We are absolutely thrilled about the upcoming world premiere of The Master Butchers Singing Club at the Guthrie Theater in September!  Hear the comments of the Guthrie's Artistic Director Joe Dowling.  Listen to Birchbark Books owner Louise Erdrich talk about the novel that inspired the play.  Catch some of director Francesca Zambello's excitement about directing at the Guthrie.  And click on over to The Master Butchers Singing Club page on the Guthrie website for further information.

This June will mark the TEN YEAR anniversary of Birchbark Books.  I just spent a rainy morning in the bookstore.  It feels like a hundred years and no time at all; it feels like the most unlikely place in the world and the most inevitable; it feels like everywhere in the world and it feels like home.   

The story of our store is on the website -- how we leased the space and took thirteen layers of floor and dentist office equipment.  Check it!

We started out with books culled from BOOKMAN, our local book distributor.  Bookman was absorbed by Ingram and its funky/lovely warehouse turned into Lofts.  Ten years ago, I went there with a shopping cart and loaded the cart, hand picking the likely titles from dim piles, riding up and down a freight elevator, checking out at the end with Bookman clerks including one who was and became the terrific writer Kate DiCamillo.  We put the books on the shelves and tried to figure out how to sell them.  We weren't very good at it.   Denny Magers of Magers and Quinn let me buy some books from him.  I set out books from my own library -- at the time we had a used/new mixture.   

Thank god I kept my day job and the asema that was placed in the walls kept on attracting people who understood that the art of bookselling is unlike any other business.  It is a way of life.  It is an odd and mundane passion.

Books must contain mysteriously the whole of human experience. -- yet sometimes one can hardly believe that there remains yet a new book to be written.  

I just fell in love all over with a big stack of books that have never been written before.  (The Farmer's Daughter by Jim Harrison, and More Remarkable Trees, and everything by Ha Jin). Or books I haven't read yet. (Bleak House)  Or books that made me laugh until I got sick.  (Awkward Family Photos).

I'll write more all summer about bookstore life.  I am just absorbing the fact that we are still here.  Thank you to our devoted customers and delighted newcomers!  Thank you tribal schools and tribal colleges, thank you local schools and teachers.  Thank you everyone who has passed through the blue door.

Louise Erdrich

The Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI) has launched a campaign to secure space for a new gallery for All My Relations Arts on Franklin Avenue in the American Indian Cultural Corridor.  All My Relations Arts has a ten-year history in the Twin Cities as the premier contemporary American Indian fine arts organization. NACDI has a beautiful plan to create the American Indian Cultural Corridor along Franklin Ave and a BIG part of this will be a new and permanent art gallery for All My Relations so they can continue to curate local and national contemporary artists  - defining culture and generating energy for all of us.

All My Relations needs to raise $50,000 by April 30th 2010 to secure building space on the corridor. Please help us reach our goal! Everyone who donates will be entered into a drawing to win an original painting by noted Native artists Carolyn Anderson or Jonathan Thunder. Names will be drawn on April 30, 2010. The paintings (shown below)  will be on display at Birchbark Books until the drawing date.


Donations by cash or check may be made by visiting Birchbark Books. Credit card donations can be made online by following this link: All My Relations at giveMN.org. All donations are tax deductible. You do not need to donate to have your name entered in the drawing, however we sincerely hope you will consider a minimum donation of $25.

Find NACDI and All My Relations on Facebook and spread the word!