In the shadow of Powell's City of Books there sits a very small yet vital and thriving independent literary organization and a vibrant independent bookstore.
Reading Frenzy is the bookstore, or, as it calls itself, an "independent press emporium." Reading Frenzy stocks alternative and small press books, journals, and zines. It has a section of children's picture books. It carries cards and posters and buttons. It was great to see copies of Cometbus near cutouts and calendars by Nikki McClure, as well as Johnny Boo books and local zines. I ended up purchasing a copy of Yeti #9.
The Independent Publishing Resource Center is the literary organization. Its mission is "to facilitate creative expression, identity and community by providing individual access to tools and resources for creating independently published media and artwork." One of the volunteers on site that day gave The Child and I a tour of IPRC. We visited the Yeti Research Center, the letterpress room, the conference room, and the zine library. We learned about the various programs and opportunities for members and non-members.
It was great to see people in action while we were there. People were designing publications on computer workstations. Cards were being printed on one of the letterpresses. Books were being bound in the conference room.
After the tour, we peeked and poked through the zine library for a while before donating two of our own for the collection: a copy of TWT's My Two Melvilles chapbook and a copy of Les Sar'Zine #2 (which contains poems of TWT and seven other members of the Les sardines writing group).
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