Earlier this year, Cambridge, Massachusetts independent bookstore Porter Square Books, launched its Writers in Residence Program as a way to “to make the resources needed to write books more available to the writers and aspiring writers in our community.” Porter Square Books joins other independent bookstores with similar programs, such as Alley Cat Books in San Francisco, which publishes a chapbook by and hosts a book release party for their residents, as well as Audrey’s Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, California and Big Blue Marble Books in Philadelphia.
Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, launched its Writers in Residence Program this year ... [+]
The Porter Square Books writing residency program selects one local author, at any stage of their career, who writes for adults, and one for young readers, each selected by a separate committee. The bookstore provides them with space to write in the bookstore on weeknights and weekends, a 40% staff discount, access to books and galleys and “the chance to advocate for the books they love,” along with tickets to the store’s annual Reader Prom. In exchange, their responsibilities include writing for the stores blog, being part of three in-store book events, being available on Independent Bookstore Day, and giving the store the opportunity to host a launch event for their book once it’s published.
In an interview, Josh Cook, Bookseller, Marketing Director and Co-Owner of Porter Square Books, as well as author of An Exaggerated Murder, told me that there are “a number of current and former booksellers” from the store who are published authors. “For the last few years, we’ve had an ongoing conversation about how we as a store can bring more of the resources of the book world to our community. For me, the access to books and the connections to authors and publishers that I have as a bookseller were an invaluable resource as I tried to and then eventually published a novel,” said Cook.
The program’s inaugural writers are Kathryn Amato, who’s working on a young adult queer romance entitled The Sugar Bowl, and Catherine Flora Con, who’s working on an adult novel titled Notes set in a performing arts boarding school The bookstore is accepting applications for its 2020 Writers in Residence Program through August 31, for a term that will run from February through October 2020. Writers are required to include an essay about how the residency will help them as a writer as well as a writing sample. The store received over 50 applicants last year, and expects a similar number this year. “We’re not looking for any specific set of writerly qualities, just what work seems to be the best out of the applications we receive,” explained Cook.
The program’s website states that it gives preference to “writers from marginalized populations; those who are least likely to have had the kind of access to books and the book industry the residency can provide or who face other barriers to resources and publication.” I asked Cook to elaborate on the knowledge gap those who haven’t had such access face, and how the residency can assist them. “Like every other industry, whether or not your book is published has as much to do with the social connections you make as it has to do with the quality of your work, social connections that are built and maintained by knowledge and skills that marginalized communities often don’t have access to,” said Cook. “A white writer, who grew up around books, and whose family supported their love for books, is more likely to have that knowledge and those skills and even speak the language of publishing than a writer who grew up in a different environment, no matter what talent and love they actually have for writing. Our residency gives writers access to contemporary books as well as the opportunity to meet published authors, be around books and booksellers, and learn some of that language of publishing. I think all writers and aspiring writers would get a step up in their careers from these resources, it’s just some are already higher up the ladder than others.”
In an interview with Scout Cambridge, Amato said that she found out about the program via Twitter, and hopes to finish the first draft of her book, which she had previously started and outlined, by the end of the year. Catherine Flora Con told Scout Cambridge she was interested in the residency because it’s “really unique…Most writers’ residencies, you just go off in the woods and write stuff by yourself, or they give you some little room somewhere. At Porter Square Books, I really like that they want you to be a part of the community. I really like how I’ll get to write staff picks, I’ll get to write for the blog, I’ll get to do a reading, and it just feels like something where I’ll get to interact with other people a lot as well as be writing in the store. I think it’ll help me a lot just to have the support of the booksellers there.”
As to the role the Writers in Residence play within the bookstore, Cook noted, “There is something nice about being at the store in the evening and knowing that there’s someone in the office working on a book that might someday end up on your shelves. It makes us feel an even stronger connection to the whole process and power of books to know what one is being written here while we sell others.”
Asked about the business benefits of hosting the program, Cook emphasized the intertwined connection between authors, readers and books. “Bookstores survive and thrive on the strength of the literary culture in their community. There are many things a bookstore can do to succeed, but nothing replaces a community with a bookish culture. We see our Writers in Residence program as sustaining and strengthening that literary culture in our community,” he explained.
That support for the local literary culture, with “almost no cost,” is why Cook says he “absolutely” recommends other bookstores pursue a writing residency. “Since we’re using resources we already have (galleys, the office, events) the only thing a Writer in Residence program costs the store is some management time.”
