Featured Bookstores

Fiction Addiction

Address: 1175 Woods Crossing Rd #2, Greenville, SC 29607 Owner: Jill Hendrix

Jill Hendrix founded Fiction Addiction in May 2001 in Greenville, SC. Jill grew up in Greenville, graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in history, and then moved to Brooklyn, NY, where she briefly worked for St. Martin’s Press as an editorial assistant. She then worked for Juno Online Services and a series of internet startups. When the dot-com crash came she decided to move back home and open Fiction Addiction.

Fiction Addiction began as a used bookstore. It carried only fiction for approximately 3 days before Jill listened to her customers’ requests and loosened her strictures. By 2009, the store had converted to an inventory of new books and started the popular Book Your Lunch author event series.

The store has moved 3 times over its 20 years of existence. When the store was closed to the public for 2 weeks during the COVID-19 outbreak in April 2020, we moved three doors down into our current space, which is a cozy 1,000 square feet. We are now offering a Patreon membership, hosting Virtual Events, and offering curbside pickup, but no matter how crazy the world gets our mission remains to discover and recommend books we feel are worth our customers’ time to read.

Downtown Books and Art Gallery

Address: 414 W 6th St. San Pedro, CA 90731 Owner: Mike Rivero & Ksenia Smirnoff

Downtown Books and Art Gallery, located in the historic Downtown San Pedro Art District CA, is a lovely book store. They also have a custom framing, matting business with a dedicated Art Gallery that has shown great artists like Conrad Buff, Norman Styles Chamberlain, and Clara Tice. Downtown Books and Art Gallery has one of the best collections of antiquarian books in Los Angeles and a great collection of books in Spanish. One of their specialties is great American authors like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Henry Miller, and of course the legendary LA and San Pedro poet Charles Bukowski.

Until 1983, this location was home to The Giant Bookstore which held events, book signings, and poetry readings, in fact, Charles Bukowski used to hang out here and he did a poetry reading in this exact location on August 23, 1983.

Downtown Books and Art Gallery is owned and operated by Mike Rivero and Ksenia Smirnoff. Mike Rivero has been at this current location for over twenty years. Mike is a painter who studied under Michael Dancer and Neil Nagy in the early 1990s. His Cuban Band Calle 6 has been performing Cuban Music in the South Bay for many years.

Before going into business with Mike, Ksenia Smirnoff was one of his bookstore customers. Ksenia specializes in children’s literature and Russian literature. She manages the bookstore and she hosts many events such as book signings and poetry readings as well as their legendary Wednesday Night Film Group where she shows and discusses many classic films of all genres.

Shades of Pemberley

Address: 126 N. Broad St. Albertville, AL 35950 Owner: Brandi Atchison

Shades of Pemberley is a new and used bookstore that was 5 years in the making before it finally opened. I was working on it and desperately wanting to press forward with it, but God kept saying “not yet”. Then, one day, in late October 2017 I received a phone call from a lady who owned a building in a city called Jasper - it’s about 80 miles away. A man she had rented the building to had opened a used bookstore then left it. She was trying to find someone to take the books. I immediately jumped on the offer. We opened our doors for business on Dec 19, 2017 When God says it’s time, he will provide the way. Since opening, we have more than doubled the inventory of new and used books. We feature a local authors wall, that we proudly display Alabama authors’ books on, which has grown tremendously since opening. The response from the community has been nothing short of wonderful. We are looking forward to a long and prosperous future here in our hometown.

Jeff Thiele

INTVW by Sarah Anne

Author Jeff Thiele uses writing as a kind of meditation. His goal is to share a little bit of himself with his readers while also providing a fresh perspective on their lives. One summer off from college, he began journaling, which evolved into the creation of a story, and thus his novel was born.

NRM got the opportunity to speak with Jeff about his inspiration, his opinion on the societal role of a writer, and his creative process while writing The Golden Nugget.

NRM: When did you realize you wanted to be a writer? Who or what inspired your style in writing or the identity you portray as a writer?

JEFF THIELE: I have never consciously decided I was going to be a writer in fact I don’t feel I have invested the time in the craft to deserve that title but I have always felt I could express myself well through writing and to my surprise have come up with some material that I thought might be worthy of publishing and that others may be interested in. I can’t recall any real inspiration from one source that inspired my style of writing and the only identity I’m trying to portray through my writing is myself and my feelings as pure as I can.

NRM: What was your creative process in writing The Golden Nugget? How would this relate to the theme Solstice and Equinox?

JEFF THIELE: My creative process was very simple in writing “The Golden Nugget”. I began a journal during a summer off from college as I was told it was good for aspiring authors to keep a journal as a writing practice. At the time there was not much happening in my life which made the journal writing slow and tedious so I started writing a story. I was told you should write whatever came to mind so this is what I did and the first thing that came to mind(I must have been really bored) was the nursery rhyme “Jack and Jill”. Maybe you’ve heard it, it starts like this “Jack and Jill went up the hill to get a pale of water” that morphed into “Every day Peter went to a stream nearby his cottage to get water for his family. You see, Peter had a well, but it had gone dry.” Those are the first lines of the story and I continued on from there.

If I were to use my creative process to write on the themes “Solstice and Equinox” I would take the subjects starting with “Solstice” and just start writing.

The “Summer Solstice” was upon us the sun reaching its highest point in the sky and drawing my attention to the lofty dreams I had within. At some point, I had to realize my life could go no other direction but up. I had seen my lowest point, my “Winter Solstice” when life had lost its luster and my motivation and will were sapped from within. Out of this pit, I had to drag myself step by step, one part of me kicking and screaming all the way not wanting to face the world again. But day by day it became easier.

As I forced myself to live again I knew I was done with backward steps and to achieve this “Summer Solstice” in my life my dreams had to be my guide taking me from the mundane lows and time wasted on the transient and temporal to time spent and given to

the life I was created to live achieving the purpose I was placed here for. I had a part to play as does every man, woman, and child plucked from eternity and placed on this spinning globe and it was non-negotiable. I now knew I only need believe and as I beheld this light providing all to every living thing freely and without judgment, extinguishing the darkness and flooding us with the light of its love, belief welled up within me. At once I realized this “Summer Solstice” represented my life taken to its highest level, shedding light on those around me without judgment, giving myself freely and without limit to all, and loving completely and with no shame until my last breath was given to eternity. And this was my “Summer Solstice”.

That was my creative process in motion. I “just start writing” then go back and read what I’ve written to see what changes need to be made and what I can improve on until I’m satisfied it conveys to the reader what I want it to, in the way I want it to and flows smoothly from idea to idea. The high of this process is the flow of ideas as I’m writing. It is satisfying to be able to convey these ideas to the reader in a manner they would find worthy of reading and hopefully enrich them in some way giving them something positive to take with them into their world. If there is a low I guess it would be in the re-writing/editing process trying to get everything exactly the way I want it. It can be mentally exhausting at times after reading something over and over again trying to come up with the right words in the right succession to make it flow the way I want it to. But when I find what I’m looking for and I’m satisfied with the work I’ve done it is also very rewarding.

NRM: What, in your opinion, is a writer’s role in society in relation to the message you want to relay in your book?

JEFF THIELE: I cannot speak for anyone but myself but my goal in writing is to give my readers something of myself, to hopefully give them a new perspective on their life or motivations, that they would walk away from my work not just having been entertained but believing in something better with a positive feeling they could carry into their daily world that would hopefully improve theirs and the lives of others around them in some way.

NRM: Are you working on something else right now? Share it with us.

JEFF THIELE: I am not currently working on a concrete project but writing is a form of meditation for me so not necessarily every day but when I feel the need or am motivated by a new idea I work on these ideas or write on a theme as I did earlier with the “Summer Solstice” just to keep the creative process flowing and stay in practice but also to stay in touch with myself as a form of meditation.

NRM: What message would you like to relay to your readers?

JEFF THIELE: The message I would like to relay to my readers is simple. Love yourself. You are on this planet for a reason, giving up is never an option. You have something that no single other beings can bring to this planet and the burden and the honor are on you alone. Be as great as you want to be but in the end, remember all you really need to be is you because you are the miracle!

Rodney H. Dorsey

INTVW by Max Betonio

To predict the trajectory of life is impossible; tomorrow is never sure. Our present is only but a ripple effect of our yesterday. These contemplations plague the minds of the young and cynical. I, personally, cannot help but worry about what’s to come. I often find myself disheartened by the world around me, the opportunities I seem to miss, and the unfairness of life itself. This is also because of the amount of information I digest on a daily basis, one of the drawbacks of living in a hyperaware digital age. This jaded mindset can only dampen one’s spirit. Nonetheless, despite all this lack of hopefulness, we cannot allow ourselves to be fazed with such intrusive thoughts.

One thing we can always count on is wisdom from those who are more mature than us. Life should be about shifting perspectives and growth after all. For those who lived in a different generation, we can always look upon their experience and knowledge.

Rodney H. Dorsey is one of the extraordinary people to have lived a life we could all learn from. He writes a compelling journey about his life in his book “Will Nasa Remember Me”. Here, he narrates his life through a humble and honest perspective as one of the first AfricanAmericans to work in NASA.

NRM: What compelled you to write your story? Do you think that writing has given you some kind of peace in your life?

Rodney Dorsey: Writing for me was no compulsion. It never was. My autobiography lets me review, and recall my life from an indigent and untaught beginning, through an aggrandizement of learning, of travels, through a time of war, concluding with the intrigues of 40 years within the Apollo and Space Shuttle mission control centers, all within the shadows of the initial American/Russian space race drama,”

“There is a secret solace of denoting that we were the only “Negro-Men” to work directly on the Apollo flights during the inception of Negroes to the Infancy of America’s first Orbital Space program.” insignificant events that unknowingly shape the character we have today. Dorsey says that these intricacies, complexities, and memories he had written during his time admiring the sunset have compelled him to write his story.

Of course, we cannot deny that pain, hardship, and setbacks are necessary for human life. Dorsey has had his fair share of challenges to overcome before he had his successful career. In his book, he talks about struggles with his family and how he had to endure the consequences of their actions. On top of that, he did not have any proper schooling. This affected his ability to learn and created an educational void.

NRM: Aside from being academically unprepared, what other challenges did you overcome at NASA?

Rodney Dorsey: An uninformed and socially isolatedbackward family engenders an ignorance overall, leading to a fear of the novel: of people, of business, the social environment, and later, the aeronautical challenge and of the complexity of the unknowns. These many failings had to be realized, then mitigated or mastered to remain at NASA.

But despite all this Dorsey was able to make his way to NASA after serving in the Vietnam-American War and traveling around the world. One should note that NASA is one of the most prestigious work environments in the world and with only military and travel experience, Dorsey faced this challenge head-on. He allowed his practical skills and knowledge to benefit him during this time.

Imagine being a simple boy from a simple town with a simple mind never thinking that the contributions he makes in his lifetime would benefit the world. We could look at the stars and ponder the expanse of the galaxies. How seemingly insignificant our lives are and how little impact we truly have.

In cosmology, it deals with the context of human existence in the universe. In a sense, this proves that life is meaningful. But not everyone can find meaning.

There is a certain peace that comes with writing. It allows a deep philosophical introspection into our experiences. Through writing, we are able to look back on seemingly

NRM: In cosmology, we deal with the context of human existence in the universe. What has made this human life meaningful to you?

Rodney Dorsey: My ventures, an existence from Nowhere to Now, and through divinity, has led me to a successful transition from the Then to Now. But still questionable and meaningful, and a part of this life are these quotes: “I shall pass this way but once”, and this unanswered question remains, “does man relate to the entirety of the Universe ?.” Can these questions be answered within my lifetime?”

Even after all the accomplishments, this author has found ways to be grounded in reality.

NRM: Your book inspires many readers especially those of simple or underprivileged backgrounds? Are there any other words of encouragement you’d like to share with them?

Rodney Dorsey: I have never met an unsuccessful Negro with a BA/BS degree, stay the course. Any job elicits a sense of pride, doing whatever, and we all need one…”

Who you are, where you come from, or the level of privilege you possess is only a percentage of your humanity. What’s important is to be an active participant in life. To be alive is to be intentional about living. It is about allowing ourselves to stumble but even more so about lifting ourselves up.

NRM: You have lived a successful and distinguished career. What keeps you grounded as a person?

Rodney Dorsey: I can speak for only myself, as life for everyone is difficult, with a differing gift and frailty for each of us. For minorities with only a high school diploma who wants success, I followed these rules on page 159 of my autobiography: “In life, you have a long walk to make and one step of that walk is a job. Sometimes a job is on the other side of that racial divide. Cross that racial divide, let it not be there, why even whisper about black this, white that, you’re almost there. Become self-educated, taught, and instructed on the job very quickly. Will Rogers said, “I never met a man I didn’t like,” and Rodney King spoke just as well, “can we all get along?” then you can think that way too. You need first to finish high school, as there are few jobs that you literally cannot do. And after you have secured your first complex, lifetime job, simply think to yourself, it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t promised, now who can I help.

Being an integral part of Black History is important in these modern times. We are thankful that stories like Dorsey’s have come to light. Representation from people of color and other ethnic backgrounds is crucial in empowering the next generation of leaders. Accounts like these bring hope to the silenced and oppressed.

NRM: How important is “representation” (from people of color and other ethnic backgrounds) in film, literature, and media to you? Do you think that the present generation is doing this justice?

Rodney Dorsey: When I was young, Negroes were on few television programs, no commercials, having limited political input from a minorities’ perspective. Today, these needed perspectives are in abundance, covering everything from racism, entertainment, politics, and sports, to name only a few.

Dorsey continues to inspire many readers from underprivileged and different cultural backgrounds.