Opening a bookstore seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to sell your own books.
“It is,” says local author Paula Treick DeBoard, who lets out a knowing laugh. “It was an awful lot of trouble. I’m taking a little hiatus from writing at the moment.”
Treick DeBoard has published four books — “The Mourning Hours,” “The Fragile World,” “The Drowning Girls,” and “Here We Lie” — and teaches writing composition at UC Merced. But now she’s focusing on her latest venture: she and husband Will DeBoard, a former newspaper reporter who now serves as assistant commissioner for the California Interscholastic Federation’s Sac-Joaquin Section, have opened Bookish, a bookstore in Modesto’s Roseburg Square.
“But this happened earlier than we thought it would, because once we started talking about it … doors just started opening.”
The couple began working with the Valley Small Business Development Corporation and looking into different business models. Then, last summer, Treick DeBoard just happened past an open storefront that was for rent.
“We were supposed to be looking for a place, not in a place,” says Treick DeBoard. “We just kind of figured it was the perfect spot and we might as well move on it.”
From there, things progressed quickly.
“I contacted the property management company and tried to see if I could stall and buy us six months,” says Treick DeBoard. “They said, ‘No, you’ve got, like, six weeks.’ So, we had to get everything together for a loan. We signed the lease for this place without knowing if we were going to get a loan. I don’t think we slept for two weeks worrying about that.”
They got the keys to the store in October and set about renovating the space.
The store features about 5,000 new and used volumes, and has a part-time assistant manager and three booksellers/baristas. Bookish also boasts fun and unique flourishes you might expect from creative people.
For starters, upon entering the store, customers will see the book arch, a lovely bit of trompe-l’oeil that gives the impression you’re passing through a gigantic bookcase as you make your way into the children’s section.
Soon, Bookish will begin selling coffee in the store and on June 14 singer-songwriter Maxwell Wine will be in-store at 6:30 p.m. performing for customers.
On Saturdays, from 8:30 to 10 a.m., Bookish hosts a writing group for aspiring writers who want to bring their laptop — or even just pen and paper — and work on their projects for an hour or so.
“The idea is to see if there’s maybe 10, 12 people who have gotten away from their writing and want to get back to it, or want to come up with an idea, or something like that,” says Treick DeBoard. “It’s not really a writing group in the sense that we’re going to critique each other’s work. When we’re here, we’re going to unplug everything and just write for an hour. And we’re going to do that for six weeks, just an hour a week. The idea is that, hopefully, you’ll return to it throughout the week. And at the end of six weeks, you’ve met whatever your goal is.
“It’s going to be the most low-stress writing group.”
Bookish also hosts a weekly story time for children, and a silent reading club, where you sit and read your own book for an hour, then talk with others about what you’re reading.
On the horizon is a night-owls reading club, which will be held from 9 to midnight and works like the silent reading club; a blind date with a book, where readers sign up to read a books of a certain genre or time period, while the actual title remains a mystery; open-mic readings, for those brave souls who want to get up and read a bit of their own writing; and what Will DeBoard has dubbed story slams.
“We’re calling it, ‘Two Hours from Anywhere,’” says DeBoard, playing on the Central Valley’s proximity to any number of prominent destinations. “You get up, and you get five minutes to tell a story. Not a written story, but a story off the top of your head.”
Customers can even rent the space for private book club meetings, parties and other small events.
And if none of that seems like it’s for you, the DeBoards want you to know that you’re still welcome to come into Bookish and sit at one of the writing tables or in one of the chairs in the reading nook, just to chill out for a bit.
It’s all part of what Treick DeBoard calls a “book renaissance,” sparked, oddly enough, by BookTok, a sub-community on the social media app TikTok that focuses on book recommendations.
“BookTok is huge and there’s a resurgence of people reading books, reviewing books, selling books,” says Treick DeBoard. “And these people are young — 30 years and younger. So, if anything is keeping physical bookstores going, it’s that demographic.”
The first weeks after Bookish’s opening were hectic, especially April 4, the grand opening.
“The first day, we sold a fifth of our inventory,” says Treick DeBoard, who can order in-print titles and have them at the store within two or three business days. “I had to reorder everything and I was up that whole night figuring out how to do that quickly.”
Treick DeBoard published her first book, “The Mourning Hours,” in 2013. She remembers what it was like seeing her novel on the shelf in a bookstore for the very first time.
“That feeling does not diminish the second time, the third time, the 50th time,” says Treick DeBoard. “It’s pretty cool.”
And seeing her books for sale on the shelves of her very own bookstore?
“It is a little weird,” she says. “I occasionally forget entirely about it and somebody will randomly come to the register with one of my books and I’m like, ‘Oh, I wrote this book.’”
Bookish is located at 811 W. Roseburg Ave., and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit BookishModesto.com/events to see a calendar of upcoming events. Email bookish@modestobookish.comor call 209-408-8067.
