Steve Ashley, owner of Valley Bookstore, Jackson, Wyo., was interviewed recently by the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Author David Abrams (Fobbit) featured the q&a on his blog, the Quivering Pen, noting: "Writers are molded by the bookstores of their youth. Or, maybe it's their public library; or, it could be that shelf of books in their family's living room. In my case, it was the Valley Bookstore.... All the time, I was being molded by my bookstores, my writerly clay patted and carved and fired in a kiln. I have Steve Ashley and the Valley Bookstore to thank for the way I turned out as much as I do the Teton County Library and Mrs. Schlinger, my ninth-grade English teacher." Among our favorite exchanges:
What makes Valley Bookstore unique?
We're just a bookstore. Ninety-five percent of the store is books, and that's because it's what I love. I think it's important for the community, for children and adults to have the opportunity to hold a book and smell a book and have the epiphanies those books provide. Books for me have always been some of my best friends. When I was at the Holderness School [a prep school] back East, I read The Lord of the Rings and then went back to The Hobbit. It was late '67. The Doors came out with the album Strange Days. Great album. I read Tolkien listening to that album again and again. I was 2,000 miles away from home. It grounded me. It gave me something that made me feel really good. Books have done that for me many times over the years.
Are you glad to have been a bookstore owner?
This has been a great business. If you're going to sell something, hands down selling books is the best thing there is. With books you have something new coming out very week. At the same time I get whatever books I want. If you have a bookstore in Jackson for 35 years, you hire a ton of people over that time. One of the things I love is that when I go to the grocery store, chances are I'll see someone who worked for me and is still a friend.
