The Bookshop That Taught Me How To Write

by Jo Wyton

This week, I was going to write something so light-hearted it was barely hearted at all, given that it's the general election next week and we're all exhausted. And then a process that has been ongoing for two years finally reached it's thrilling conclusion: two of my close friends sold their bookshop.

Nicki and Mark Thornton have owned Mostly Books in Abingdon for over a decade. Abingdon isn't a huge town, and yet for many years it has somehow, miraculously*, sustained two independent bookshops. 

*There is nothing miraculous about it: these guys work their butts off.

The Bookshop of Awesomeness. And a Gruffalo.

I imagine that many people reading this will have a connection to their local independent bookshop. I met Nicki first, at a Kate Harrison event back in 2008 (I think!). I was headed there with someone I'd met on a local writing course, and Nicki was busy doing what all successful independent bookshop owners do - EVERYTHING. 

I am convinced I haven't ever seen Nicki or Mark standing still in the near-decade I've known them. It's possible they're magic.

I joined a local writers group that had been set up by Nicki, and from there joined the SCBWI and a children's writing critique group (with Nicki). At some point, she advised me (read: told me) to drop the middle grade novel I'd been working on and write the YA novel that would follow on from an excerpt I'd read out that evening. I went on to be one of the winners of Undiscovered Voices 2012 with that very novel and haven't ever looked back.

Critique group fun in the sun (actually it's in the shade because we're all pallid writer types)

So Nicki has, you see, been integral to my entire writing journey so far.

But she's also done what a really fantastic bookshop owner will do: she's introduced me to some of my very favourite authors. I think the first book she ever bought me was August by Bernard Beckett, a little-known Australian YA author who writes the most brilliant and unexpected books. August remains  The Book I Would Love To Write.

And on top of all that, she and Mark have really let me get involved. Independent bookshops rely on volunteers to help (if you want experience of the book industry on your doorstep, pop down to your local indie and see if you can pitch in at some events). 

At a Cressida Cowell event in dragon trainer-appropriate attire.

I've sold books with them at schools, book awards and in the shop. I've heard a dozen authors speak to school kids, watched how they deal with book signings (Anthony Horowitz was a total pro, hanging around until every single kid had taken a picture and had a scribble in their book, never rushing one of them), figured out how to recommend books to kids and to parents buying for kids, learned what sells and what doesn't, what the gaps in the market are, how booksellers run their businesses, how they integrate themselves into the community, more like a local service than a shop. Kids have been terrified by the Gruffalo in that shop, been bewitched by Hugless Douglas, coloured in and done easter egg hunts and spent their world book day vouchers. They've scoured the shelves for the next Skulduggery Pleasant and for something completely new.

A cake from my first Oxfordshire Book Awards. The OBA is the most crazy event I've ever done. Imagine about 100 kids all racing at you at once looking for something to spend their pocket money on. The tables we stand behind gradually get shoved back until our backs are against the wall and we are terrified for our lives. 

In so many ways, Mostly Books, Nicki and Mark have shaped the kind of writer and reader I am. So instead of writing a silly post (which I am sure I will thrill you all with at a later date), I thought I would say thank you to those guys and to all the booksellers who become part of our lives. 

And despite no longer owning the shop, next year will be Nicki's biggest one in books yet: her own book will find its place on the shelves after she won the Chicken House/Times competition with The Firefly Cage. Now that is a book launch I absolutely can't wait for!