Blue House Books. KENOSHA, WI
WWW.BLUE-HOUSE-BOOKS.COM
F E AT U R E D I N D I E B OO K S TO R E
BACKGROUND INFO ABOUT YOURSELF AND BLUE HOUSE BOOKS BHB: I have always been a big reader, and I always wanted a career in some type of writing or editing field. I first explored journalism, because I loved the research and meeting all kinds of people, but realized in my senior year of my undergrad career that it wasn't what I wanted to do day-to-day. After working in the industry for a year and still not loving it, I decided to explore the world of publishing. I attended Oxford Brookes University in the UK and earned my Master of the Arts Degree in Book Publishing in 2016. After returning to the states, I was struggling to find a job in the Midwest, and so I began Blue House Books as a pop-up shop with the intention that it was just to stay in the industry while I searched for a way to start my career in publishing. Jobs still weren't becoming available, and so Blue House Books ended up slowly growing. Without even realizing it, I fell in love with bookselling! I was working with people 116
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again, researching what great books were coming out, interacting with publishing companies, and eventually started hosting literary events. I was a micro-bookstore for a few months, open nights and weekends as I still had a full-time office job--then COVID hit. It was a very unsure time, and I wasn't confident that a bookstore was the right move at the time. But to my surprise, I got busier! People were craving entertainment at home in those early days of stay-at-home orders and quarantine. Schools closed and parents looked for ways to fill the gap. All this led to the need for books, puzzles, study aides, and more items that I was able to provide. Blue House Books turned into a pickup and delivery service--sometimes making more than a dozen deliveries a day while still working a full-time job--and the increase in business gave me the capital and confidence to open my first brick-andmortar location. I quit my job in July 2020, opened Blue House Books in September 2020, and moved to a bigger location in September 2021.
