The blessed benevolence, the sweet, sweet ambience

Of independent bookshops, remember Thins!

Look how you still love their names: Voltaire and Rousseau,

Grassroots, books gathering and honing your years:

Black and white striped spines, tiny irons, Viragos, Shebas,

The distinct spiral on the cover of your old The Bell Jar

Your skin’s pages; your heart’s ink, your brain’s Word Power:

Jamaica Kincaid, Bessie Head, Claribel Alegría.

Don’t let them turn the lights out, dears.

Keep them safe, New Beacons, shining stars,

Look how you’ve aged with your beloved books, dear hearts.

Keep coming in, keep the bookshop door ajar.

- Jackie Kay, “Silver Moon”

Is there anything that matches the experience of stepping into a bookstore? The bell rings, and the scent of book pages and local soaps and candles meets your nose. A bookseller might greet you from behind the counter, or amidst the shelves, their arms loaded with books as they move around the store.

In the United States, there are over 2,500 independent bookstores, according to the American Booksellers Association. Each of these shops is unique in personality and character; each shop curates their selection based on the needs and interests of the community in which they reside.

Independent bookstores host author readings, often for local authors who are building their audience. Here at the Narrow Gauge, we have a shelf filled with local authors, many self-published, who may not be able to find their way into larger bookstores.

Our shelves host many consignment artists, wonderful local artists and makers with immense creativity and skill, just waiting to get their stickers, cards, jewelry, candles, and more to you.

We choose books with our community in mind. Yes, we order our faves, but we also pay attention to what has done well, what interests people, what matters to people, in our area. We get to know those of you that frequent the store, and we learn what books you’ll be excited about and we make sure to order those for you.

Independent bookstores, like other small businesses, contribute to their communities by investing back into the community. At the Narrow Gauge, we sponsor venues like the Creede Repertory Theatre and sponsor local sports teams. We donate gift cards for auctions and giveaways. Our booksellers shop at our local businesses and contribute time to our community in a multitude of ways. Your support of our store, and your support of local businesses, allows for them to, in turn, support the community in which we live.

Shopping local is more important now than ever, as we decide what world we want to live in, and as we show our community support, as we create safe places for each other to be. Supporting bookstores and libraries is more important now than ever. Books are the gateways to learning, to experiencing lives other than our own, and to being recognized and seen in ways we haven't been before. Books are gateways to changed perspectives, and books are gateways to connection and community.

We couldn’t do what we love without your support, and we are grateful, every day, to be the San Luis Valley’s independent bookstore.

- Jean A.

Non-Profit of the Month: SOIL Sangre de Cristo

Each month, we feature a local nonprofit that serves the San Luis Valley. This month, you can support SOIL Sangre de Cristo.

SOIL - Slow Opportunities for Investing Locally - has a mission to unite the communities of South Central Colorado with direct support to local farmers, ranchers and food producers to improve food security and resiliency in the regional food chain.

SOIL is a membership based community loan fund that awards 0% interest loans to local farmers, ranchers and other food producers. It is a new way to fund local food. Using charitable donations from Investor Members funds are available to local farmers, ranchers and other food enterprises for 0% Interest Loans. They are building a permanent, member driven, revolving loan fund.

How does it work? People in the community become members of SOIL Sangre de Cristo with a tax deductible contribution. The contributions grow the 0% interest revolving loan to local farmers, ranchers and food entrepreneurs. All contributions are welcome! Members who contribute $250 and above will vote on the loan applications to award the loans. When loans are repaid the funds are returned to the pool to fund new loans. Over the years, SOIL Sangre de Cristo will grow into a substantial lending resource for sustainable food production. Learn more at their website!

When you shop at the NGBC this month, you'll be asked if you want to round up and donate your change. It's a simple and easy way to support local organizations that help make the Valley what it is!

Check out the titles they recommended!

Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves by Nicola Twilley
Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered by Woody Tasch
Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions by Michael Moss
Barons, Money, Power and the Corruption of America's Food Industry by Austin Frerick
A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm, Six Generations, and the Future of Food by Will Harris

March Artist: Evelyn Sprouse-Rowe

Evelyn Sprouse-Rowe says that internal and external energies influence and give rise to her art. The abstract qualities of her art come from intuition and a personal interpretation of beauty.

In many of her acrylic paintings, she exploits color, shape, form, and the subject matter. That, she feels, makes a statement about expression, freedom, and joy in art making, while still staying aware of concrete realities in design and structural elements.

Part of that statement is about beauty. Finding beauty in many things, expressed in various ways, yet not neglecting the importance of the structure and design elements that she feels should be present in every successful art piece.

She hopes to show the importance of structure in liberated artistic forms, and that both are considerations and foundational to the departure point from which an artist creates. The result: different styles of beautiful art with personal expression.

We hope you'll come and enjoy her art all month long!

April Events at the Narrow Gauge

Poetry Contest: April 1st - 25th

Each week in April, beginning April 1st, Jean will post a prompt for you to write or find a poem as we celebrate National Poetry Month!

Those who complete all 4 prompts will be entered into a drawing to read their poems at the Open Mic on April 26th, and have their poem featured in May’s newsletter!

To Participate:

Sign up at this link
Make sure you are following us on Instagram or Facebook. If your account is private, accept our follow request (you can remove us after if you want to!)
Check for the prompt on Sundays (the first week will be on Tuesday, April 1st)
Write or find a poem that responds to the prompt, take a picture of the poem, and post it to Instagram or Facebook by 5pm on Friday of the same week.
In your post, be sure to tag the Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative on Facebook, or @narrowgaugebooks on Instagram. Include the hashtag #NGBCpoetrycontest

We Love Our National Park

Along with Poetry Month, we'll also be participating in Visit Alamosa's We Love Our National Park Campaign!

As with every year, Visit Alamosa will be giving out vouchers to spend at local businesses, and we at the Narrow Gauge are a participating location.

What’s New This Year?

Stewardship Challenge – Every voucher recipient will receive a Show Your Love challenge book with Care for Colorado & Leave No Trace principles. Visitors who take action and share their efforts can earn rewards while learning how to care for the Great Sand Dunes.
Thank a Ranger – Visit Alamosa will have a station at the Welcome Center for visitors to write notes to park staff. We will have a Thank a Ranger station at the NGBC, too!

We love the Great Sand Dunes National Park and feel incredibly lucky to have this natural wonder right in our backyard. Have you been out to the Dunes recently? What's your favorite thing about visiting? You can take the We Love Our National Park Pledge, a promise to be a good steward to the park. You're welcome to download the image below, or pick one up at the Welcome Center!

Spadefoot Story Slam: April 19th, 6pm

Each month, we host the Spadefoot Story Slam community, sharing stories based on a theme, selected at the previous month’s Slam. While inspired by the Moth Story Hour, our monthly meetings are not a contest, but instead are a way to come together and practice sharing, and deep listening.

Join us 4/19 at the Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative for your stories themed around Islands.

Have you traveled to an island and have an adventurous story to share? Have you ever felt like you were on an island, isolated and alone in your belief? What stories of peace, calm, and sanity arise?

As always, we encourage creative interpretation of the theme! Stories should be true as remembered by you, and spoken from the heart, instead of read from the page. We look forward to seeing you!

Independent Bookstore Day: April 26th

Every year, we look forward with eagerness to Independent Bookstore Day! We love indie bookstores, and not just because we are one. Indie bookstores have a unique personality that reflects the spirit of their community, and we are no exception. We wouldn't be us without you!

Come celebrate with us all day on April 26th with limited edition items specially designed for independent bookstores!

And, in the leadup to Indie Bookstore Day, your NGBC staff will be participating in Spirit Week!

We're excited to see you!

We'll be ending our celebration of Poetry Month and our celebration of Independent Bookstore Day with a reading and open mic!

Part of what makes an indie bookstore special are the local authors we are lucky to feature on our shelves. We have invited local poets to come read their work, and the winner of our poetry contest will get to read their work, too. The reading will be followed by an open mic!

Stay tuned in to our social media and our website for details on the lineup!

More News from the NGBC

Indie Press Book Club: Next Feature

Throughout the year, the Narrow Gauge Book Cooperative features different independent presses as part of our Indie Press Book Club. Our featured press for March and April is Interlink Publishing.

Indie Press Book Club meets on the first Wednesday of the month, every other month. Check our website for dates! We announce the upcoming book at each book club meeting, and explore fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, all from independent presses.

About the Book:

The first English translation of recent poetry by the late Mahmoud Darwish, the most important Palestinian contemporary poet. Almond Blossoms and Beyond is one of the last collections of poetry that Mahmoud Darwish left to the world. Composed of brief lyric poems and the magnificent sustained Exile cycle, Almond Blossoms holds an important place in Darwish’s unparalleled oeuvre. It distills his late style, in which, though the specter of death looms and weddings turn to funerals, he threads the pulses and fragilities and beauties of life into the lines of his poems. Their liveliness is his own response to the collection’s final call to bid Farewell / Farewell, to the poetry of pain.

About the Press:

Established in 1987, Interlink Publishing is a Palestinian-owned, Massachusetts-based independent publishing house that offers a global perspective to readers. Interlink publishes works of literature-in-translation, history, activism, politics, art, cultural guides, award-winning cookbooks, and illustrated children’s books from around the world.

Interlink publishes approximately 90 titles each year and has an active backlist of over 1000 titles under the following three imprints.

Interlink Books publishes a general trade list of adult fiction and non-fiction with an emphasis on books that have a wide appeal while also meeting high intellectual and literary standards.

Olive Branch Press publishes socially and politically relevant non-fiction, concentrating on topics and areas of the world often ignored by the Western media. Titles also include works on a wide range of contemporary issues such as Middle East studies, African studies, women’s studies, religion and translated works by academics of international stature.

Crocodile Books publishes high-quality illustrated children’s books from around the world. Titles published under this imprint include quality picture books for preschoolers, as well as fiction and non-fiction books for children ages 3-8.

35th Annual Reading the West Book Awards

The Reading the West Book Awards are sponsored and promoted by the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association. The awards honor the best fiction, non-fiction, and illustrated books for adults and children set in one of the states, or created by an author or artist living or working in the region. The awards, given to books published in the previous calendar year, celebrate the rich variety of writing in and about this region, and reflect the extraordinary diversity of the reading public.

Each year’s awards celebrate books published in the prior calendar year.
A long-list is created from all titles nominated by publishers and authors.
Reading the West Book Award reading committees, made up of regional booksellers, read the nominated titles to create shortlists of titles per award category.
Category winners are determined by bookseller and public voting.
Winners are announced at a live event in the spring.

The longlist is available, here, and the shortlist will be announced and voting will open at the beginning of May.

Have you read any of the longlist selections? What did you think of them?Jean read Becoming Little Shell by Chris La Tray last year, Playing with (wild)fire by Laura Pritchett, Magical/Realism by Vanessa Angelica Villareal, and Without Exception by Pam Houston earlier this year, and she just finished The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich. She wrote book reviews on Without Exception (find it here) and Playing with (wild)fire (find it here), and she's working on reviews on some of the others. Once the shortlist is announced, we'll have a display table set up in store. We love Reading the West, and are excited to see which writers are honored this year!

Many Ways to Shop the NGBC

Shop In Store

You can shop with us in store and browse the shelves. Find the book you're looking for, or find a book you didn't know you were looking for! Our booksellers are happy to help you find the title, make recommendations, or order a book if we don't have it in stock.

Shop Online

We have an indie commerce website, through IndieLite, that allows customers to place orders online. Just go to narrowgaugebooks.com and click on the "Shop Online" button. Then, click "order a book" and you'll be redirected to our indie commerce site. You can search for the book you want, and then place your order from wherever you are! There are options to have your book shipped to you, or to pick up your book in store! You can even have your book shipped to someone else, if you're looking to skip the hassle of shipping the book yourself.

Call Us!

You can call us at 719-589-3464 to see if we have a book on the shelf. We'll be happy to put it aside for you! We can hold books for up to one week, so you can be sure that title is ready and waiting next time to stop in!

Preorders

You can preorder your next greatly anticipated book! Preorders help us know what our customers are excited about, and help us more effectively judge how many copies we should order. Often, we get new releases ahead of their publishing date, so when publishing Tuesday rolls around, we'll have your shiny new book ready and waiting for you to dive into the pages!

Call for Artists

We're consistently amazed by the talented artists that live in the San Luis Valley! We received many submissions, and have most of our calendar year filled! We still need artists for November and December, so please submit, or pass along the call to the artists you know!

Our most common features are painting and photography, though we have also had fiber arts, glass art, and ceramics.

Featured artists have a show for one month. We'll promote your art on our social media accounts, feature you in our monthly newsletter, send a press-release to the newspaper, and schedule an artist reception if you want to have one.

We try to feature new artists each year; if you were featured in 2024, please wait to apply again until we put out a call for 2026.

If you would like to be a featured, please fill out the application by clicking here. You'll be asked to upload photo samples of your work, to provide a bio and artist statement, and to provide months when you are not available. If you have questions about any part of the application, please email us at narrowgauge.coop@gmail.com.

Thank you for reading, and we look forward to seeing you in April!