Local Bookstores Show Their Faith in Port Townsend Readers

Port Townsend‘s robust literature scene has experienced a triple dose of confidence in recent months with significant commitments from three of its leading booksellers to deepen their roots in the community.

Imprint Bookshop: Building community through books and conversation

On February 13, Imprint owners John Blomgren and Garrett Jones purchased the three-story building on Water Street that houses the bookshop that they purchased in 2024.

Blomgren said that the building’s previous owners were concerned that it would be purchased by private equity investors who would raise the rent and likely force the bookshop out. 

”They saw the importance of this locally-owned book store as contributing to our small town character,” Blomgren said. Blomgren and Jones bought Imprint from Samantha Ladwig and Thom Nienow, who purchased the then-named Imprint Bookstore and the Writer’s Workshoppe from Anna and Peter Quinn in 2019, who had run the bookshop since 2008. Imprint has been at 820 Water Street since 1981.

Blomgren and Jones are making changes to the shop’s physical space and its offerings.

They plan multiple uses for the cute, small room at the rear of their shop. It will be a place for book clubs, and other groups to meet on a tiered pricing structure. The room will continue to stock a wide variety of books for children.

Imprint will continue to host author events. Blomgren said that he and Jones are working to raise the caliber of authors that come to read their works at the shop.

“We are looking at how to make the shop a third space to better serve the needs of the community,” Blomgren said. “We are first here for local residents,” Blomgren said. “And we welcome tourists, of course.”

“The building has good bones, a good history. We will freshen it up, leaning into its Victorian aesthetic. Eventually, we will paint the exterior.”

The third floor of the building is an apartment that is rented. The second floor has three separate spaces in which therapists practice. The basement consists of storage units which are currently available for rent.

Blomgren says that owning the building is a good investment and gives him and Jones the assurance that they can afford to keep the bookshop running for years.

William James Bookseller: A casual meeting and a surprise opportunity to fulfill a fantasy and keep the family in Port Townsend

A few months ago, Eric Hatmaker and his partner, Rose Burt, were struggling to find a way to afford to continue to live in Port Townsend with their two young boys.

“There’s not a lot of work around here, so we were looking at moving to Cork, Ireland at the end of the year where I’d go to the University of Cork,” Hatmaker said.

During that time of struggle, they carried a dream to stay in Port Townsend. They believed that one way to achieve that dream would be to own and operate a book store.

”We’ve been fantasizing for a long time about starting a business, probably a bookstore,” Burt said. “That’s the dream.”

Hatmaker said that on a whim, he sent a message to Paul Stafford, who co-owned William James Bookseller with his wife Michelle at the time, to ask him if he would meet to discuss what it takes to own a bookstore. Stafford agreed, and when they met, he surprised Hatmaker with news that the bookstore had been up for sale, which Hatmaker was not aware of.

Hatmaker and Burt promptly discussed the idea of purchasing the business, and with some financial help from family, swung a deal that fulfilled their dream and kept the family in Port Townsend.

”It was all a big surprise, of course,” Hatmaker said. “That changed our whole trajectory, kept us in town, in the United States. Real serendipity that this fell into our laps.”

Hatmaker’s work experience includes farming in the United States and overseas, military service, and many years working in retail bookstores.

”Since I was a little kid, I’ve been book obsessed,” he said. “A bookstore is such a comforting place to be, and this specific store is such a gem of this town.”

William James has sold used and rare books since its inception on Water Street in 1987. Hatmaker said that his biggest surprise since they started running the business on February 14 is how many people come in with used books to sell.

He acknowledged that there is some pressure that the bookstore doesn’t change too much as it is widely loved in its current rendition. Stafford is mentoring Hatmaker and Burt through the transition, and educating them on the business of buying, selling and cataloging works. 

Winter Texts Bookshop: Digging for literary gold

Among this trio, Winter Texts Bookshop is the relatively new kid on the street. Now in its sixth year as a bookstore, a street front location is a new experience for owner Conner Bouchard-Roberts. They opened their new Tyler Street store on March 11. 

Winter Texts had been tucked into a far corner of the mezzanine of Uptown’s Aldrich’s Market until it moved one block away to a 190-square-foot space in a 1868 building. Bouchard-Roberts’ partner, Camille Finefrock, is an interior designer who designed and built out the the shop to fit the building’s bones.

Expansion is not new for Winter Texts. Bouchard-Roberts started it as a publishing company in 2017, and added the bookstore in 2021.

”The publishing company was the heart of the endeavor for some time, and all of the books that we published are on these shelves,” he said. “We’ve made about 45 or 46 books up to this point.” 

One of those books is called A field Guide to Wandering written by Bouchard-Roberts and others. He describes it as “ poetry, essay, short stories, and scholarship.”

Bouchard-Roberts has great passion for cultivating relationships with other booksellers as well as publishers. “I love talking about books. I love talking about ideas. Having the store and being able to bring in small publishers from around the world who are doing interesting things, as well as writers I admire allows me to continue that conversational process.”

Each of these three local booksellers occupy a respective niche in the local bookstore ecosystem while appealing to a broad clientele. Imprint as a third space that keeps up with contemporary conversations; William James’ labyrinth and its huge selection of used books; and Winter Texts, in a space that Bouchard-Roberts calls “a shrine for people who are looking for good books, new and used. We’re engaging with literature and science and the life of the mind in a way that is a bit more timeless.”

So pull up your favorite reading chair and settle in because local booksellers have you covered. They stand as a bulwark against the encroaching forces of algorithm-centered existence and colonization of our minds.

Corrections: an earlier version of this article had Conner's name misspelled, the name of his book wrong, and an incomplete description of Finefrock's work