November Update
Six upcoming markets, my book at the airport, interview with an indie bookseller, and more!
My apologies to anyone who follows my personal account on Instagram, because now you’re going to see these photos for the zillionth time, but I just have to mention here how cool it was earlier this month to travel through Newark Airport’s Terminal A and see copies of New Jersey Fan Club on display at their Hudson Booksellers location! I had no idea the book would be there, so when I literally rolled through with my suitcase at 5:30 in the morning, it made my day. I saw books by several friends first, so I was excitedly pointing them all out and then I was like, “WAIT, THEY HAVE MY BOOK!” A truly blessed way to begin my trip to Austin for a friend’s wedding. When we landed back home a few days later, I stopped by and signed the copies!
While I have you here—you’re voting, right? Or already did early/by mail? Friend of the project Sean Rynkewicz recently painted this amazing mural on Spring Street in Princeton, which serves as a colorful reminder! I voted early at Branch Brook Park’s cherry blossom welcome center building and it was an efficient, pleasant experience!
-Kerri
New Jersey is the World
Last month, I shared that I was co-hosting a show for New Jersey is the World about books. Since then, TWO more episodes have come out! The second episode, about Nick Corasaniti’s incredible oral history of the Stone Pony, I Don’t Want to Go Home, is available now wherever you listen to podcasts! And the third episode, about Welcome Home Caroline Kline by Courtney Preiss just dropped this morning.
If you listen to the show or follow them on social media, you may have seen the announcement that things are winding down with it—but there is a live show on November 23rd in Atlantic Highlands. Hope to see you there. The tickets are going fast, so get yours now!
Upcoming Events
I have a busy winter planned! Come find my table and say hello and get some holiday shopping done! I’ll also have the sticker machine at all of these vendor events.
Geek Flea
Saturday, November 23 from 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
First Presbyterian Church: 663 Kearny Ave, Kearny, NJ
Holiday Market at the Sunshine Mill
Sunday, December 1 from 2:00-6:00 PM
Euphoria Studio: 62 Trenton Ave, Frenchtown, NJ
Bell Works Fresh Holiday Market
Saturday, December 7 from 2:00-7:00 PM
Bell Works: 101 Crawfords Corner Rd, Holmdel, NJ
Montclair Flea Holiday Market
Saturday & Sunday, December 14-15 from 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Lackawanna Station: 1 Lackawanna Plaza, Montclair, NJ
Montclair Flea Holiday Market
Saturday, January 18 from 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Lackawanna Station: 1 Lackawanna Plaza, Montclair, NJ
Can’t make it to an event? Shop our online souvenir shop! New Jersey Fan Club is also available wherever books are sold—if your favorite local shop doesn’t have it, ask them to order it!
Black Glass Gallery is having a group photography show at Middletown Arts Center called NJ in Focus, featuring work expressing the “beauty and diversity of the Garden State, capturing its natural allure, history, vibrant urban life, and the dynamic activities that unfold along its shores.” An opening is scheduled for November 1st from 6-9.
Alex, who designed New Jersey Go Fish!, recently made a bunch of new stuff—check out this Metuchen sticker and these zines featuring his October daily drawings from years past.
I recently heard about a new independent bookstore that opened in our state—Kiss and Tale is a new romance bookshop in Collingswood.
Rutgers University Press is currently having an 80% off sale on tons of titles! Grab some great books for yourself or for holiday gifts and save big.
Highlighting our locally-based independent retailer partners who carry our products!
Newark Museum of Art
Location: Newark, NJ
It’s truly an honor to have some of our stickers, Go Fish! decks, and New Jersey Fan Club available for sale in the gift shop at the Newark Museum of Art. If you haven’t been to our state’s largest art museum, add it to your list.
In addition to being an incredible art museum with a great collection, they have the best gift shop. I’m very flattered to have some of our products included in their expertly-curated store.
Welcome to the NJ Q+A, where we hear from an interesting New Jerseyan! Interview has been lightly edited for space.
This month, I talked to Fin from Wolfe & Kron, an indie bookstore with a newly-opened Asbury Park location.
Why did you want to open a bookstore?
Well, it was either open a bookstore or not have a couch since my house was already overflowing with books. Seriously though, I've wanted to run a bookstore since I was little. I took a different career path, but books were always central to my life. I joke that this is my retirement from Business Consulting, but really, it's just the last job I'll ever have, and I'm happy about that. I just wanted to be surrounded by books day in, day out, and to get to talk to people about books, and keep them reading.
What do you hope customers will notice about Wolfe & Kron when they visit?
As a Queer-Woman Owned Independent Bookstore, we get to do things a bit different. For one thing, we’re not going to focus on the bestseller list and instead will stock books from Small Press Publishers, and by LGBTQIA and BIPoC authors. The goal is for everyone who walks in our door to feel seen, especially folks who are usually the minority in a space. I hope folks will notice the cozy vibe of the space.
Can you tell us what the name Wolfe & Kron means?
I named Wolfe & Kron (pronounced like “crone”) after my grandmother and great-grandmother on my mom's side, Bertha Wolfe and Lucille Kron. I’d been trying and trying to come up for a good name for the bookstore, although I didn't have a space yet. I was sitting on our front stoop just writing down anything that came to mind, from puns to just pretty sounding words, when a monarch butterfly swooped past right in front of me. It was like my grandmother leaned over and whispered “What's the matter? We already gave you the perfect name! Don't you think The Wolfe & The Kron sounds just divine for a bookstore?” Monarchs have always been a kind of sign that my grandmother was watching over me—we used to go and find monarch caterpillars when I was little in the fields around her place in Vermont. We'd fill an aquarium with milkweed and watch the caterpillars get bigger and bigger until they made their chrysalis. Then, when they emerged as butterflies, my mother, my grandmother, and I would take them back out to the field and release them.
My love of reading definitely comes from my grandmother and from my mother. Every summer when we went up to Vermont to visit my grandmother, we’d stop in a wonderful bookstore in Brattleboro where my mom and I would pick out a few books. At my grandmother’s, between walks in the woods, going down to the little pond at the bottom of the fields, playing Scrabble or Double Solitaire, we'd read. All three of us, my mom, my grandmother and me, in this one big room, all just reading together. It was wonderful.
You started with a stall of used books in the Collingswood Flea Market, which you've renamed Knackered Books. What are you excited to be able to do with your new Asbury Park space?
Top of that list is having a storefront where I can be open on more than just the weekends and where I can set the hours. I'm also going to be able to stock new books alongside the used books I've already got. We'll always have used books, but being able to order exactly the books we want, rather than hoping a customer brings them in, is going to be really nice.
Another big addition will be [selling] “book-adjacent” stuff. I already have some stickers and pins, but I'll be expanding that by working with local designers and artists. There's such an awesome creative community around here. It's going to be fun to get to showcase art and designs made by folks locally. I might sneak in some stuff by people I know from when I lived in Chicago, IL or Oakland, CA, too.
Since I have the space to do it now, I'll also host author events, as well as craft nights, poetry readings, and book clubs. I'm excited to see what the community is looking for, and down to host collaboration events as often as we can. We'll still have our Asynchronous Book Club every week. There's no assigned reading for that book club, it's just all about the BIR “books I've read” rather than adding something to your TBR “to be read” list.
The space I found really is exactly what I was looking for. The shelves I have now are temporary just so I could get the store open. I do like the look of them, but they're all from thrift stores and aren't really ideal for a bookstore. I priced out shelving from one of the fixture companies that a lot of bookstores use and I was shocked at how expensive they were going to be, and I’d still have to install them myself. Instead, I found a local designer/carpenter, Taiye Doughty of Walker Design Studios, who will make us custom shelves from his workshop right here in New Jersey.
I am still keeping a small 10x10 space at Collingwood. That’s going to be for discounted books, ones that are perfectly fine for reading, but maybe a little bit tired—knackered out, as they say.
How can people support the store?
Come by and touch books! Tell your friends we’re open! We’re about to launch a Kickstarter to raise funds for bookshelves, and the swag I designed for that is pretty darn cool. There will also be rewards like shelf-takeovers and being a bookseller for a day, along with stickers, buttons, bookmarks, and t-shirts. But really, come on by and check us out. Follow on Instagram here.
Bloomfield is seeking an artist for a public art project on one of the town’s train trestle underpasses. Deadline: 10/31.
SMUSH is accepting applicants for its Dance Fellowship & Spring Dance Series. Deadline: 11/1.
Art House is looking for artists to participate in their 7th annual affordable art show. They’re looking for “gift-worthy art—smaller paintings, sculptures, series, accessories, and more” priced at $500 or less. They have a commission-based model for the show: 60% to the artist / 40% to Art House. Deadline 11/15.
The Monmouth County Board of County Commissioners has announced the 2025 Monmouth County Travel Guide cover photo contest is accepting submissions. Deadline: 11/15.
Artists can contribute postcards to this fundraiser for Studio Montclair. Deadline: 11/29.