Prairie Lights: Exceptional Author Venue Approaches 30

August 01, 2007

In May 2008, Iowa's Prairie Lights Bookstore will be celebrating 30 years of bookselling. "In the beginning, we were running on energy and love and no knowledge," said owner Jim Harris. "Prairie Lights, as with other stores -- Hungry Mind, Tattered Cover, and Powell's -- were all growing at about the same time. We were running on adrenaline, and it was lots of fun."

Of course Prairie Lights, has changed since 1978 when it first opened in a 1,000-square-foot space. Now 80,000 to 100,000 titles and a cafe fill an 11,000-square-foot location in downtown Iowa City. The latest acquisition of 800-square-feet, where the cafe is, was once a literary salon throughout the 1930s, hosting writers Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, e e cummings, and others. Gertrude Stein and partner Alice B. Toklas were rumored to have been on their way to the salon when they were thwarted by a sleet storm.

Harris cites the expansion of the reading series as one of the most significant changes in the store over the years, and credits the public radio station WSUI, the oldest educational broadcast station west of the Mississippi, with making the 150 to 200 annual author events possible in their Live From Prairie Lights series. It's allowed for an especially full calendar given the size of the small university community of under 100,000. "The radio station came to us about 16 years ago," he said. "They wanted local programming that didn't cost anything. It was just at this time when publishers started expanding the readings program, which really fueled the reading series."

Last year, marking 15 years of Live From Prairie Lights, WSUI held an anniversary program with sound clips from the past, live readings and commentary from authors and interaction with the LFPL studio audience. Featured writers included Colson Whitehead, Jane Hamilton, Karen Joy Fowler, Ethan Canin, James Galvin, Samantha Chang, Marvin Bell, Chris Offutt, Chris Merrill, Mary Swander, and Jim McPherson. Host Julie Englander announced the anniversary show as a celebration of a "unique collaboration between a renowned independent bookstore and ... a renowned public radio station. It was a passion for literature that brought together these two elements."

One of Harris' all-time favorite readings was by Alexander McCall Smith. "He came here a couple of months ago. He's such a sweetheart. In addition to selling books like they're falling off the planet -- he's such a nice man."

David Sedaris also made the cut. At one of his readings, the bookstore had to limit the number of attendees and made 100 free tickets available at 6:00 a.m. on a first-come first-served basis. "We didn't want to sell them ... that goes against the grain," Harris explained. "At the time of the reading people got there way ahead of time. Sedaris introduced himself to each person. When the reading started, he had them in the palm of his hand. He's just so good."

Harris mentioned Susan Sontag, Gloria Steinem, and Annie Proulx as each having been the center of very interesting events.  "I had picked up Ms. Steinem at the airport and taken her to the hotel where Black Sabbath or the like was also staying," he said. "I'm not sure she slept a wink that night."

Then there were seven Nobel laureates who've "passed through the portal" -- Seamus Heaney, Czeslaw Milosz, Derek Walcott, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, Orhan Pamuk, and John M. Coetzee.

Prairie Lights is also known for its extensive poetry section ("We sell as much poetry as any store in the country"), and for its long lasting relationship with the Iowa's Writing Workshop. "It's very close," noted Harris. "To say symbiotic is too much of a cliche, but it's very healthy." Faculty, whose books can be found on Prairie Lights' shelves, often give readings and maintain a close relationship with the bookstore. In Prairie Lights' early days, the Iowa Writers' Workshop "sort of adopted" it and helped with suggestions to fill the shelves.

Prairie Lights has also been using the Book Sense lists since the beginning of the program. "A lot of people really like the lists and always follow them," said Harris.

As far as celebrating the bookstore's 30th anniversary, Harris doesn't plan to go all out. "Our 25th was big, but our 30th won't be as big. The great thing about our 25th was that [we] had three meetings [about it] that lasted no more than 20 minutes. We decided what we wanted to do and did it without a fixed budget. We had 400 people and great food. It was a perfect day."

Instead of party planning, Harris is focused on coordinating upcoming author events. His current big project right now is helping the University of Iowa Press organize events for Poems From Guantanamo, a collection of 22 poems written by detainees, soon to be published the UI Press. The story of how the poetry anthology came to be has been covered by The Independent, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and NPR. "Because of this swirl of attention," said Harris in the Prairie Lights' newsletter, "I have been helping Jim McCoy of the Press organize readings during Banned Books Weeks from the book at various stores around the country including City Lights, Skylight Books in Los Feliz,[and] Village Books of Bellingham. The list is getting longer and there may soon be a European component."

Harris is also looking forward to hosting Paul Krugman (The Conscience of a Liberal) in November. "Norton wasn't sending him out on a big tour, but I wrote and wrote and wrote, and we got him. We have two things going for us when the book comes out this fall. We have the public radio program, and it's caucus time. We'll have all of these people running around. Everyone from the candidates themselves -- Barack and Bill and Hill, and also all of the media following them. We'll have the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. So the publisher will get a big bang for their buck. We'll have to really be on our toes." --Karen Schechner

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