastic Diversity in Book Fairs Controversy
Barnes & Noble tries to Go Indie
Register for Upcoming Events.
Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.
Register for Upcoming Events.
The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, NJ.
The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell and Bree Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi and Derek Mattheiss.
Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica.
Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff.
Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids’ Room!
If you liked our episode please like, follow, and share!
Stay in touch!
Email: wbpodcast@watchungbooksellers.com
Social: @watchungbooksellers
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Hello again, welcome back to the Watchung Booksellers podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm Marnie and I'm here with Catherine. Hi, M arni, and we're back to share another discussion about what we do for the love of books. Some of us read, some write and some decide to switch careers and run a bookstore.
Kathryn:We launched the Watch Young Booksellers podcast with a how it Started episode with Margot Sagell, the owner now owner emeritus of Watch Young Booksellers. Her chat with Liz Egan was really a fascinating look back at the last 30 years of starting and running a bookstore in Montclair.
Marni:Now we're following up with a look at how it's going from Wachung Bookseller's new owner, maddy Ciliata Young, talking with her friend Contessa.
Kathryn:Gales. It's been a whirlwind of activity during this transition. We've added new staff, more events and a brand new children's bookstore which is just about to celebrate its first birthday. So there's lots to talk about. But before we jump in, marnie, what are you?
Marni:reading. I'm actually rereading a book Writing as a Way of Healing, how Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives. It's by the late great Louise DeSalvo. She used to live here in Montclair and she was a friend of the store. She was a professor at Hunter College's MFA program and she was a Virginia Woolf scholar and it's an excellent book and I recommend it to everybody. How about you, catherine? I everybody.
Kathryn:How about you, catherine? I just finished All Fours by Miranda July. I love Miranda July. I've kind of been following her since the 90s Her films, her art. She's very, very funny and her work is very poignant. And this book is so bawdy and intense and so funny and has her signature weird minutiae and it really hit home with me and I think, with a lot of women who are in a certain age of their life. It's kind of like nothing I've ever read before. If you're interested in these books or any of the books that our guests in all of our episodes discuss, check out our webpage at watchungbooksellerscom.
Marni:Okay, let's introduce our guests. Maddie Ciliata Young is the owner and operator of Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, New Jersey. Maddie Ciliata Young is the owner and operator of Wachung Booksellers in Montclair, New Jersey. Maddie grew up in Montclair and at the bookstore with her mom, Margo. After college, she was a teacher and principal for over a decade at a New York City public high school. As a school administrator, Maddie had a focus on equity for underserved schools and a passion for teaching literacy. She joined the Wachung Booksellers team in 2022, and when she's not in the store, she can be found enjoying Montclair's restaurants with her husband or on the soccer field cheering on her two children.
Kathryn:And with her today is Contessa Gales. Contessa is a non-fiction film director, writer, cinematographer, editor and an Emmy-nominated producer. She tells stories about identity, sociopolitical movement, healing, black liberation and the radical imagination. Her forthcoming feature documentary visual album Songs from the Hole world premiered at the 2024 South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award Visions category. Her documentary short Founder Girls, which was executive produced with Queen Latifah, premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and broadcast on BET. Previously, she was a producer at CNN, where she created, directed, produced, shot and edited award-winning original series and documentaries, including the feature documentary the Feminist on Cell Block Y.
Marni:Enjoy the conversation and we'll be back to fill you in on what's coming up in the bookstore.
Contessa:Thanks, for inviting me to do this. Thanks for coming. I'm so excited to talk about you and the legacy of watching booksellers. Thanks, yeah, so your mom did this episode, kicking off the podcast how it Started.
Contessa:Yep.
Contessa:And now we're here today sitting down to talk about how it's going.
Maddie:Yep, 30-something years later. Right yeah, she started in 90-something.
Contessa:I listened to her episode and the first question that she was asked by Liz Egan was to describe her childhood in relationship to books. And so I would love for you to do the same. To start out.
Maddie:Yeah, so my childhood with books was so I was. I was always a strong reader. I loved reading Like we always read as a family, but I was a pretty independent reader and I was eight maybe. Well, first my mom had the catalog and that was what's the catalog? Please explain? The mail order catalog. Great Owl Books, black and white. I have to show you a picture. It was so good, and so that was because she couldn't find any books with black or brown kids and she was like well, then I got to do it and so there were like boxes of catalogs all over our house and people would like write. They would write a letter, be like please send me your catalog, totally analog. Um, and she had little black and white pictures of all the books and so people would just order books from the catalog and that's like how she started.
Contessa:So wait, she was curating a catalog.
Maddie:She, yes, so she found all of these books with, like, various publishers and then she would sell them to schools, individuals, like she would just send them out to people I don't know. You would get a catalog in your mail.
Contessa:Okay, so you had like stacks of these, so that was like all over our house, all the time and she was always on the phone, and so that was.
Maddie:It was like your mom works from home and it's like shh, shh. Like you know, get out Like on the phone.
Marni:Yeah, yeah exactly.
Maddie:So I think I started to get a little bit bitter at that point. And then she opened the like brick and mortar store and that I think I was eight when that happened. If, yeah, if that was like 1996 or whatever.
Contessa:What was your experience going into that space as a kid?
Maddie:So I mean like I have fond memories of it, but I do know like that first year I did not read for a year, would not pick up books.
Contessa:Out of protest or why?
Maddie:Jealousy. I think I was jealous of the books and I took up my mom's time, like she thinks she remembers me having nightmares of the store burning down. Wow, I don't like quite remember that, but I do remember feeling like angry at reading at books Because it took my mom away. So it's like you open a business. She was there all day. Books because it took my mom away. So it's like you open a business. She was there all day. We had the school bus to drop me and my brother off there instead of home, because that's where we would have to hang out after school. So I was a little bit sour, just a bit. But I was eight and I think I got over it pretty quickly. Like by the time I was done with elementary school I was like back to doing my thing.
Contessa:The protest had ended.
Maddie:Yeah, so that protest ended. And then by the time I was in high school, I was supposed to read the canon. Our high school is very tracked, so I was in a lot of like the high level and the AP courses, and so I refused to read any of the books that were assigned to me and I decided to spend all day reading in class and I was like I dare you to like, ask me to stop reading, but I never read what was assigned to me. And I decided to spend all day reading in class and I was like I dare you to like, ask me to stop reading, but I never read what was assigned to me, and so I think I was a little tough to to teach and to parent. I don't think it was easy at all. Yeah, reading is an act of defiance or not reading as an act of defiance? Either way, it's some kind of power, always protesting something.
Contessa:Were you ever put to work in the bookstore for your mom?
Maddie:A little bit so if we needed money we could file or sit at the register. I used to love just ringing customers out, but I never officially worked there. When I was in high school I worked at Dem Two Hands, which was like the most amazing women's clothing store. Marion Lake owned it. It's where you know Paper Plane Coffee. So her store was there and I worked there in high school and that was like wonderful. It was like surrounded by the most beautiful jewels and handmade silks and it was like lovely. So I did something very different than books and I worked there at high school through college.
Contessa:And did you ever see yourself working in the bookstore, let alone taking it over?
Maddie:I think I thought I would as an adult, yeah.
Marni:Not as nine.
Maddie:I think I thought I would when I retired. But then if I do the math now, if I retired, I mean my mom would be like 90. So I didn't like really think about it, but it was always in the back of my mind like oh, I could, I could do that, like I could see myself doing that. But I didn't actively seek it out until recently.
Contessa:And you had a whole other career in the meantime. Let's talk about that.
Maddie:So I was a career, doe or Department of Education in New York City.
Maddie:Listen, I loved it. I loved it very much. I loved teaching, reading, I loved the kids a lot, but it took a lot out of me. It was a lot. It was like swimming upstream all the time. So I was a teacher there for years and then I became an assistant principal, and then I became a principal when I was really young, I think, and so you know, COVID hit and I had to reevaluate everything. Those years were really tough. I had one kid in 2017 and then I had Leah in September 2019. Went back to work January 2020. And then March 2020. They called it off. They're like go home. So I had a baby. Like she was yeah, she was a baby baby at that time. So things were tough at home, Things were tough at work. So it started to be time to end that career.
Contessa:We can talk about the babies too. But I wonder like what from that experience 13 years as an educator you brought with you into what you're doing now with the bookstore.
Maddie:Yeah, so I loved, like I said, I loved teaching reading. Many of my students came in well below grade level, like literacy levels were really low. Also, lots of English language learners, lots of students with disabilities. It was a puzzle and I kind of enjoyed that challenge teaching kids how to read. But one thing I always did was everybody got to choose what they read all the time, no matter what. I did not assign books to kids.
Contessa:Reflecting back on your experience of never doing the assignment, never reading it anyway.
Maddie:But I did. I felt very passionately about that and, like I remember, I used to hire English teachers and I was like, well, what if I told you you couldn't teach your favorite novel Like that might not be that kid's favorite, they might never touch it Like I would. I would rather the kid read, like just read. So that was I mean. As you can imagine, that was an uphill battle too. People were like you're a little bit crazy.
Contessa:How did the kids receive it?
Maddie:They read, they read, they learned how to read. I think some of them maybe enjoyed it. All of our literacy rates, our grad rates, everything just like skyrocketed and there were like it was like. There were many things that went into that, but I think the literacy piece was the hugest. Hugest part of what I did was teaching them how to read, be literate, write. They also got to write whatever they wanted all the time and like their stuff was good. You know, exposure to books and learning what you like as a reader is a huge part of what I do now that I used to do as a, as an educator I love that I feel like I was one of those kids that, like, never enjoyed the assignment, but I wasn't quite as bold as you to just not do the assignment.
Contessa:I was too much of a rule follower. Well, you were Catholic school too. Right, it was private school, private school. I feel like if I had a friend like you at the time, I might have been emboldened, it would have been bad.
Maddie:Yeah, I mean, I don't think.
Contessa:I was a good emboldener. Can you tell me about building a literate community? That's something that we like started talking about the other day.
Maddie:Yeah, so like literacy is how you understand the world around you, how you operate within it. So I just saw Brandon Taylor in conversation with Percival Everett the other night and I think it was Percival Everett who said that reading is one of the most subversive acts you can do, and then writing is the next subversive act and you can't disagree with something if you don't understand it and if you can't communicate that you disagree, then you're kind of silenced. So that's the way I see literacy as a whole and you're kind of silenced. So that's the way I see literacy as a whole. It's not just like the words on the page, the letter sound Like phonics and phonemics has a lot to do with it, but it's a lot of how the world is structured and understanding that.
Contessa:And with the kids that you worked with. I mean, you were already talking about like no-transcript, like how do you see? Do you see any parallels in what you're doing to empower these communities?
Maddie:I mean they're very different kids. Another reason why I wanted to leave was I had these two kids at home and my energy, all of my energy, everything I had, was going into my school in the city and I kind of wanted to start to filter that here more locally to impact my own kids' community a little bit more. But I do. I think there's still a lot of kids here that here in you know the Montclair area, that don't feel seen or maybe don't have a place or like haven't found their thing yet, or their people and books can play a role, I think, in their lives. That can be really positive. So I don't think you have to be struggling with poverty or racism to feel that way. What's nice is there's plenty out there now. Like when my mom started that catalog, there was, I mean, what did you read when you were a kid? We were just talking about this now and little kids being obsessed, little brown girls being obsessed with blonde hair. Like, do you ever remember a character in your books with braids?
Contessa:No, definitely not Like no.
Maddie:An afro dark skin? Absolutely not, yeah.
Contessa:I like literally drew a blank. I was like, what is she asking me?
Maddie:Yeah, Like it. Just I like literally drew a blank. I was like what is she asking me? Yeah, you're like I don't know, it doesn't I mean. That's why, like our generation, thinks it's so revolutionary that the Little Mermaid became black, like everything we consumed was white. Yeah, always yeah. So there's so much more out there now that, I think, makes the work a little bit easier.
Contessa:Right, let's go with raising your black girls in the bookstore that you grew up in yeah. And now this full circle moment of raising your kids in the bookstore.
Maddie:Well, you'll see, you're, however, many months with child, very with child, it ends up feeling like years at the end. Being a mother impacts every aspect of your life.
Maddie:It like completely. I mean, it changes your brain chemistry apparently. So that way it's like nice to be so hyper-local for my own kids and kind of just like have a hand in what's going on. But you know, they do the regular kid thing where they mimic what I do and so like they'll hold book fairs at home and they'll like put all the little books out in the living room. No, oh my God. And Olamay will be like Leah, you have to choose from there because you're a fifth grader and that's the fifth grade table and so you can choose your book there and they'll books. So it's really cute.
Maddie:But I think Leah thinks I told her one day I had to go to work and she's like yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta go read with that monkey. What I was like, what are you talking about? And then we had a Curious George costume once and I did story time next to like a big costume monkey. So I think she thinks that's what I do is just like read with characters, big characters, like all the fun, like Clifford and stuff, which is part of what I do. But it's nice to like I'm in their schools all the time. I do book fairs with their schools, so I have a hand in what their friends are seeing. You know what they're reading, and so it's nice. But it's like you know, it's a lot of work. It's still a full-time job, so there's a lot of balancing, juggling, running around.
Contessa:So they don't get jealous, yeah, and protest.
Maddie:Yeah, exactly, and yeah, managing their feelings about. I mean, like I've always worked full-time. I took I don't know what like 12 weeks after each kid, so I don't think they remember me ever being home and I used to leave before they woke up, like I would be on my way into the city at 6 am. So this is better now that I have them in the mornings. If I work late or if I work a Saturday, I still get to see them, which I never did. Like if I worked late before, it would be like two days basically where I didn't see them. So it's still a full-time job, but being closer to home, I think, has been really, really good for my relationship with them.
Contessa:I think it's probably too like such a special thing for them to be able to see and experience it with you, you know, coming to the book readings and the events and seeing you in their schools doing the book fairs to just like see what you're doing. Yeah and yeah. I'm sure that's a memory that's gonna stick with them forever.
Maddie:Yeah, I think so. I mean, like I used to be a little bit annoyed by, you know, the amount that my mom had to put in to working at the store, but I, I don't know. I, I agree. If you ask my 16-year-old self, do you want to be your mom when you grow up? I'd be like no.
Contessa:I don't think any of us Never. I think all of us would say no, that's a hard age to ask that question. By the way, 16 years old, yeah, okay, yes.
Maddie:But also maybe like in my 20s, Like I don't think I ever thought to emulate my mother in that way. And then, like here I am, living in the same town that she moved to running her store. Even people say we sound the same, Like.
Marni:I started working at the store.
Maddie:I, I've never heard that until like a few years ago. And then I mean now it's like my brother's favorite joke is like me turning into mom, Cause he knows he gets my goat. But you know, like she's not a bad mom to be like, certainly not yeah, we're all team margo over here.
Maddie:Yeah, exactly so it's like I feel very lucky and fortunate and I hope my kids feel that way and see me working in a way that I find meaningful, that the community hopefully finds meaningful, and that one day they can do that somewhere somehow.
Contessa:Yeah, I mean, she built this legacy really for you to be able to step into and then take it in whatever direction you want to take it from here. Yeah, can you talk about stepping into the legacy that she built and expanding it with opening the kids room?
Maddie:I was like I'm retiring from the DOE, this is going to be a year of no ambition. I'm just going to like, you know, like not coast, but just like I'm just going to observe, I'm going to figure things out.
Maddie:Yeah, like not trying to be extra, do extra Didn't last. And then I went into the store, but the one, the number one conflict and the thing that kept coming up with staff was space like. It was like we were on top of each other. The store like turned over more books per square foot than any store in the nation, not a problem?
Maddie:yeah, like it was like we had like this bustling business. It felt like a stuffed sausage in that store and there was more and more that people needed to do digitally. It's so crazy. I used to scan out book fair stuff and have like 20 boxes of books just sitting in the middle of the store waiting for a school to pick them up. So one of the employees pushed me when this store like the little realtor sign came up and I was like, oh fine, let's go look and it kind of it. Just, it made sense, I mean, I think this is the perfect place to have a store that's dedicated to children.
Maddie:You know there's lots of young families. We did not have space to do any children's programming. Like we were squeezed back there, like you have one family of four with a stroller, nobody else could fit in that back room, like that's it, especially in the winter with jackets, then that's it. So forget about story time, forget about having children's authors, and like I mean, it was like we just couldn't everything we wanted to do. We kind of stopped and we're like, oh, but our space, but we don't have room. So then the space opened up and I just kind of crunched the numbers, but I actually I went to a conference that year in February and there was a business professor who did a panel on financial modeling and was like here's how you figure out if your business can afford to do a project, and it kind of was like this oddly perfect time that I was like oh yeah, I want to see it Like can we afford to have two stores?
Maddie:So it was nice that I had like some framework to figure out if we could like do it. You know, you know, yeah, I don't do anything just by the seat of my pants, so I had to calculate first. But yeah, I mean it was a lot of work to get it to move all those books over there. We had to hire a bunch of people. Like we didn't have enough staff to really split and there's been some attrition in the turnover of the store, so like we hired a ton of people that spring. It was a lot.
Contessa:I mean, this took a lot of vision, though. Planning like you're kind of maybe underselling it as like a logistical answer an answer to a logistical problem, but like this took vision about, like what the community needs and how you were going to address it. And knowing that you actually had a role in providing a service not just a physical space but a community space to this town.
Maddie:Yeah, I mean, I do. I like to think of it, the kids' room, as a love letter to childhood in Montclair. It's like the little backyard. We've got story times now, like I just we just set up story time before I came over here. There's like some 30 people that come every week Little babies, little toddlers, your little one will be there, you know, we get to have authors come in all the time and I think, like the one thing, the one thing that I would like to focus on, is kind of recreating little nooks. So, like our back room, our original kids room was just carpeted and so kids would just grab a book and just sit, like you just plop down on the floor and you could see kids reading on the floor at any given time. And so this space is wide open, which has its benefits. But I think some kids need a little nook.
Contessa:I love a reading nook, like yeah, so we're trying to like I'm not a kid, but I just sound like I love a reading, nook.
Maddie:Well, we all need a little reading, nook.
Contessa:We all need one. I was um, I went in there the other day because I needed to buy a book for our baby. What'd you get? I got Juliana's A Mermaid, which is the book that we gift to all of our friends having kids, but we haven't yet bought one for ourselves. Oh my gosh, so I went in and bought it yesterday.
Marni:Oh, I would have given you that. No, it's okay.
Contessa:Because I wanted to sat there in one of the kids' chairs. How did you even get down there?
Maddie:Much difficulty, no, but I had a moment.
Contessa:Obviously, I'm super hormonal and the emotions were flowing, but I was just like. I'm going to raise my kid in this bookstore I hope so and Auntie Maddie's going to come.
Maddie:I hope so. I mean, why did you other than the fact that we recruited heavily? Why did you guys come to Montclair that?
Contessa:campaign was years long. It was a dedicated, steady recruitment campaign. I mean, we took your plugs for this place to grow up and raise kids to heart. But I think now that we're here it's been about a year now and really settled in and about to start our own family. Yeah, I can really see what you guys were going on and on about as, like Montclair natives coming back to raise your families here, just the sense of community and I think it's. You know, there's a lot of different factors that play into that that make it feel like really like community.
Contessa:Into that that make it feel like really like community while still having the things that we enjoyed about living in New York and San Francisco like bigger cities that we lived in, but I feel like spaces where there's like this communal kind of raising, like part of that is our friendships and like having friends in town that live here, that you know, have young kids as well, that we're now working work and raise our families side by side, but also having the spaces that, like you and your mom created and are keeping alive in spite of all of the big box stores and the Amazons and the things that try to like strip us of these community spaces.
Maddie:Independent booksellers. You know, yeah, I know it's like imagine if you had to go on a highway to get everything you need it Like. You know, yeah, I know it's like imagine if you had to go on a highway to get everything you need. Like you know what Bummer. That is a nightmare for a young parent to have to go to a strip mall on a highway to get one little thing. I think we forget in this day and age how essential a hyper-local community of small businesses actually is.
Contessa:I mean, you're talking about like, the convenience factor of like I don't want to get in a high-end or a strip mall. But like I, also just want to be like with the people that I know in town sitting down for story time. Yep exactly. You know and then like maybe we go get a coffee after.
Maddie:Yep, yeah, I mean when you have a young baby, those spaces are so important. I mean I used around town everywhere. Yeah, like it was the best having a summer baby.
Kathryn:We'd just go to the farmer's market, I'd walk her up to the bookstore all the time and just kind of like throw her at my mom, and walk away for a few minutes.
Maddie:I'd be like you're in a meeting. Would you like to hold your grandchild? I gotta go. I'm gonna go take a walk by myself, but yeah, seeing people, you know, I mean we would live in such an isolated world if we didn't have those spaces. Yeah, and Montclair is nice because everybody can walk to, like every little neighborhood has its spots.
Contessa:Yeah, no, it's really great. I'm glad you guys were good. Can you talk about, because you're just throwing?
Marni:your kid at your mom.
Contessa:Yeah, three generations of women in this bookstore. That like brings me to tears almost, and I think I saw like a photo of your kids you and your mom in the bookstore, because that's not something that, in this time, is common.
Maddie:No, it's not. I think it's really special for my girls. They get to come into the store and see their grandma or their mom. They are getting a little bit restless. They're always they call her Mo and they're always like Mo, when are you going to retire? I thought you were going to retire. Like, why are you still in the bookstore? And then they give her a whole bunch of guilt and I think it's just they.
Contessa:They enjoy spending so much time with her and I, but they yeah Parenting you.
Maddie:And I think it's just they enjoy spending so much time with her and I think they again. It's like this competition for time that children have. They're always trying to get somebody's time. So she picks them up from school a few times a week and that's nice, like they get to hang. I hope we can last a long, long, long, long time Like knock on wood and that either my children or my niece or somebody in the next generation of our family is interested in continuing the business so that one day I can retire. But it's nice that it's like a family business.
Contessa:And a woman owned business. Yeah, like cannot sleep on that. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice or lessons learned so far and being a small business owner that you can impart? I met an independent filmmaker.
Maddie:I know yeah.
Contessa:Different, but both like kind of in our own independent bags.
Maddie:Yeah, like working for yourself. Yeah, I mean I, yeah, I worked for such a big oppressive system for so long. This is very different.
Contessa:One might say the same about corporate media, where I used to work before I became a independent filmmaker.
Maddie:That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah, like I don't know. I think it's been a huge adjustment. I think the biggest thing I'm learning is to slow down, like I think I'm still trying to go a million miles a minute and I don't need to, Like I can set the pace, which is new to me. There's like external things that always dictate what can happen, but that part is very weird to me and everything was always marked by the school year for me. So it was like you got to do this, this and that by June, and then it was like a whole chunk of my kids would like leave, just like graduate and go. But that's not really the case now. So I have to slow down. This year I'm gonna have no ambition. This is the year we're not gonna do anything extra. I'm just gonna read some books, sell some books, talk to customers, that's it. That's it. I'm gonna slow down.
Contessa:I don't believe you, but.
Maddie:I'm going to let you believe yourself for a minute. Famous last words. Yeah, I'm going to manifest that. I'm putting that out there.
Contessa:Meanwhile, let's get to book banning these people. These people I mean, yeah, the importance of the service that you provide and what you can also bring to schools and the role that you play amidst this context of folks trying to limit what kids are exposed to what young people are exposed to, what teachers can teach. As a former educator, I'm sure that does not say well at all.
Maddie:No, rubs me the wrong way. It's really I do. I think at this point, book selling has become a social justice issue, and librarians too. I cannot emphasize how important public spaces for reading are, and so libraries are like essential, essential to a democracy. But it's a little bit scary, it's right here. They tried this nonsense in Glen Ridge, right, you know.
Contessa:Right next door.
Maddie:And it's scary to think about kids who are coming into their own. I feel very deeply for like LGBTQ kids who are really on the front line of like major attacks on their bodies and their mental health, and so I think we can only create safe spaces for kids where they can see themselves, they can see a world where they're happy and healthy, and books can do that. But it's really, it's amazing. It's like even the you know the major national book fair provider had a little button that was like you can choose to opt out of diversity for your book fairs and we'll just keep all that stuff aside.
Contessa:Opt out of diversity, like what you can just opt out of it.
Maddie:You can just say nope. Which is what? Yeah, but like this is. I mean that's what corporate America is Like. Diversity, is this little separate thing Right? And so that I mean luckily people in Montclair were like upset by that. Luckily people noticed and there's been good response. I don't think anybody needs to use that provider in our immediate area because we can do that.
Contessa:I mean, that's not anything to sleep on, like the fact that you can provide an alternative book fair locally to meet the needs to not have these types of restrictions, and that's huge of restrictions and yep, that's.
Maddie:That's huge. Yeah, like I don't. I mean, I don't want my child to walk through a book fair and not see a single brown face on a book, not see anything that wasn't like made for tv content, essentially we had one of these book fairs when I was a kid and now I'm like back to the question that you asked me.
Contessa:Like, like, what did? I read as a kid and now, like as I'm picturing myself walking through, Did you get the diaries?
Maddie:That's what you got, right?
Contessa:Yeah, the diaries, but also, like I'm actually only picturing like picture books, with animals on them. Oh yeah, uh-huh, yep, like the ones that Maybe it's because none of the human characters reflected me and my family.
Maddie:And so it was drawn to these animal characters. Yeah, you're like there's a bear.
Contessa:There's a goldfish.
Maddie:Yeah, exactly this feels more normal to me. I think that makes me really sad to think about, so I'm glad we don't have to deal with that here. It was really nice to go to the conference again this year. There were many more black booksellers and black owned bookstores that were represented at the conference, and so I touched base with somebody who was curious about book fairs. And you know, I think it's just you got to just help each other any way that you can, and hopefully these things can happen other places too. Yeah, it's scary.
Contessa:What is your maybe, what's your projection and also what is your hope for the future of independent, locally owned booksellers?
Maddie:I hope we all do a little bit more than survive. I hope we thrive.
Marni:Yeah.
Maddie:I think there's so many wonderful things that a local bookstore can offer, and so I hope we only grow. I think I mean I think just nationally, the trend has been returning to local bookstores that even Barnes Noble is letting their managers like rename their bookstores and like kind of operate them as more independent stores because that is a more successful business model, I suppose you know. I hope that we thrive and kind of take over.
Contessa:Take back over.
Maddie:Yeah, take back over whatever big box stores and online retailers have like taken from communities. The more that I learn about what those big guys do, the more I realize that they actually they have to go. There's not room for all of us. There's some big box stores that refuse to display debut authors, so they will only sell or display authors that have already sold books right which means that, essentially, you're just choosing.
Maddie:The books are from an algorithm, like you're not going to read anything new, you're not going to read anything interesting, you're going to see the same stuff everywhere. Yeah, but they already know sales, yep, which means that we're going to be fed the same. It's just going to be regurgitated content, which is almost as problematic as actually actively censoring books Right, and only from a limited number of voices Right.
Contessa:And then right.
Maddie:Who's making those decisions about which of those authors get to be there? So I think that booksellers are uniquely positioned to respond to their community's needs and kind of do that organically. I hope we squeeze out the big guy, to be honest.
Contessa:I hope so too. I think too the pandemic really like hopefully made people appreciate that even more isolation and just the forced separation, and then coming out of that and trying to stitch back like, okay, what does make a community?
Maddie:a community yeah, this is like one of those vital yeah services and spaces yeah, I mean, you really have to spend your money where you would like to spend your time, right? Yes, and people are not going to storytime on Amazoncom, like they're not. Like they're not, you know, seeing a local debut author, you know, launch their book at an event at Barnes Noble. We're doing that. Yeah, I think we're in a really very literary-focused community and so I think we're probably a lot safer than other bookstores, and so we can. You, you know we have these robust programs, but I hope that for everybody, like all of the independent bookstores out there, yeah, so like no cap, I feel like you read a book a day.
Contessa:No, and I know like once a week it's fine, sure, but like you're reading for work now, yes, and then like this is a part of the job as opposed to, like before, it was for leisure pleasure, education, yeah so what are you reading now? That um, still gives you that sense of like. Okay, this is for me, not just for work so I like to read.
Maddie:I don't read non-fiction. I'm like, just straight up, not a non-fiction reader we're like the exact opposite.
Contessa:I'm not ashamed of it. Yeah, every book, and that's why I'll never give you a book.
Maddie:I'll just give it to your husband, because I'm not going to. And I have another friend who's a reader and she only reads non-fiction. There's like heavy stuff. I think the last non-fiction book I read was Clint Smith how the Word is Passed, and he's a poet.
Contessa:So I think that's why I liked it.
Maddie:I was like, oh, it counts, it counts. So I will read. Like I like a lot of literary fiction, I like stuff when it's well written. Like I love a like trained author, but I also love a little bit of smut. Like no spicy romance or like a whodunit mystery, to like be like a palate cleanser. Like those are books that I read in like a day. Those books I read in a day.
Maddie:Those are the one book a day. But it's like if I read something like super heavy or super literary, then I need something before I can dip into another literary book. So that's when I go to the palate cleansers the palate cleansers, which is like what's her name?
Maddie:Anna Huang has those or like an Emily Henry kind of like I could do like a rom-com or like a whodunit. It's like somebody is murdered. I got to figure this out and then I just keep reading. But I do. Yeah, I still actually very much enjoy reading and my kids are finally getting to an age where they leave me alone a little bit, so I get some time to read. Yeah, they are, yeah, and we do. We read a lot of Mercy Watson, kate DiCamillo. That's like our favorite chapter books these days. That little, she's a naughty little pig who lives with a family and man. Does she get into quite a bit of trouble?
Maddie:that Mercy, yeah oh yeah, yeah, we've got them all that. And then the who would win? That's what I was talking to you about the other night. It's like the coyote versus the dingo or the lion versus the tiger, and then it's like all these facts about the animals and then it ends in an epic battle. Somebody dies.
Contessa:I love it Leah loves those I bet she does. That tracks.
Maddie:So we read those at night.
Contessa:What has motherhood taught you that you've brought into your work now as a small business owner, as someone who plays this role in the community?
Maddie:Advice version. Motherhood taught me everything I know about life and untaught me everything I thought I knew about anything I don't know. I mean, I was in a leadership position in my school for some years and I do think that being a mother has changed the way that I lead. I think I've gained a lot more, I think, empathy and understanding about people and where they're coming from and what might have happened that morning before they got to work, because I like to say I've lived a whole life before 9 am Like a whole life. So I think it helps. You know, everybody has their stuff.
Contessa:Was your mom like the same age when she started the bookstore as you are now? Oh, that's such a good question.
Maddie:That's why I don't know. I want to do the math.
Contessa:She was in her mid to late 30s starting the bookstore.
Maddie:I think so, yes, and I'm in my late 30s.
Contessa:Are we talking mid to late 30s?
Maddie:I don't know if it's mid anymore. I think it's late.
Contessa:We're at the end. I love that full circle moment.
Maddie:Yeah, I think she was probably around the same age. Any final thoughts? No, just thank you so much for coming and doing this with me.
Contessa:This was fun.
Kathryn:This was fun. This was really fun. Thank you, maddie and Contessa, for sharing your stories with us. We are so happy to see Watchung Booksellers grow and welcome a new generation of readers. Contessa, congratulations on your new baby, goldie.
Marni:Before we go, don't forget to register for these great author events coming up. Tonight, tuesday, june 18th, ananda Lima will be talking with Dionne Ford about her book of stories Craft Stories I Wrote for the Devil. And tomorrow, wednesday, june 19th, henry Neff celebrates the launch of Witchstone, which will also be live streaming on our YouTube channel.
Kathryn:And on Thursday June 27th Julia Phillips is back with her second novel, bear. And on Tuesday July 9th we've got Daniel Silva at Temple Near Tameed for the release of his latest Gabriel Alon thriller, a Death in Cornwall. He's only doing a handful of events on the East Coast, so be sure to get tickets today.
Marni:You can find out more about all of our upcoming events in our newsletter, show notes and at watchongbooksellerscom Recording and editing at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, new Jersey.
Kathryn:Special thanks to Timmy Kellany, brie Testa and Derek Mathias. Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica, art and design by Evelyn Moulton and research and show notes by Carolyn Shurtleff.
Marni:Thanks to all the staff at Watch on Booksellers and the Kids Room for their hard work and love of books and thank you for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please like, follow and share it. You can follow us on social media. You enjoy the podcast? Please like, follow and share it. You can follow us on social media at Watch on Booksellers and if you have any questions, you can reach out to WBpodcast at WatchOnBooksellerscom.
Kathryn:We'll see you next week. Until then, for the love of books, keep reading. © transcript.
Maddie:Emily.
Contessa:Beynon.
