Snowfort bookstore will host a grand-opening celebration and a ribbon-cutting in partnership with the Westport Wadhams Community Alliance on Saturday, May 17, at 6592 Main St. in Westport, N.Y. The new bookshop is owned by Amy and Adam Robinson.

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican reported that the day of festivities will include food, music, literature, and family-friendly activities, highlighted by a children's event featuring a story hour and art-making activity with author Amy Guglielmo. In the afternoon, Slow Wasps, Adam Robinson's rock band, will play a live set at the old Skidoo Shop behind the bookstore.

Blending "small-town charm with creative energy," Snowfort offers new and used books, a play area for kids, and cultural programming, the Press-Republican added, noting that the grand opening "will highlight its mission: to be a welcoming hub for readers, families, and creatives in the Adirondacks and beyond."

"We wanted Snowfort to feel like a second home--somewhere to gather, explore, and connect," Amy Robinson said. "We're excited to open our doors and celebrate with the Westport community."

Last December, NCPR Adirondack had a sneak preview of the bookstore, which has opened occasionally for pop-ups, and spoke with Amy Robinson, who said: "I was born and raised in Atlanta. Adam was born and raised in Auburn, New York, but has roots in the Adirondacks, specifically Plattsburgh, and grew up camping in the High Peaks. So around the time of the pandemic, we wanted to make a big change and raise our children in a smaller town."

Noting that both of them are writers and run small presses, she added: "Adam's small press is called Publishing Genius. We were also inspired because we're good friends with Tyler [Barton] from the Adirondack Center for Writing from way before this. So we knew that there was a kind of vibrant literary culture in this greater region. Yeah, we've never really sold books, except the ones we've published, but this is much easier. It's a lot easier to sell books that we don't have such a huge personal stake in. It's really fun."

In a Facebook post yesterday, Snowfort noted: "One month from today, the doors will be open for our grand opening. The entrance, the railings, the ramp will be built. Maybe we will have our *real* sign up, the kind of sign we need a town permit for, and it will really be something. And yet a not-small part of me will miss this cardboard cutout sign that Michael Make made with box cutters last summer. 

"It could be that we will feel more and more legit after the grand opening, feel more like we know what we’re doing, or it could feel like that day a month from now is the most together we will have ever felt before or since. Either way, it’ll be one for the books."

Hodgepodge Books & Taps will open in Eugene, Ore., on April 26, Independent Bookstore Day, Eugene Weekly reported.

The bookstore and tap room, at 158 East 14th Ave., will span two floors. The book selection--mostly new titles with some used books--will be located on the first floor, along with the bar and seating. The second floor will be devoted to seating, and there will be an outdoor patio.

Owners Sophie and Stuart Raymond plan to carry a general-interest, all-ages inventory, with everything from bestsellers to translated literature. The bar will feature local and regional microbrews and snacks sourced from a local eatery. 

Sophie Raymond has studied creative writing and previously worked at Tsunami Books, a used bookstore in Eugene. Stuart Raymond told Eugene Weekly that the plans for a bookstore and bar gradually grew out of daydreams about owning a "cute little brewery with a bookstore in it." The more the couple joked about it, "the more it became real. And then, things just lined up. We saw this building and it just worked out."

Opening celebrations on Independent Bookstore Day will include a tile painting event, in which customers can paint tiles that will be displayed around the store.

Beth Elliott, owner of Downtown Book & Toy in Jefferson City, Mo., announced earlier this week that the bookstore will be sold, KRCG13 reported.

While details about the buyer were not provided, Elliott said in a Facebook post that they "have fantastic ideas to keep local bookselling in Jefferson City, and I know that they will be successful."

Elliott added that it will "take a little time to get details worked out," though she hopes for as little disruption as possible. Newspapers will be discounted for the rest of the month, with the last delivery of the News Tribune scheduled for April 19. All other newspapers will cease being delivered on April 30, and Elliott encouraged customers to pick up any outstanding special orders by the end of the month.

"I have endless gratitude to everyone who has patronized us over the years," wrote Elliott. "Thank you so much for helping me to achieve a dream."

The news comes just a few days after store manager Jamie Howard told KRCG13 that Trump's tariffs and trade war posed a significant threat to the book and toy store. Not only had the cost of goods already risen, Howard noted, but the economic uncertainty seemed to have already caused a drop in foot traffic.

Elliott purchased Downtown Book & Toy in 2021 from the store's retiring owners. Previously, Elliott had worked at a second Downtown Book & Toy location at Capital Mall in Jefferson City.

During the recent Festival du Livre de Paris, the International Publishers Association revealed the six publishers from Algeria, Belarus, Lebanon, Russia, and the U.S. that are on the shortlist for the association's Freedom to Publish prize, the Prix Voltaire:

Mohamad Hadi, Dar Al Rafidain (Lebanon)
Amar Ingrachen, Frantz Fanon (Algeria)
Nadja Kandrusevich, Koska (Belarus, exiled in Sweden)
Michel Moushabeck, Interlink Publishing (U.S.)
Dmitri Strotsev, Hochroth Minsk (Belarus, exiled in Germany)
Georgy Urushadze, Freedom Letters (Russia, exiled in the U.K.)

Kristenn Einarsson, chair of the IPA's Freedom to Publish Committee, commented: "The freedom to publish is vital if the freedom of expression is to exist in practice and if the freedom to read is to be enjoyed fully. The IPA Prix Voltaire recognizes those publishers who fight for their freedom to publish, for their freedom to recognize the remarkable work of a creator and to try to bring it to readers. As we see from the world around us the freedom of expression can erode very quickly with obvious influence on the Freedom to Publish. These are rights that we constantly must fight for, and as a number of publishers in our shortlist this year suggest, from exile if necessary."

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Muthoni Muiruri

Muthoni Muiruri, co-founder of Soma Nami Books, Nairobi's only woman-owned Pan-African bookstore, spoke with OkayAfrica about how "she has helped reshape how stories from the continent are accessed and celebrated."

"I started reading African books because I needed to affirm myself," she said. "Reading African stories reminded me who I was. They helped me reclaim my voice."

Her reading journey sparked the creation of Soma Nami, first as a blog, then a book club, and eventually "a Pan-African bookstore that now stocks literature from all 54 African countries," OkayAfrica wrote. Muiruri and co-founder Wendy Njoroge "set out to build something new--a space where African stories could take center stage." What followed was the creation of Soma Nami Books, the bookstore, the African Book Fair and, more recently, a publishing imprint called Soma Nami Press.

"The African publishing industry is complicated," Muiruri said. "First, there's the language divide--Francophone, Anglophone, Lusophone--and so many books are not translated. Kenya is an Anglophone country, so bringing books from Francophone Africa or Portuguese-speaking countries like Mozambique or Guinea-Bissau became difficult. There was also the issue of logistics. Honestly, it was easier to get books from London or the U.S. than from Cameroon or the DR Congo. It's wild, but that's the reality. 

"Still, we didn't shy away. We connected with publishers, translators, and other bookstores and just kept going. Slowly, we built a catalogue. And at the beginning of 2023, we hit the 54th country."

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Jane Winterbotham

Jane Winterbotham, editor-at-large and previous deputy managing director of Walker Books, will retire from the company at the end of May. The Bookseller reported that after moving from Reed/Egmont to Walker as publishing director, more than 25 years ago, she "was one of the first directors named to lead the company succeeding its founders."

"Jane was determined to retain the artist- and author-centered spirit of Walker, originally instilled by Sebastian Walker, and one of the ways she succeeded in doing this was through the support she showed to her staff and the books across the company," the company noted. "Throughout, Jane continued to work on her own list of books--a role she has enjoyed to this day as editor-at-large." --Robert Gray

British poet and scholar Clive Wilmer, who was best known for his advocacy of the work of the Victorian artist and critic John Ruskin and of the poet Thom Gunn, died March 13, the Guardian reported. He was 80. Wilmer edited the Penguin Classics edition of Ruskin's Unto This Last and Other Writings (1985) and from 2009 was master of the Guild of St. George, a national charity "for arts, craft and the rural economy" founded by Ruskin in 1871. 

"Wilmer saw how John Ruskin's ideas could help make the world better," said Rachel Dickinson, who succeeded him as master of the Guild in 2019.

The other great influence on Wilmer's life was poet Gunn, whom he first met in 1964. They remained correspondents and friends until Gunn's death nearly 40 years later. Wilmer edited a selection of Gunn's essays, The Occasions of Poetry (1982), and more recently had been editing an annotated Selected Poems (2018) and, with Michael Nott and August Kleinzahler, The Letters of Thom Gunn (2022). At the time of his death, he was preparing Gunn's Collected Essays. He also edited Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Selected Poems and Translations (1991) and William Morris's News from Nowhere and Other Writings (1993). 

As a translator, Wilmer focused primarily on Hungarian poetry in collaboration with fellow poet George Gömöri. Translations of poetry by György Petri, Miklós Radnóti, and János Pilinszky "showcased Clive's technical gifts and, in 2018, he received the Janus Pannonius prize for a lifetime's achievement in translation from Hungarian," the Guardian wrote.

Wilmer's first collection of poems was The Dwelling-Place (1977). His most critically acclaimed books were Of Earthly Paradise (1992), The Falls (2000), and The Mystery of Things (2008). His final collection, Architecture & Other Poems, will be published later this year.

Jeff Chu, who is on a 30-city tour for Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand (Convergent Books), spoke at Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tenn., which partnered with Novel Books. He was in conversation with Barbara Brown Taylor, author of numerous books, including Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others (HarperCollins), and they stopped in to Novel to meet staff and sign copies of their books.

Posted on Facebook by TidePool Bookshop, Worcester, Mass.: "If you happen to be helping out the Easter Bunny this year and are in need of something to pop into a basket or two, you may want to stop by TidePool. We have books, bunnies, bags, baby chicks, bath soap and more!"

The Cottage Book Shop, Glen Arbor, Mich., shared a photo of the bookshop's Easter-themed sidewalk chalkboard sign on Instagram, noting: "Hop Into Spring With Us! Easter is almost here, and we've got everything you need for the perfect basket. Visit us this week and let your Easter weekend bloom with books!"

"Athena Books is more than a bookstore--it's a place to slow down, explore, and connect. Whether you're picking up a quick gift, browsing for your next page-turner, or just need a cozy escape, we're here for you. See you soon, bookworms!" Athena Books, Old Greenwich, Conn., posted on Instagram.

Davina Tomlin has joined the Macmillan Children's Publishing Group school and library team as associate marketing manager. Previously, they were marketing and publicity associate at Macmillan Podcasts.

Today:
NPR's Science Friday: Josh Miele, author of Connecting Dots: A Blind Life (Grand Central, $30, 9780306832789).

Fresh Air: Joy-Ann Reid, author of Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America--A Biography of Courage and Activism (Mariner Books, $30, 9780063068797).

Joel Kinnaman (For All Mankind) has joined the cast of Imperfect Women, Apple's limited series based on Araminta Hall's novel, Deadline reported. Starring and executive produced by Elisabeth Moss and Kerry Washington, the project also features Kate Mara. 

Physical creator Weisman writes and exec produces. Other executive producers include Moss and Lindsey McManus for Love & Squalor Pictures, which initially optioned the book; along with Washington and Pilar Savone for Simpson Street; Hall and Kay Oyegun. The show is a co-production between 20th Television and Apple Studios.

The Publishing Triangle has announced the winners of the 2025 Triangle Awards, honoring the best LGBTQ+ books published in 2024. This year's winners are:

The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ+ Fiction, administered in conjunction with the Ferro-Grumley Foundation, and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction: Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang (Dutton) [Editor's note: This is only the second time that a book has won both these awards.]
The Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction: Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction: The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallet (HarperCollins)
The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry: Your Dazzling Death by Cass Donish (Knopf)
The Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry: Rara Avis by Blas Falconer (Four Way Books)
The Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature: A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest by Charlie J. Stephens (Torrey House Press)
The Joseph Hansen Award for LGBTQ+ Crime Writing: Blessed Water by Margot Douaihy (Zando/Gillian Flynn Books)
The Jacqueline Woodson Award for LGBTQ+ Young Adult and Children's Literature: Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa (Wednesday Books)
The Amber Hollibaugh Award for LGBTQ+ Social Justice Writing: How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability and Doom by Johanna Hedva (Zando-Hillman Grad Books)

The Publishing Triangle's four honorary awards, which were announced in March:

Rabih Alameddine was given the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Trans formative Schools was presented with the Torchbearer Award.

David Groff was given the Michele Karlsberg Leadership Award.

Brittany Rogers won the Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award.

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The Donner Canadian Foundation has released a shortlist for the Donner Prize, recognizing "excellence and innovation in public policy writing by Canadians." The winner, who will be named May 15 at a gala dinner in Toronto, receives C$60,000 (about US$43,370), with each of the finalists getting C$7,500 (about US$5,420). This year's shortlisted titles are:

Fiscal Choices: Canada After the Pandemic by Michael M. Atkinson & Haizhen Mou 
And Sometimes They Kill You: Confronting the Epidemic of Intimate Partner Violence by Pamela Cross 
Constraining the Court: Judicial Power and Policy Implementation in the Charter Era by James B. Kelly 
Seized by Uncertainty: The Markets, Media and Special Interests that Shaped Canada's Response to COVID-19 by Kevin Quigley, Kaitlynne Lowe, Sarah Moore, & Brianna Wolfe
Hard Lessons in Corporate Governance by Bryce C. Tingle 

Gregory Belton, chair of the Donner Canadian Foundation, said, "The Donner jurors have reviewed a field of over 80 books submitted by a record 47 publishers, in English and French, and have brought forward a shortlist of five books.... These books all contribute to the national debate of headline issues. We thank the jury for bringing these books to our attention."

photo: Terry Tempest Williams

Brooke Williams writes about evolution, consciousness, and his own adventures exploring both the inner and outer wilderness. He grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, eventually opting for time outside wandering instead of a Mormon mission. Recent books include Open Midnight: Where Wilderness and Ancestors Meet and Mary Jane Wild: Two Walks and a Rant.

His latest is Encountering Dragonfly: Notes on the Practice of Re-enchantment (Uphill Books, April 8, 2025), which is his account of being drawn into a different kind of relationship with the natural world. He believes that the length of the past equals the length of the future. He lives with the writer Terry Tempest Williams and their two cats near Moab, Utah, where they watch the light and wait for rain.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

Dragonflies helped me see that if the disenchantment of the world is the root of our most serious problems, re-enchantment is part of the solution.

On your nightstand now:

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami. I love how matter-of-factly and realistically he dissolves the borders between worlds.

Dancing with the Dead by Red Pine. His translations of ancient Chinese poems add a valuable dimension to my life. This book samples so much of his work and includes his philosophy of life and the art of translating.

Naked at Our Age by Joan Price. We are in our 70s.

Jung, Synchronicity, and Human Destiny by Ira Progoff. One of hundreds of books we inherited from Terry's grandmother. It adds greatly to my understanding of synchronicity, which I believe to be a major element of the enchanted world.

Treekeepers by Lauren E. Oakes. A friend and former student, Lauren has made trees a new dimension to my life.

Was It Worth It? by Doug Peacock. Doug, my friend (more like a big brother) provides me with foundational wisdom, and is there when my own conscience is insufficient.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

Favorite book when you were a child:

First, Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. Looking back, I think that this book opened a door for me to feel the way I do about all life.

Then, On the Loose by Terry and Renny Russell (see below).

Your top five authors, today:

Red Pine, David Hinton, Paul Shepard, Virginia Woolf, Haruki Murakami.

Book you've faked reading:

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. I wish I could read this, but every time I try, I get bogged down and want a nap.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Existence by David Hinton. So short--on viewing one painting, yet powerful enough that now, if asked about my religious affiliation, I'd consider myself a Taoist.

Book you've bought for the cover:

The Red Book by Carl Jung--I'm a real disciple of Jung and thought that a book this big and this red must be a treasure chest. (It is.)

Book you hid from your parents:

On the Loose by Terry and Renny Russell. For me, this book took the place of the Book of Mormon, which was sacrosanct in my family.

Book that changed your life:

On the Loose by Terry and Renny Russell. At the perfect time in my life, this book opened the door to a huge new world.

Favorite line from a book:

From Nature and Madness by Paul Shepard:

"Beneath the veneer of civilization, in the trite phase of humanism, lies not the barbarian and the animal, but the human in us who knows what is right and necessary for becoming fully human: birth in gentle surroundings, a rich non-human environment, juvenile tasks with simple tools, the discipline of natural history, play at being animals, the expressive arts of receiving food as spiritual gift rather than as a product, the cultivation of metaphorical significance of natural phenomena of all kinds, clan membership and small-group life, and the profound claims and liberation of ritual initiation and the subsequent stages of adult mentorship. There is a secret person undamaged in each of us, aware of the validity of these conditions and sensitive to their right moments in our lives."

Five books you'll never part with:

Nature and Madness by Paul Shepard. This helped me put words to the story which I've pursued most of my life: "...how, during these complicated and dangerous times, do we find and call upon our own evolutionary bodies?"

Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits by Red Pine. When age forced me to confront my own physical inability to access wild places, this book helped me enter my own hermit phase, which I'll stay in the rest of my life.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. We spent a week studying this book while wandering the paths that Woolf and her people walked in England. She gives me permission to follow the streams of my own consciousness, which adds an important dimension to my life.

Existence by David Hinton. This book continues to supply words that make sense.

Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences by Abraham Maslow. At just the right time in my life, this book empowered me by allowing me to legitimize my own primary experience over those of others I was taught controlled my life.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock. A difficult question, but this book came up spontaneously just now, so I'll trust that. It's about grizzly bears and Vietnam, and it is thrilling.

Magic and hubris collide with devastating consequences as a professor attempts to keep the gears of her venerable school turning in the mature, emotionally complex dark academia fantasy novel The Incandescent by Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo Award for her first novel, Some Desperate Glory.

Dr. Saffy Walden lives a life no different than that of any other school administrator: there's not as much time to teach as she would like, far more meetings than she would prefer, and the constant toil of keeping the school's magical wards in fit shape to fend off any demons who might want to snack on the student body. Well, perhaps her position as Director of Magic at the Chetwood School is a bit different than the average school administrator. Her 14-hour workdays don't leave much time for hobbies, but work-life balance is no priority since "her career was her life." Her challenges include protecting the world from the poor decisions of magically gifted teenagers, especially in the face of other, less imaginative faculty. "It was an unfortunate truth," the narrator muses, "that in the Venn diagram of 'qualified to teach magic' and 'still alive,' the overlap consisted almost entirely of people who had always been much too sensible to accidentally get eaten by a demon."

Walden balances safety concerns with students' educational needs, which leads her to lock horns with Laura Kenning, the school's gorgeous head demon-hunter. Luckily Walden is one of the world's finest magicians. Bring on the demon that possesses the photocopier in the workroom, the arrogant legacy student, the piles of paperwork, because she has everything under control. Unfortunately, while demons are formidable, no one is as potentially dangerous as a magician who believes she has everything under control.

Tesh encapsulates all the wonder and hormone-soaked angst implied by the exclusive magical boarding school setting with an adult glow-up that highlights the soul-crushing bureaucracy and burnout that can accompany a career in education. Walden's loss of relationships and self to a job that sets her above and apart from others rings true, and the demons that both fuel and threaten the magic practitioners work as an apt metaphor for all manner of obsessions. Fans of Naomi Novik's Scholomance series or Leigh Bardugo's Alex Stern novels, as well as any readers who have wondered what the workday of a Hogwarts professor might look like, should find this story a veritable cornucopia of dark delight. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Shelf Talker: A faculty head at a magical prep school battles demons while losing her work-life balance in this mature, emotionally complex dark academia fantasy.