reflecting on the “after.”
Traveling long distances and noticing the environment around you dramatically change from the day before takes a strange toll on the mind and leaves one feeling ungrounded. I knew a little of what this was like as I’ve traveled for long periods before, but never like this; never this far, never for this long—and never with such a clear purpose. It was the consistency of the bookstores that kept me feeling connected during a time when it would’ve been really easy for me to feel lonely. In hindsight, there’s nothing surprising about that, given the intention behind my project.
Over the course of 12 weeks, I drove around the United States, a journey taking me from the American South to the Pacific Northwest, and back. My mission was to stop at as many independent bookstores as I could and shoot footage at a portion of them for an interview-centric documentary. The focus of the film, which I’ve decided to call The Greatest Bookscapes, is currently projected to release in early 2023. It will center on the irreplaceable value independent bookstores bring to their local communities—value that arguably cannot be replicated by corporate or online booksellers—in an effort to highlight the importance of supporting these businesses. There’s ample research out there explaining why consumers should frequent local businesses; they allow one to contribute to their local economy, provide jobs to friends and neighbors, coordinate services meant to educate, support, or platform community members; facilitate connection—the list could go on. But I believe that most people don’t care to hear the numbers or data. What we desire is coincidentally what we can find at a bookstore—a great story. The aim of the project is to capture a discussion about the state of bookstores across the country and the way they engage with their communities through real stories and faces. However, if I am to reduce everything that happened this summer to numbers: I conducted 26 interviews with independent bookstore owners/managers/directors, visited 85 bookstores in 35 states, and drove over 15,000 miles with three close friends.
Some Personal Reflection
On May 15th, 2022, I departed from my home in Raleigh, North Carolina and I didn’t return until July 31st, 2022. Leaving home was not particularly difficult for me at first—I have a restless, wandering soul and the idea of driving across the country to all of these bookstores excited me to no end. It wasn’t until much later in the trip that I realized how much I valued the stability of life at home, a realization that has given me an appreciation for enjoying what I have at home while I still can. Regardless, I have the horrible habit of abandoning my friends and family every summer to pursue some new adventure, so it was important for me to say my goodbyes this time before I disappeared for yet another summer. My first stop before heading out of North Carolina was Boone, where my best friend lives. He was about to embark on his own adventure soon, so enjoying the beginning of my quest on the Blue Ridge Parkway with him was an excellent way to start my summer, and set some expectations and goals for myself:
Be patient with the learning process. I had to continuously remind myself that I was not a professional videographer with years of experience, but an amateur trying to improve his skill set. The first interview in Boone went well enough, but at some point, a cat knocked the tripod into a weird position and that lead to me losing half of my interviewee’s forehead for the entire interview—something I didn’t notice until after the interview was over. I felt stupid for a while and thought I was off to a terrible start, and it was just day one. But eventually, I accepted the loss and didn’t make the mistake again. Looking back, it wasn’t much of a loss to begin with and I can still very much use the footage. Sometimes it just takes time to realize the true gravity of our circumstances.
This is a “work trip.” But try to enjoy yourself. I have a tendency to plan out every moment of the day so as to not suffer from any productivity guilt. It’s something I’m working on getting over, but the logistical planning that went into this project only exacerbated the stress that comes from my perfectionist practices, so I pretty much had every day planned out before the trip even began—everywhere I was going, everyone that I needed to meet, when I needed to be up and when I needed to sleep each night. I found that the easiest way for me to not forget to enjoy myself was to “schedule in” the excursions. I dusted off my National Parks passport and bought an annual pass, finding ways to camp at various beautiful sites when I could forego an Airbnb or motel stay. And boy, did I get so many stamps in that passport this summer. But sometimes, the events of a day did not go according to plan, or I may be decided to not record B-roll during every little moment. I learned that was okay, too.
Try to get a feel for a place the best you can. Since my documentary revolved around different communities and the relationships they have with their local bookstores, I wanted to spend my evenings being out on the town, meeting people, so I could get a better, first-hand experience of what these people enjoyed in their home turfs. I did my best to go to local museums, parks, shops, restaurants and bars, coffee shops, parades, attractions, and more during my free time. I met two women on Bourbon St. in New Orleans who offered me app recommendations to make my drives more interesting. I met a barista in Steamboat Springs who wanted to follow me on social media to stay updated with the documentary. I met a camper in Three Forks who wanted to hear everything about my travels and vice-versa. There were so many people like this that I won’t be able to forget.
What This Project Did to Me
For most of the journey to the west coast, I had a friend accompanying me on the trip. Jennings, Kathryn, and Georgia helped me set up my camera and light equipment for the bookstore interviews, introduced me to their friends and family across the country, and made those long car drives pass by blissfully. It was promptly thirty minutes after I dropped off Georgia at the airport in Sacramento that I realized I was going to be alone in my car for the journey back to the east coast—alone with my thoughts, left to just think for hours at a time, starting at the landscape change in front of me. It was at this point I began actually processing what this project had done to me, although, having been home now for several months, I’m still not sure I’ve finished processing everything I saw, everything I learned, or everyone I met. I’m not sure if there’s any way that I could concisely summarize what I’ve thought about this experience, but I’ll try my best.
What I realized about this project. Interviewing many people from across the country that I’d only exchanged emails and short phone calls with didn’t seem to bother me as much as it maybe should have. I’m not an experienced documentarian or journalist, and I was essentially formulating and tweaking my creative process as I went along. I suppose I wasn’t nervous because at the end of the day, I was just having a conversation with someone about a shared passion, and that’s something people do every day. I’ve always been around “bookpeople,” whether I’ve been volunteering at a library or working at a bookstore myself. Booksellers are genuinely interested in learning about their community members’ wants and needs—it’s an integral part of their job and informs what they sell, what services they offer, and which audiences they create inviting spaces for. A good bookstore tends to reflect the personality of that local community. So, the interview process was quite easy; many of the interviewees had done some sort of interview before, and afterward were able to offer advice on local eats and sights, provide a lovely selection of book recommendations, and wanted to stay in the loop with any updates on my journey. What I’ve realized is that if you want to know the most authentic way to experience a new town, go to your local bookstore—they’ll tell you exactly what you need to know.
While transcribing almost 300 pages of interview dialogue, writing this blog, and editing the footage, I’ve spent quite some time looking over some really fascinating perspectives on the indie bookstore industry. There’s much to say about the impact of Amazon on indies alone. What was made absolutely clear to me is that people don’t necessarily understand the extent of the problem when it comes to Amazon. First of all, Amazon is not a true “bookseller,” but rather provides suggestions for books through an algorithmic evaluation of past purchases. Amazon has also placed pressures on the publishing industry that have led to them being favored as a distributor over independent bookstores due to sheer monetary power. Although there are more reasons why Amazon presents a serious case for the ethics of bookselling today, it would be unjust to just place the spotlight on them and not praise indie stores for surviving the past few years through economic hardship and a global pandemic but also succeeding in providing valuable services to their community. By this, I’m referring to mutual aid networks for underprivileged or endangered groups, education programs and writing workshops for students, residency programs for aspiring authors, meeting spaces for people of all different identities and walks of life, and much more. People want these businesses to exist, and I can’t wait to share the reasons why when the documentary is done.
What I realized about myself. I’m not going to lie and say that I’m coming out of this summer a completely changed man, but I have grown a bit more “comfortable,” for a lack of a better word. This country is massive—not just its sheer size, but the number of people and diversity in their stories. But it’s not necessarily untraversable. In fact, it’s completely traversable—I just did it, and I would do it again. Something about the scale of this adventure and actually completing what I imagined to be the most difficult part of this project has filled what I’ve realized to be a massive hole in my life: dedication to some sort of mission, or purpose. It’s hard in college as a young adult with the uncertainties of the world today to feel comfortable. I don’t wish to speak for everyone, but I constantly feel agitated, with the cyclical process of attending class, doing homework, and preparing for exams leaving me unfulfilled. Of course, there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and I’ll be entering “the real world” soon enough. But this opportunity felt like an immersive application of my skills and interests and is something I’ve spent enough time with that I’ve actually learned so much in such an unorthodox way. There was also a very clear mission and purpose in mind throughout this project that has kept me focused and motivated. Diving headfirst into a large project like this has let me seek out invaluable mentorship, make mistakes I’ve quickly learned from, taught me new skills, and given me something to care about purely by having one thing to focus on over a span of a few months. I’m sure there’s more to dissect there about how experiential learning is the best of way to understand and learn—if not for everyone, then for me, at least.
All of that being said, there were definitely some downsides to completely pouring myself into a project and making it my entire life for a period. When I got home, I was planning on taking two weeks off and just resting up before getting into the editing process for this project. Two weeks passed and I was still extremely exhausted. There was a reverse-culture shock that arose from being in my car and on the move for a long time to very suddenly being grounded in one place that left me in a paradoxical limbo—feeling constantly restless and seeking something to do, yet in desperate need of rest. It took me over a month to get back into a productive groove, and I felt very guilty about not being on top of things as I had planned. This was a huge learning moment for me, and it took me a few conversations with a few important people in my life to accept that the resting period is not a time where I’m “being lazy” or “being unproductive,” but an imperative part of the creative process and needs to be accounted for. It’s either that, or I was going to risk burning out, which would’ve been a disappointing disruption to the rhythm I had gotten into during this summer. If I’m the kind of person who loves taking on huge, long-term projects, I have to accept that I’m going to need a decent amount of time to recuperate afterward without feeling any sort of guilt.
What Worked vs. What I Would’ve Done Differently
Reflections don’t necessarily need to be a supercut of all that went awry; fortunately, there’s much to celebrate with the conclusion of shooting the documentary. My friends would say I’m terrible at celebrating my victories and tend to harp on my shortcomings. I don’t know what to say to that. I’ve never met an artist who’s been completely 100% satisfied with their work. But I know there’s truth to my friends’ criticisms, so I’ll take a moment to acknowledge what went well before I discuss what I would’ve done differently.
I successfully circumnavigated the mainland United States of America. In a small car. Without any complications with my vehicle. I cannot change a tire or deal with car trouble to save my life, and I’m extremely grateful I did not have to; I completed almost every single one of the interviews I had arranged before departing North Carolina. For the very few that ended up falling through, I had just as many impromptu interviews at bookstores I never planned on visiting. I successfully isolated and recovered from COVID-19 without missing an interview or delaying my original itinerary. After everything, I’m proud of translating my original vision into a real-life experience without compromising much, and I can’t wait to share the experience with others soon.
My biggest folly with this project was thinking I could do the whole pre-production, production, and post-production process on my own. Although my friends joining me on portions of this trip was never part of the original plan, in hindsight, I don’t know what I would’ve done if they hadn’t been there to help me. And although I’ve worked on sorting through the footage, transcribing the interviews, reading through the dialogue, constructing the narrative for the film, editing, social media promotion, etc. on my own, I know deep in my heart I’m going to regret not having more people on board with this production from the start, ready to help when I got back home. This would’ve been a lot more fun with a team to work with. I’m just having a tough time wanting to share something that I’ve grown so attached to with others. Next time I do something like this, I’ll find the courage to bring my talented friends into the fold to help me pull it off more efficiently.
A Note of Thanks
I’ve found coming to college, an opportunity I expected to invigorate me with a passion for higher learning, at many times, left me consistently drained of energy. I’m lucky to have access to some of the supportive and enlightening people in the professors I’ve had during my career at Carolina, but the day-to-day of balancing learning, working, and living is a strenuous process, so all one has the energy to do is dream. Never did I think I would’ve been able to take a random, flyaway idea and see it snowball in front of my eyes into something much, much more—an opportunity of a lifetime.
I want to first thank Mr. Burch for the Burch Fellowship and the support from Gina Difino, director of the Burch Fellowship program, for making this possible. I want to thank those who’ve offered me guidance these past few years—folks like Sarah Smith, Friederike Seeger, Zebrina Warner, Dr. Allison Lazard, Dr. Rob Pleasants, and everyone else—for helping me believe in myself. I want to thank Peter Doyle for trusting me and being my faculty adviser for this insane project. I want to thank my family—my mumma, papa, and sister—for being only a phone call away, for supporting me in every way, and for guiding me through any uncertainties. I want to thank Jennings Dixon, Kathryn Obenshain, and Georgia Morgan for accompanying me on this journey and sharing so many beautiful moments with me. And I want to thank everyone I visited or stayed with while I tried to find a home in every state. I love you all very much.
