By Lauren

Last month, ABC hosted the first of our planned Writer’s Nights, where writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, booksellers, and readers come together to share and celebrate stories, whether their own or somebody else’s they’re helping put out into the world.

Our talent wall was full with snippets of novels, short stories, screenplays, and illustrations.

Author David Allen (Getting Things Done) told those gathered how he became an unwitting bestseller.

Colleen Geske, founder of the Stuff Dutch People Like franchise, spoke about how she turned her blog into a self-published book in 2013 and the international success it’s enjoyed since.

Live demos on our own Betty the Book Machine showed how your words can become a real book in minutes. (And we mean your words.)

An emotional Lynn, ABC’s owner and director, spoke about how despite knowledge coming under attack in these turbulent times, it’s imagination (as Einstein said) that will keep us going, renewing the old, and giving us hope.

“We are all imaginers,” she told those gathered. “We will create new paths, thoughts, and spread new ideas. We will print our own books if we must…. Every book on these shelves started with someone’s imagination and became physical.”

Despite the often depicted reality of writers hunched over their computers/typewriters/pads solitarily crafting words and ideas into stories, it’s hard to get your work out there, or sometimes to even just keep going, in isolation.

“We’re going to need each other,” Lynn said. “To share our skills so that dreams become words and drawings, illustrations become spreadable—whether electronically, on paper, with our own Betty, or via agents and publishers.”

As Amsterdam’s independent bookstore since 1972, we’re honored to be a hub for creatives, educators, and dreamers alike, a safe harbor for writers and illustrators to gather and be inspired to disseminate their thoughts and ideas to a wider audience.

They say: “It takes a village.” We’d love for you to join ours.

Watch this space for more info on our upcoming Writer’s Nights!