Busy weekend ahead!

This coming weekend, May 26th and 27th, is a busy one for the Hardwick area. Saturday is the 62nd Annual Hardwick Spring Festival, beginning with a 5K run at 9 a.m.; parade at 11:00; and an outdoor exhibitor and vendors fair, rides, food, and games at Atkins Field until 4 p.m.

Before or after (or during--we have a great view from our window!) the Main Street parade, visit The Galaxy Bookshop, take a look at some of the wonderful new books filling our shelves and browse through our sale bin for some great finds.

While you're in town, or perhaps the following day, you can also take advantage of Open Studio Weekend, visiting a number of local artisans and galleries that will feature beautiful handmade items for sale, and in some cases demonstrations and sales.

In addition to the Vermont Crafts Council website linked above, more information about both events can be found on the Hardwick Area Chamber of Commerce online calendar.

Time for another party!

We strongly believe in having parties--period. We had a party to celebrate the announcement of our move, a party to move the store, and a party to celebrate our re-opening. This month, we have another reason to celebrate: the gorgeous mural that Tara Goreau designed and painted for us has been installed! Over the past few months, we've heard numerous creative suggestions for decorating our walls, and each time we were mentally rubbing our hands together with glee, thinking, "Oh, just you wait and see!" Well, the waiting is over, and the artwork is even more amazing than we could have imagined. A whimsical view of Hardwick overhung with a sky of sparkling constellations, full of so many imaginative details that it can take multiple viewings to notice them all; this painting is, itself, a celebration of books and reading and community.

Join us this Saturday, May 5th, from 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. to to toast Tara and her work!

Review: Oh, No, George!

Every dog--and every kid--knows that the best intentions can be blown to the wind in the face of temptation, and this is what the hapless hero of Oh, No, George! discovers, time and again.

" 'Yes,' says George 'I'll be very good.' I hope I'll be good, George thinks," when Harry steps out for a little while. But, "Oh, no, George!," the lure of a cake, a playful cat, and a garden bed prove too strong to resist. How will the poor, disgraced pup redeem himself?

Using a vibrant palette of reds and purples, author/illustrator Chris Haughton paints George and his antics in an abstract style that allows the characters expressions to shine through, eliciting both laughter and sympathy for this well-meaning pooch.

Haughton wrote a fantastic, well-illustrated, blog post about the process of writing and illustrating this book, from conception to layout. Click here to read all about it!

The League of Vermont Writers 2012 Literary Competition

Calling all writers: The League of Vermont Writers (LVW) has announced its 2012 Literary Competition!

This year's theme is "My New England."

Categories are Fiction, Personal Essay, and Poetry.

Entry fee is $15 per submission.

Deadline for submission is May 15, 2012.

The Final Judges are David Budbill, Ron Powers, and Howard Frank Mosher.

Grand Prize is $1,000 (one prize awarded for each category) and an opportunity to read the winning selection at the LVW's Summer Conference, as well as publication in the Leagues 2012 Journal!

For more information about the contest and guidelines, visit the LVW website.

The Further Adventures of Scout and Jem

For everyone hoping for an update on Jem and Scout, our former bookstore kitties, we are happy to share some of the poetry they have inspired their new owner to write. From the sounds of it they are having a ball!

Morning Grand Prix

By Rick Eschholz

I suspect that the spirit of the late Brazilian
Formula-One champion, Ayrton Senna,
overtakes my two cats briefly at exactly
five-thirty every morning. That is when
they kick into high gear. A spectator
in the grandstand that is my bed, I hear
them flying around the house. Their
cadence, paws alternately gripping
for braking power and then the bite
of acceleration, tells me that now they
could only be circumnavigating the
distinctive turns of Interlagos, the setting
for, perhaps, Senna’s most heroic win
in the Brazilian Grand Prix of ninety-one.
After a gearbox failure left him with
only sixth gear, Senna collapsed at the
end of the race. His muscle spasms
visible on the podium, he could
barely lift his trophy overhead.
My cats, too, slump the rest of the day,
and collapse on the couch in the sun,
their calm demeanor belying what comes
out at dawn, what rests in the heart of any
champion: something fierce, untamed, wild.

Check back for future installments of 'cat-inspired poetry!'

Moving Day

It's hard to believe that we've been in our new space for a month already! So far, things are going very well. We continue to move and add things throughout the store, so keep coming by to see what's new since your last visit!

We had such an amazing show of support from our customers and neighbors in Hardwick throughout our moving process. Sadly, some of the photos taken during our move were lost in the bowels of a computer, but here are some wonderful images from the weekend before and day of the move to Main Street. Photos are by Diane Grenkow and Elena Gustavson.

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Moving On

By Sandy

Moving The Galaxy Bookshop has been a challenging and exciting process, but for me, it is also tinged with some sadness. I have never been good at dealing with changes--I will always remember crying over the loss of our brown and green plaid couch when my parents decided it was time to upgrade from the hand-me-down furniture from Great-Grandma's house. Though I am very pleased with our new space, both for its location and its features (beautiful hardwood flooring, vaulted ceiling, wonderful front window with stage area...), I miss the "old" Galaxy Bookshop.

It's natural, I suppose. That bank building was my second home for the past 10 years, and though many of you will remember former incarnations of the bookstore, I only have a vague recollection of visiting the shop as a kid when it was originally on Main Street. To me, The Galaxy Bookshop was the bank building, with its vault and "story teller" drive-through window and tin ceiling and marble floor and fiction shelved in the tall shelves--'A' through 'R' along one wall, with 'S' through 'Z' on the opposite wall--and children's books in the back room, the first books to welcome me to work each morning.

It didn't really hit me until the night before our book parade that this move was really, actually happening, and the bookstore that I had come to know as well as any friend was gone. Not--as I have been reminded--truly gone, but the physical store will never again be the same. When I drive into town to get to work, I now drive by the old store and feel a pang, wishing that I could turn into the parking lot, unlock the tricky back door, unlock the second door, and walk in to be greeted by the familiar smell and the shelves of books on adolescence and parenting issues.

There are a few things that cheer me very much when I begin to feel sad and nostalgic, though. One: The Galaxy Bookshop may look very different, but it's still here! Linda and I and Stella and Claire are here, along with Howard Mosher and Lydia Bastianich and Terry Pratchett and Jim Harrison and Charlotte Bronte and Eric Carle and a thousand other old friends on the shelves. Two: Standing in front of the crowd that showed up to our book moving day and seeing all of those friendly faces looking back, then witnessing the enthusiasm and excitement with which everyone pitched in to help us get set up in our new spot. Three: Greeting people as they walk through the door with wide eyes and words of congratulations. This is where the spirit of The Galaxy Bookshop lives, and no change of address or rearranging of shelves will change that.