Are you ready for Indie Bookstore Day Season? (Plus a Freebie from me!)

Apr 22, 2025

“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?” ― Kurt Vonnegut

Hi Writer,

I’m calling it. Get out your lights and start decorating the house, Indie Bookstore Day is now a season!

Here in Massachusetts we love a bookstore, and accordingly, we now have multiple season-long bookstore crawls.

Metro Boston Indie Bookstore Day

The Metro Boston Indie Bookstore Day passports are already in stores for participants to start getting stamped. I picked mine up at Harvard Bookstore and got my first stamp last week. I’ll continue chipping away this week, but if you’re willing to wait until IBD itself (Saturday April 26), there are in-store specials and prizes, including stickers, mugs, and advance reader copies of books (ARCs). It’ll be a fun day whether you try to hit all 21 participating stores or just stop in to one or two of your favorites.

The official site for the Metro Boston Indie Bookstore Crawl is here: https://www.portersquarebooks.com/metro-boston-indie-bookstore-crawl-2025

A freebie from me: Guide to the Metro Boston Bookstores’ hours and locations

Alas, the Metro Bookstore passport doesn’t include the addresses or hours of the bookstores, and visiting nearly 2 dozen bookshops in one day takes serious planning! So, I made up a little cheat sheet with the bookstores’ names, addresses, hours, and offerings. You can download a copy for yourself HERE. The first page includes the events and deals on independent bookstore day, the second page is the prizes each bookstore has donated for the drawing following IBD.

(photo from Harvard Bookstore on IBD 2018)

North of Boston Indie Bookstore Day

I mentioned before that we have more than one IBD crawl, and the second is the North of Boston Book Trail. This trail, which I completed over IBD weekend last year, features 19 independent bookstores north of Boston.

Unlike the Metro crawl, which ends on IBD, the North of Boston trail begins then. Participants can go for the “slow and steady” prize, visiting all 19 shops between April and Labor Day, or make themselves eligible for a range of prizes on the “fast and unsteady” (not the official name) route by hitting every bookstore over the weekend of April 26/27^th.

Last year Greg and I had so much fun on the fast & unsteady. We discovered some of our new favorite bookstores, and I even won a packet of gorgeous stickers from Kingdom of Threads . That’s my kind of marathon! Learn more about the North of Boston Book Trail at: https://northofbostonbooktrail.com/

(photo from The Book Shop at Beverly Farm’s IBD fun in 2024)

Today’s Reason to Write is…

To protect your freedom. This weekend in Massachusetts we celebrated the 250^th anniversary of the battle of Lexington & Concord, when the American colonists stood up against kings and in favor of democracy.

In “On Tyranny,” Tim Snyder outlines 20 Lessons for fighting tyranny and #1 is not to “obey in advance.” No one can take our rights away unless we let them. Do not let them.

For ideas on how to use your voice, visit https://www.fiftyfifty.one/ to find in person events, and https://5calls.org/ for help calling your representatives (including sample scripts). The next big protest day will be May 1. Let’s make our voices heard with peaceful resistance.

This Week I’m:

Reading: What Dwells Between the Lines, an anthology by Press 53. I wanted this collection of 53-word stories because I often teach Press 53’s contest in my writing classes. But, I didn’t expect to enjoy reading it, too. Every page includes a fun fact about the history of the press or flash fiction itself, breaking up the repetition of the dribble-ish stories. (Dribble is the name for a story of exactly 50 words). I gobbled this down in one sitting.
Watching: Ludwig, on Britbox in the US. So fun!
Listening to: Not listening to anything this week! Next week I’ll do better.
Cheering for: Family member Emily, who ran her first marathon yesterday. Great job to Emily and all the other runners!

Until next week, Happy Writing!

Kayleigh