Tu Books publisher Stacy Whitman is letting the cat out of the bag: in a matter of days, she’ll open the bricks-and-mortar Curious Cat Bookshop in Winsted, Conn. She’s been running the store as a pop-up, school book fair, and farmer’s market booth for several months. Recently, Whitman began fundraising on Indiegogo, and she announced on July 11 that she’d signed a lease on a permanent space. Now she’s planning a soft open, with reduced hours through August and a bigger event this fall once she makes a hire or two. “I’m hoping to have a true grand opening in September or October at the latest,” Whitman said. And she’s keeping her other day job, acquiring and editing YA and middle-grade titles for the Lee & Low Books imprint.
“I never thought of myself as somebody who had a knack for [business ventures], but this is my second startup,” she said. Back in 2009, she ran a Kickstarter to launch Tu Books, telling PW that becoming an indie publisher was “a way of creating ‘my own job in a jobless market’ ” during the recession.
Within six months, Lee & Low noticed Tu’s then-unique focus on diverse fantasy and science fiction and acquired it as an imprint, with Whitman on board as editorial director. “They had been having conversations about ‘what’s this fantasy thing?’ and ‘how do we reach older readers?’ ” Whitman said. “They saw my Kickstarter campaign at just the right time.” Tu released its inaugural list in 2011 and now publishes eight books a year. Whitman, who became publisher in 2013, divides editorial duties with editor Elise McMullen-Ciotti, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who came on board in 2021, as well as freelance editors who help with intensive projects including graphic novels.
The Curious Cat Bookshop “is my night and weekend side gig, basically,” Whitman said. “The pandemic kind of opened everybody’s eyes in publishing about how working from home makes other things possible.” She travels the 90 miles from northwest Connecticut to her Lee & Low office once a month, and she finds that most of her work can be accomplished remotely. As for pandemic hobbies, she learned to refinish antique furniture; several reclaimed fixtures will grace her new shop.
Cats of Main Street U.S.A.
“Every editor is probably like, ‘Someday I’m going to start a bookstore,’ ” Whitman said. For her, “the gears started turning” when she moved to Torrington during the pandemic and realized that the nearest bookstore (a Barnes & Noble) was a 45-minute drive from her house. Whitman thought her small town needed a bookstore as a gathering space. Since she’d worked at a B&N while getting her master’s degree in children’s literature at Simmons University—editor and critic Anita Silvey had told her that bookstore experience is indispensable for publishing—she had some idea of what she was getting herself into.
Around the same time, writer Julie Berry announced the opening of her Author’s Note: A Bookstore in Medina, N.Y., a town with demographics similar to Winsted’s. “I was like, ‘Julie, we need to talk,’ ” Whitman said. A year and a half ago she drove to Berry’s store, and shadowed her to learn about day-to-day operations. “Julie let me see how the finances worked and gave me advice on the management stuff. She was still in the first year, so I was getting a real startup education, and the fact that she was making it work made me go, ‘I might be able to do this.’ ”
Whitman also met with a Small Business Administration adviser, joined Facebook groups for booksellers to hear the dos and don’ts of the trade, and took advantage of a grant program to open a store on Winsted’s Main Street. She considered opening a children’s bookstore due to her expertise, but took Berry’s advice to offer a general selection given the area’s population. This turned out to be good counsel: “In my pop-ups, half of my sales are to people looking for books for themselves, for the adult side,” Whitman said. “And the other half are to people looking for books for their kids.”
Once Whitman committed to her plan, she introduced herself to other local small-business owners. “I’m new here, and I don’t know anybody,” she said, and the bookstore gave her a perfect opportunity to say hello. While getting to know her community, she met Jackie McNamara, the proprietor of home goods store Live. At Home. That shop became the Curious Cat Bookshop’s pop-up space in the weeks before Whitman established her own location.
The final push came from an investor, Whitman’s friend of 20 years, Audry Taylor. Taylor formerly ran the Japanese comics publisher Go! Comi with her husband, David Wise, who died in 2020, and she invested in the Curious Cat Bookshop as a way to support independent bookselling. Whitman used the funding to secure her space—a 1,500 square foot former studio and clothing store with high ceilings. She anticipates hiring one full-time and one part-time employee to start, with a plan to employ a buyer, manager, and regular staff.
As for the curious cats in her store’s name, Whitman has four cats at home, each featured on a bookstore T-shirt, sticker, and tote. Unfortunately, they’re not ideal bookstore denizens: “I don’t trust a single one of my cats,” Whitman admitted. “I don’t trust them to even be here temporarily.” Whitman feels more inclined to sponsor cat-adoption events or create Instagrammable cat-themed murals. Her ambition is to become a small-town destination bookshop with an impeccable selection, à la Bank Square Books in Mystic, Conn., or the Flying Pig in Shelburne, Vt. As a known editor and now bookstore owner, she’s already a destination of sorts: “I already had somebody stop by while I was moving in and ask me to carry their book,” she said.
