I am pitching my third novel to New England bookstores. “Hey, I am a Vermont author with her third novel.” “Yes, distributed by Consortium.” (a password of a sort). I do love it when “Local Topics” and/or “Local Authors” section is near the door easy-to-find, easy-to-browse. Many of us believe that folks who drive cars with white, blue, or yellow plates would logically seek a local book when shopping main street in small-town Vermont. Sometimes I have a connection with the book seller. I’ve attended the New England Independent Booksellers Association meeting twice and booked for my third go. Maybe my name has been rung through their registers. So each autumn, shortly before the next novel drops, I go visit bookshops.
I visited nine bookshops during an eleven hour day. It started by driving the 2.75 hours north to real Vermont. That Vermont folks from Mass and Connecticut say is so far away. But it is. It is very far away from my Vermont too. I can get to four other state capital regions faster than I can get to Vermont’s capital region. Honestly, I live the real Vermont with skewed spires, sway-backed barns, abandoned school houses, a million miles of gravel road, and slow-driving farm trucks.
In Richmond, Vermont I limp into the bookshop (I basically limp everywhere). It seems entirely familiar, yet I am not sure I knew Richmond existed. There is a door-sized hole in the wall between adjoining businesses. When I peek through, I see a manual letterpress in the front window. Yes, I do know this place. They don’t know me due to the asymmetry of social media. I approach the lady at the stationer’s counter. I wished to share a story about this woman she does not know. I wish to tell her I borrowed her for minor character in an upcoming novella. I also wish not to freak her out.
I have three novels and nearly thirty short stories in various states of publication. I tend to write very human-focused narratives of public servants. My first real job was an inner-city EMT on emergency ambulances when I was twenty. I spent years helping chase international smugglers (with tech). I worked for US Public Health Service thirty years ago. I did a year-long tour of Iraq, return to the US as a paramedic and volly firefighter. My books do have joy and humor. I love my eclectic and queer band of ordinary American heroes. Yet, all too often my readers trip over death, tragedy, and the tough-side of life in my narratives (the philosopher did once suggest write what you know).
In 2025 before my tumble, I wrote a novella. Two things came together: first, I wished to explore that moment when we recognize love is possible; second, I love writing short stories. I wrote a pile of intertwined and unified shorts stories that each explore love from one angle, often stopping at the moment of meet-cute. I’m not Nora Ephron but an old warrior wondering/wandering into the land of poetry, gentility, humor, and someone else’s domain.
I began my introduction to the proprietor of the book/stationery shop, “You are in my 2027 book. Not you-you, obviously because we’ve never met. But some washed out, far-distant image of you on that letter press…” I explain that I had caught a brief news/travel show on YouTube that showed a bookstore-owning woman operating a 150-year old iron letter press.
My novella, called The Fundraiser: A Matchmaking Event in the Wilds of Vermont, is also whatever the opposite of Sci-Fi is. I imagined a space where the ubiquitous tech of the 2020s is absent, which is super easy to do in my region of real Vermont. I’ve got no cell connection. Occasionally, I can get a signal on a back deck standing on my left foot with my right arm raised. There is a 3-meter circle on the road one click south where you can get a bar or two (translation: there is a 10 foot circle a half-mile south). It is Sci-Fi dialed in reverse. You get it, a foot-powered letter press machine fits perfectly into my imagination of a de-teched Vermont village with a phone booth and mailbox.
“I’ll start by telling you,” I continue, “that I caught a news story about a guy named Patrick in northern Vermont who run a tiny phone company called RandTel. He sets up payphones in communities that have no mobile reception.” I described the fictional and ersatz village center with village office with a blue-and-glass American style phone booth and a red UK style phone box. I also, in my story, emplaced a blue American mailbox and a red UK postbox. Author me thought, why not tip my proverbial hat to real Vermonters. So yes, I contacted RandTel (yes, real) explaining my tiny plan while asking permission. Patrick corrected my spelling (everyone does) and gave me permission to proceed.
There was zero chance with 235 towns in Vermont that I would find a lady in a stationery store with an ancient letter press, therefore I did not try to find her. This shop owner stood in for a random Vermonter quietly practicing traditional another traditional craft. Even today, if you try to find this shop, it may take some work. Start with the lovely and charming fact that one of their websites won’t run on modern browsers. While I never strove to find her, suddenly I am stood in front of my fictional character saying something creepy-adjacent to a living human. “You are in my 2027 book.” I now need to steer away from eek towards oh ok. I wish to complement her, her co-owner, the two stores and make her feel good about her decision.
On my path from eek to ok. I tell her about Patrick at RandTel. I tell her about my un-tech/counter-Sci-Fi stories which focuses just on people and our shared land.
I text my editor upon leaving the stores. Her response: “I’m editing that section right now.” Serendipity.
A Vermont author walks into a Vermont bookshop then tells the owner, “Hey, we don’t know each other, but I borrowed you for a character in a book you’ll sell a year from now. But meanwhile, could you see a path forward for putting Captain Henry: 2 ½ Insurrections, 2 Wars, 1 ¼ Centuries, and a Story of Love on your shelves when it comes out in a month? (Yes, distributed by Consortium.)”
If you’re ever in or near Richmond Vermont please stop into both Hyperbole Bookshop and its twinned stationery story Hey June. If you are near Richmond Vermont, give a wave to a few buildings with the name George D. Aiken embossed on signs. I never met him, but he was my mother’s fifth cousin. Down at this end of the state, we have a state forest and a bank building named for George D. Aiken too. Just nice seeing the name. Not uncommon for me given my father’s name is six-to-a-square mile in regular America.
If distant from northern Vermont please spend an hour and $100 at any locally owned bookshop.
-I.M Aiken
Unless I find a bookshop on wheels, aren’t most bookshops stationary?
I.M. Aiken author & narrator
“Captain Henry: 2 ½ Insurrections, 2 Wars, 1 ¼ Centuries, and a story of Love” (2026)
“Stolen Mountain” (2025)
“The Little Ambulance War of Winchester County” (2024)
“Trowbridge Dispatch” - fictional short stories/podcast
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Do the things… please