On 20th January this year I got a message from a friend. ‘Hi, do you remember that conversation we had a couple of weeks ago about having somewhere to sell local books? I’ve sent you an invite to join a WhatsApp group to see if we can make it happen.’
For background, I’d been saying that I would love to have a little bookshop that predominantly sold books by independent authors. I have a dream of floating around in a world of books, wearing floral summer dresses and chatting to like-minded people about books. I will recommend something, which they will instantly buy, take home and fall in love with. This will be repeated for every customer, every day. There would also be a book group and a writing group supplied with coffee and/or gin depending on the time of day. The problem of course, is that’s exactly what it is, a dream. Outside the realms of film and literature, no business ever runs like this. Also, Brightlingsea is a small town with limited properties and probably isn’t big enough to support the kind of shop I dreamed of running.
On joining the group I quickly realised that we were in deadly earnest about this – one way or another we were going to find a way to make it happen. Not only were we planning to have a bookshop, we were going to be sharing the space with gamers, who were rapidly outgrowing their current home. All of a sudden, what had been a pipe dream, was hurtling towards becoming a reality. When we settled on a name – Pens and Dragons – it felt like it had become a concrete plan.
Having said initially that we wouldn’t really have time to do anything until after the end of the Literary Festival, we soon got caught up in the enthusiasm of our nominal leader (I have to call her this or she will protest that we are equal leaders!) and there was a whirlwind of activity.
By the middle of February, we had a provisional draft of a business plan, had collated all the information we needed for funding applications and then suddenly, we found the perfect premises. The landlord was incredibly understanding and has bent over backwards to help us on our way. We got news that we’d secured our first bit of funding.
The next thing I knew, we were collecting furniture and games and measuring out floor space for bookcases. We haven’t properly advertised yet and already we have authors wanting us to stock their books and artists wanting to sell their work through us and run workshops. We’ve explored the possibilities of archaeology and Latin, to draw on the town’s Roman heritage. We’ve started sourcing stock and a whole myriad of other exciting things.
So, aside from the fact that the four of us are all women, what has this got to do with International Women’s Day? I suppose the point I’m making is that for me, IWD is about women helping other women to be better, stronger, more confident etc. What we are doing with Pens and Dragons perfectly exemplifies that. Each of us has different strengths and weaknesses, we all have different pulls on our time with jobs, childcare and voluntary commitment. None of that is a problem; between us we figure it out and we all do what we can, when we can and we appreciate each others’ efforts.
When things don’t go right, we have a grumble, then grit our teeth and crack on – I’m looking at you, government websites - because this has now become a mission statement for all of us. We believe in this project of ours because we know it has the potential to make a huge difference to the young people and creatives of our town.
I feel so privileged to have such an amazing network of women around me – my publishing partner plays a huge part in my writing life, as do the women who are my first readers before I publish a book. With Pens & Dragons, other women have offered their help and expertise if we want it, keen to support us in any way they can.
And of course, no one is disparaging men – that’s not what IWD is about – those of us in relationships freely acknowledge that we couldn’t do Pens & Dragons without the support of our spouses and children, many of whom are male. However, in my view, I am lucky enough to be part of an amazing collective women who are just getting stuff done. That’s never a bad place to be and I can’t wait to see how the business progresses once we get all the red tape out of the way, particularly when you consider we've done all of this in a mere 46 days!
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