Read And Revel

Interview with Kait Thibeaux owner of local independent bookstore Folklore Grove (interview was on 9/13, just before the bookstore opened).

So, Folklore Grove. What does that name mean to you? How did we get there? 

When we were drawing this up, we wanted to tie back to where all of this started. Reading’s coming back. I feel like there was kind of a drop off for a little bit, and then people were like,’Oh, wait, the state of the world is stressful. And now we can escape back into books.’ Authors are starting to write more and people are branching out into that and going, I think I can do this. Books have come so far, but the original setup of stories and things was folklore and fairytales, sitting around campfires and telling stories. That was kind of what society was built on. Something I want to do with the bookstore is not, just sell books, but classes that go into what stories are. 

So it’s a little bit of folklore and then, I just love the feeling of something that is hidden away and safe and comforting. It worked out perfectly, I had the name before I even had the space, so it feels like a grove when you step in and you can close the bookshelf. 

What made you want to open a bookstore? 

Books are something that I’ve always loved. Stories are somewhere I can escape. I have a lot of chronic illnesses and had a really tough, growing up life. Books were always that escape. If I’m stuck in bed and can’t move or I can’t go out and experience my own adventures, books are a really cool way to still experience life without the ability to do it myself sometimes. 

Sharing stories is so special. I think it grows us as people. Different stories and different experiences. So I wanted to share that with our community. We had Pantigo books, but they closed down two days after I came up with this idea. So I took it as a sign! I was like, Okay! Now we really need a local bookstore in Arlington because we have Half Price Books and Barnes & Noble. But somewhere where we could have local authors come in and display their books… You know, there’s big names in Barnes & Noble, but for local authors to be able to come in and show, here’s my story that I came up with. It’s just really cool for them to be able to share that. For people to walk in and find different kinds of books that maybe they wouldn’t find in Barnes & Noble.

What has this process been like opening your first bookstore? 

It’s been crazy. I came up with the idea, in January/ February, with my coworker Casie. She’s my best friend and then our other best friend is Bobby. So it’s the three of us. Bobby’s the one who owns Smash Toast. We were literally walking in Arlington and went, oh, what if there was a bookstore? What if we open a bookstore? 

I was working a full-time job. It was one of those, I really want to do that, and I think I’d be really happy doing that. My work at the time was just getting really stressful and really heavy. It was hard on my body. It was hard on my mental health. So books and stories just continually became more and more important to me. It was one of those, I think I would actually really enjoy doing that. And I think that would probably bring me a lot of joy. 

Then he got the restaurant and I was like, well, yeah, that’s really nice, there’s a secret bookshelf door leading into a room and I could open a bookstore there. Then within that month, I ended up losing my job. I got laid off. It was kind of, Okay, I guess I’m going to jump in the deep end. 

When I got laid off I had nothing. I didn’t get anything really from getting laid off. My job didn’t pay a lot to begin with, so we didn’t have a lot of savings. I didn’t want to open a line of credit or take out a loan. It was, How do I do that without any money? 

We worked out a deal with the restaurant. I can start here and we can build from there. Then it was, Well, I don’t have any bookshelves to put books on. So how do I do that? And it was really cool because each step of the way has been, I would pray, Okay, God, I don’t have bookshelves. And then we got the built in on the left side of the room. We got all of that for $100. And then I was like, Okay, well, God, I don’t have any books to put on the bookshelves. And then a little bit of money would like fall in my lap. Okay, let’s spend that on books. Okay, but I have enough room for 100 books. I got more money to buy up to 400 books!  And then it was, I don’t have enough money for bookshelves… And it was just one step after another. 

So it’s been really humbling to look at that room, and I’ve not spent a single dime that is out of my own pocket. It’s all been provided by the Lord. 

It’s been cool to see the community also rally around me. I didn’t expect to get as much support as I did. We blew up on social media and I was like, I don’t know what to do with this! So it’s just been really sweet. Like the local authors who were coming in and stocking their shelves, to be able to support them and them support me. People were DMing me, there’s so many people who were like, I’ll come in to volunteer if I can’t be hired there. A lot of people wanted to come in and donate books. All of the preorders that they did, a lot of people just were here for supporting that. And again, it’s been really humbling to have people believe in me, even if they don’t know who I am. So a lot of friends and family, obviously, have done the same thing, but for complete strangers to go, yeah, I believe in your dream, go do it, is incredible. It’s been so cool, but it’s been a lot of work because we’ve also been retrofitting and renovating the restaurant. The last two months I’ve been  here 9 am to 11:30 at night, just working, painting, cleaning, all the things. In some ways, I’m so excited to open because it’ll actually be less work than what it is right now. It’s been a wild ride, but it’s been really nice. 

Wow. That is incredible. The fact that there’s so much community involvement here, that’s something that is so often lacking today. 

I know. And I was so caught off guard with even just people who would DM me and be like, “you are doing a good job”. Or people who walk in there, and I look at the room and I’m like, is it too small? Like, it’s smaller than a lot of other bookstores. It’s really tiny, and it’s one of those things where I’m like, none of this is mine, I’m thankful for it. But I look at it and I go, it’s too small, what if they don’t like it? And people even just picking up preorders will walk in and there was one lady who walked in and went, “I’m so proud of you. This looks so good.” And I was like, oh, my gosh, I was like, “Can I step away for a minute?” *crying* But, yeah just that kind of thing where it wasn’t expected, but I really needed it. 

What sort of feeling do you hope people have when they come here? 

I hope it’s just a breath of fresh air and you walk in, you just go, *deep breath* Okay. 

Like, it’s a little bit of a break. It’s that a break away from [everything]. Arlington’s not a big city, but it’s a city. It’s a lot of hustle, bustle. So just to go in and feel a little bit of peace and relax.

Also, I want them to be stretched in what they’re reading. I do have some big authors, but my goal is to eventually, as they sell out, continue replacing them with local authors or authors that may not be local, but are smaller. And their stories are not as well known, but still have different points of view and will just stretch readers and what they’re reading. I have three shelves that are specifically for disability representation. There are some titles in there that people will see and go, I’ve heard of that book, but I didn’t realize that the main character struggles or deals with, or is diagnosed with and maybe not even struggling, with different chronic illnesses or disabilities. Again, it’s that kind of stretching that point of view where people don’t necessarily see disability as a weakness, but as just something that somebody has or deals with or is just a part of their life. So that idea of stretching them in what they’re reading.

What do you think will make your bookshops special?

 I mean, it’s really tiny, and it’s attached to a restaurant. I think the speakeasy door is kind of fun. It’s kind of different, where people will have to walk in. We thought about eventually, maybe there’s a secret passcode that they have to stay up front to get in. I mean, at first anybody’s gonna just come in. But for that to eventually be like, oh, I know a spot. I know a bookstore spot. It’s tiny, but also, if I can eventually replace all of those books with just local authors, that’s becoming a dream as I’m sitting and talking with them as they come in and stock their own shelves, giving them the room to do that. And for people to come in and go, I know I can find local authors here and stories that probably aren’t blowing up on TikTok or that kind of thing.

Do you have any specific goals for the bookshop? 

I’m pretty open minded at this point. I’m starting small, so I’m like, if it just survives, then I’m gonna be super happy. But one of the things that I wanted to do when I came up with the idea is I wanted to do book binding classes. That was a huge thing when I polled the community. I love doing my own cases for books. That’s an art that is starting to come back, but people don’t really know how to get started. If I can get professors from UTA to come in and just do a crash course on writing poetry, writing creatively, giving people the opportunity to learn new skill sets within the literary scope. It is important because you never know, maybe somebody comes in and goes, Oh, like this is really fun, I want to be an author. Or maybe it’s, I’m not good at this, but now I have a new appreciation for authors and when they write, I can actually see the work they put into it and I can appreciate not just the story, but the prose of a sentence. That’s something I’m really excited about. 

If you could describe your store in three words, what would they be? 

Inspiring. Safe. Magical. 

I know we’ve talked a lot about the community. Do you feel like there are any other ways that you want to give back to the community? 

I was just talking about this with Casie. So something Smash Toast and I share in common is the love for community. We both just have a heart for people. There’s a pretty big homeless population around here because we’re pretty close to Division. Something we’re thinking through is how do we give back to the community without hurting it? And there’s a balance. It’s figuring out, what is the rest of Arlington doing? Where are there gaps? One of the ideas we do like is doing ‘buy one and give one’ kind of thing. You can buy a meal and then they’ll put a ticket up and if you need a meal, you can walk in and take a ticket down.

 The same kind of idea with the bookstore is something I’m kind of like, how do I do this? Because books can be a luxury, they are so expensive right now. So, if it’s a thing where I can do the same thing, where it’s buy a book, give a book. Like there’s a ticket or a coupon posted that somebody bought you a book. So if  you’re at the end of your rope or living paycheck to paycheck or you’re a college student, like I was. I didn’t have enough money to go and buy books or you don’t want to go to the library and you want a physical book, then come in and somebody has provided that opportunity for you to have a physical book that you get to keep and you can take your time reading. But that’s just a few ideas. Something we’re going to do with our staff is community involvement days. And again, find gaps. What can we do that actually serves the community? Again, not hurt it, or become a burden. How can we creatively think about how we can serve the community?

Do you aim to have a variety of genres or are there any specializations? 

Right now, it’s mostly fiction. just because it’s so small. I hope to be able to expand. But it’s one of those things that there’s not a lot of space in there. So, I’m just kind of figuring out what sells, what do people really want. I want to be open to people coming in and going I want to see more cookbooks or something like that.So right now we have, like a fantasy section. We have the disability representation section. We have contemporary horror, and then we have bargain books, which half of those right now are cookbooks. And then all of our local authors as well. But I hope to, again, as we expand and have the money to be able to do the things, like bring in children’s books, because those are always so fun. Anybody can read those, even if you’re not a kid. 

So something else I’m really excited about is I’m a collector of special editions and I know they’re becoming a really big thing now. But all of my experience has been, you can maybe get on a list for some of the bookboxes and things like that. Sometimes they’re kind of hit and miss. Sometimes they’re really expensive. Anytime I was looking for special editions was mostly on Facebook marketplace or Mercari, and that’s really hard because you want to look at all the things and then you have to either give your shipping address to someone you don’t know or you have to plan a meetup somewhere with a stranger that you don’t know. And so it can be a toss-up and it can be kind of sketchy. And there’s also people who will bump the prices up a ridiculous amount to charge $225 for a book but like that’s unreasonable. I’m poor because I like books, and now I’m going to be more poor. So having a space for people to come in and resell their special editions is a huge thing that I’m really excited about. We have some in there already! But being kind of a safe place for people to do that is big on my list. One of my ideas is a special edition swap where like people come in and it’s just a swap book.

 I don’t know if you guys are dungeons and Dragons people, but we’re going to do a dice swap. I’m a collector of pink dice, so, one of my friends at D&D, was like, what if we did a dice swap? And I was like, yes, absolutely! We’ll be doing that.

Is it important to you, and if it is, how would you keep your store diverse and inclusive? 

Having local authors come in, there’s so many different types of people. There’s anything from race to just the way that your brain works. And there’s just so many different types of people. So giving them the opportunity to come in and tell their stories that are just different than what’s popular is really cool. But the disability section is really something I’m really excited about. And again, kind of teaching people that disabilities and chronic illnesses don’t have to be scary. I use mobility aids, and so even just being a young person who walks out with a cane or with a walker, you experience that people just don’t know what to do with that. It doesn’t bother me because they’re, like, asking questions and I’m happy to answer. But sometimes people will straight up be like, Why are you parking in a handicap spot? You’re young. You don’t need that. And again, stories are how we learn things. So if I can, again, expand readers to see characters that have like Crohn’s disease but she’s a Viking. It removes that stigma of, you’re not looking at disabilities as, Oh, I’m so sorry, but as a Okay, that’s a part of who you are, and you’re still a Viking. 

I love that perspective. 

So.. Are bookstores still relevant in the digital world? 

They are becoming more so. I feel like they’re having a comeback. I think people have always been attracted to storytelling. Everything that we see on media is some form of storytelling. The news is technically storytelling. TikTok is storytelling. A lot of what people like to watch is people talking about this or even like funny videos. It’s a story. So I think people are coming back to longer form storytelling, because TikTok is that like six seconds and I like to see how some people are coming out of that and going I see the problem with that and how that is not good for my brain. It’s coming back to a longer form storytelling. And there’s something special about having something in your hands, not on your phone. Being able to go and buy a physical book, but also to go into a bookstore and again, be able to look at covers. Like, you’re not supposed to judge a book by it’s cover. But there’s so many good artists out there that have created this beautiful art for books that tell the story and then you get see it in the  book. And, okay, what book do I want to read instead of Googling it. It’s still relevant. 

If you could invite any author dead or alive for a book signing at your shop, who would you choose? 

Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein. I think she would be really interesting to invite just because of her story and getting to allow her to tell her story. Because I don’t know a ton about her. But I know, she really struggled to have a right to her book. And so, I feel like having somebody like her who didn’t just write a book and it take off. She was a female author at a time when there weren’t a lot of female authors so, that would be interesting, for sure. Also giving her the space to come and do a book signing and reading and talking openly about this is my book, this is my creation. Giving her that space, I think, would be really interesting!

Where do you think the biggest change in book publishing will come from? 

I think these indie authors are going to change it, and I don’t know when or how, but just again, a lot of them have come in and I’ve been able to talk to them and hear about, like their experience with publishing. And then, there’s just a monopoly out there right now with traditional publishing, and it more and more is just harming indie authors. And even big authors, they’re losing their rights to their work in ways that, you’re like, What? They did what? 

It’ll come from the Indie authors, for sure. And the community around them. I think the book community is getting bigger and bigger and they’re learning more and more about the back end of things. And I hope that they continue to educate themselves because my hope is that the consumer goes, yeah, that traditional publishing and the monopoly they have them at that is kind of messed up. Same thing with bookstores, like big bookstores. 

I want to see kind of the artists rise up and be like, no, we’re taking this back, because we’re the ones who are running it. You can’t do what you do without the actual artists. I don’t know how it’ll happen, but the more I learned about it, the more I’m like, Oh, yeah, you guys are going to cause a revolution and it would be great. 

I do think it’s interesting to think about how, it’s almost like the more global everything becomes, the more important that real community is. 

Exactly, the ones in your neighborhood, your community, are going to support you.I like that Arlington is becoming a little bit more, like local supportive. It’s a process, but I feel like the last few years, you’re seeing a little bit more local stores open up and the community’s like, yeah, we’re here for that and not like the big chains that are here. Which is hard in a big city because, especially in Texas, everything is so spread out. So, for people to go, No, I’m willing to drive an hour and a half to go see this small bookstore instead of go down the road to my Barnes & Noble. 

What little known book do you think is underrated?

Some of these local authors that I was reading through are just, like, they’re just incredible. Two of the ones I read that we will have in store is The Legend of Evelyn by Tessa Marie. She’s local to Arlington. And that one was really, really cute. And then Shadowbound by Nicole Holland. She’ll also come and stock her book. Both of those, again, are local, small authors, but they’re so good. I read them so fast. I just ate them up. They were amazing. 

Those two local authors are amazing. I mean, all of them in there are absolutely incredible. My team of people read and skimmed through all of the books that wer’re stocking and it was just, wow, like there’s so many authors, so many books that are so good, so good. 

What well-known book do you think is overrated? 

Oh. People are literally going to hate me for this. I have a love-hate relationship with Fourth Wing. I love the story. I love it so much. The world building for me. was a little confusing. I think it was a little overrated. And part of that, I think is probably because Rebecca was pushed to finish the books, and she’s talked about that.  When you’re in traditional publishing and you’re really big and even the community is like, give me the next book right now. So you have to kind of rush through some things and you can’t tell that it’s rushed, but you can kind of tell it’s her first fantasy book.  It’s that love hate relationship. Did I eat it up? Yes. Did I have my husband wait at like 4 a.m. at Target to get the special edition? Yes, because I had the flu and I was like, I was gonna go do it and I can’t, but I’m still going to go. And he was like, Nope. Stay home. I’ll do it for you. 

Do I think it’s a little overrated? Yes. Especially with… Again, they might come at me. I might, like, have to close the book store down. But the number of special editions for Fourth Wing is excessive. And I love special editions, like, I’m a book dragon, so I hoard books. But I just think there are so many other books that deserve attention too, and I think they kind of get overlooked because of some of these bigger authors. Again, her story’s still incredible, but it might just be a little overrated. 

So, what book is your greatest treasure?

Okay, I know I just talked about big authors, but A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Mass. So I read that for the first time a couple years ago, and went through it. There are some books that I will annotate as I go through.Sometimes when I know I really want to just sit and enjoy this book I’m going to take that time to do that. 

So I was annotating that book and so much of Feyre’s development and struggle through mental health mirrored mine, so closely. And then I went through a really hard year last year. That was the same kind of thing where so many of the quotes, specifically, “Don’t let the hard days win”. That is on so many things. I have it on a sweatshirt sleeve, I embroidered it myself because I just needed it. 

My world felt like it was falling apart. In the past I went through a mental health crisis, like wrote suicide notes. It was the whole thing. And coming back to again, the stories. You read through a story that’s all fictional, but she went through so much and came through it. But the book describes the development and the struggle through her mental health so well. It felt like I was looking at a mirror and it meant a lot to me, I could look at that on my shelf. It’s annotated with so many notes where it’s, Yep, I feel that. Yeah, I’m right there. And here’s also a piece of development and I’m just watching her go through it and tabbing here’s the little thing that I can see a little bit of development of her coming out of that or, here’s a setback. And so that book is just filled with annotations. It’s just “Don’t let the hard days win”.

And you didn’t and look where you are now! I know life’s never perfect, but what a story you have now. 

What would you say is maybe one of your top books that made you love reading? 

That’s a great question. The Vampire Diaries and the House of Night series in high school, like, or not even high school, but just as a kid, like, junior high/high school. Those were my jam. So I’m rereading all of the House of Night books just to go back to the books that I loved. 

In college, I had to sell them because I didn’t have enough money to eat. So I took them all to the Half Price Books. I got rid of all of my books at one point. And so I found the whole series recently of House of Night. So I bought them, I’ve been rereading them. It’s a story you read in high school, you know, it’s not my thing now. But I can look back and I remember loving this so much and I consumed all of them so fast. So that definitely was like one of my top books that I really liked with that. 

What are you reading at the moment? 

So many things! I have been stuck on Kingdom of Ash for like a year. Maybe not. It’s been pretty close to a year. Cassie’s glaring at me! It’s her favorite book. It’s the last Sarah J. Mass book that I have to read, and I have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen and I don’t want to read it. I’m like, if I don’t read it, it doesn’t happen, right? 

 I am rereading The Picture of Dorian Gray. Then I’m almost done with A Swift and Sudden Exit by Nico Vincenti, which is one of our local authors. That one is super fun. So I kind of like juggle books, depending on, okay, how much time do I have? Picture of Dorian Gray I have been listening to as I work. And it’s a classic, but it’s fascinating even today. 

Final thoughts:

I think we’re just excited to not just sell books, but to bring people back into all of the different kinds of book things and to learn and experience and be together. I’m excited about the community aspect of that. Not just them supporting me, but me supporting them and also bringing them together in a way where they get to meet each other or learn things from each other and things like that. So I’m excited to see what it has in store.