Category Archives: Birmingham

Birmingham, Bookstores, News

Greencup Books is Closing Its Doors

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After a few years of trying to find its place in the Birmingham scene, independent bookstore and publishing house Greencup Books has announced it’s going-out-of-business after the November 2nd, el Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival. The shop has been struggling over the past few months, having never really regained its footing after founder and publisher Russell Helms sold it. Greencup had plenty of great titiles and was fun to browse, though they often crammed the store with music acts and theatrical performances, upstairs and between the stacks.

The official announcement came this weekend, via the Greencup Books Facebook Fan Page:

well… its been a good run… the question was never if we were going to last.. but how long…ideally, it would have been longer.. but between the economy, the new construction across the street that took our parking, and their workers that take up all available parking 5 days a week… we are done for…we are broke and I can’t do it anymore, I am tired of begging you and the city for breaks… non-profit or not, this city is not really interested in small business, not enough revenue for them… ..Don’t really feel like getting all mopey I will just say I am closing our doors after day of the dead….

thanks for making this possible
michael

This economy is tough on everyone and regardless of how things hit or missed at Greencup Books, it’s a shame to loose a true business experiment here in Birmingham.

Birmingham, Bookstores, Events, Publishers

WordCamp Birmingham is This Weekend!

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One of my favorite events of the year is this weekend. It’s the annual WordCamp Birmingham! The schedule is jam packed with great presentations and even a “genius bar” styled workshop. So I hope to walk out with some uber-cool ideas and improvements to the site soon.

Of course, topping the cool chart this year is the State of the Word address by Matt Mullenweg and the closing keynote by Esra’a Al Shafei, founder and exec. dir. of MideastYouth.com.WordCamp Birmingham already has an active Twitter feed and you’ll be able to follow all week and weekend with the hashtag #wcbhm09.

See you there!

Birmingham, Book Talk, Bookstores, Events, library, News, On the Web

Four Bookish Dealings of a Timely Nature

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I just wanted to take a moment to make sure that some of these things are on your radar, as they all have deadlines and dates attached to them. I think it would be fun if everyone promoted and participated in these events! Let us know of anything else cool going on that we could follow.

This week (September 14-18) has been Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Many, many cool blogs have been mentioned and awarded. Congrats to all who participated and won! My RSS reader overfloweth now. Too many great new blogs to keep up with

Publishers Weekly has declared November 7th as the first annual National Bookstore Day. They promise lots of industry coverage and hometown events are in the works. So I’ll pass along any bookstore specific events I hear about here in Birmingham.

Also, head over to Fictional Stimulus site. It’s a new reading-online experiment that kicks off on September 22nd. I honestly have no idea what is in store there, but I’m excited. Basically, you sign up and they send you 12 emails over four weeks which are designed to dole out “introductory tasters” for digital reading. So if you’re curious about the future of reading, books and publishing, you should check it out. It’s a ning site, so let me know when you get your profile set and we can connect. I do hope it’s good. Lots of potential there!

You have just 13 more days to take advantage of the JCLC’s Food for Fines program. That is, for every canned food item you donate to the library, one dollar will be subtracted from your ‘overdue materials’ fines (up to $10). I think all Jefferson County library locations are accepting the can goods donations. It runs through the end of September.