Indie Bookstore Spotlight: Twenty Questions with Literati’s Mairead Small Staid

One of the very best things about publishing books is meeting the amazing minds behind independent bookstores all over. As Catapult approaches its one-year anniversary, indies continue to be a huge part of our success, so we want to show a little love for the people who run them. We’re starting with Mairead Small Staid, an event coordinator at Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She writes about country music and professional wrestling for Jezebel, and about other less highbrow topics for publications like The Believer, The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Narrative, Ninth Letter, and Ploughshares.

I asked Mairead twenty hard-hitting questions to find out what makes her tick.

1. How are you? I mean, how are you, really?

I’m good! I had a lot of coffee just now, so I’m very good.

2. What do you love about Literati?

Is it too obvious to say: the books? By which I mean our selection, our staff picks, our strange favorites. Being a fairly small store, we have to be mindful of what we carry—we have to love it or think our customers will love it. We have the store’s bestsellers displayed behind the counter at the moment, and I’d put good money on the fact that no other store in the world has exactly (or anywhere near) the same top ten: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Maggie Nelson, Max Porter, Rebecca Solnit . . .

Also, we have a checkerboard floor and a dope Instagram account.

3. What rhymes with Mairead Small Staid?

Parade, charade, colonnade.

4. You’re trapped in a deserted moon fort with five books. What are they?

The collected poems of Jack Gilbert, the essays of Montaigne, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. And since I’m on the moon, let’s add Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars and Margaret Lazarus Dean’s Leaving Orbit—they might come in handy.

5. Now you’re stranded on a desert island—what an unfortunate day you’re having. How did you get there?

It’s safe to assume I was lured with promises of endless gin rickeys and all the time to read in the world.

6. Boats or planes?

Boats! Bodies of water included, please.

7. This or that?

Definitely that.

8. Favorite movie?

Thelma & Louise.

9. Breakfast or brunch?

I’m never up early enough for either—the perks of a workday that runs into the evening.

10. Recent obsession? Literary or otherwise.

Literarily, I recently read back-to-back stunners: Leanne Shapton’s Swimming Studies and Rivka Galchen’s Little Labors. Otherwise, I just started Veep. Holy cow.

11. Is there an online piece you’ve read recently that stood out?

This staggering interview by my girl Jia Tolentino—the unfathomable empathy both women display in the course of this conversation just knocked me out.

12. One fish, two fish, red fish, or blue fish?

Red fish! Salmon, preferably. With bagels and cream cheese.

13. If you could have any career that didn’t involve working with books, what would it be?

Astronaut. Dancer. Definitely one of those two easily attainable careers.

14. Favorite out-of-town bookstore?

I grew up near the beautiful, 200-year-old Andover Bookstore in Massachusetts, so it’ll always be a favorite. I always love visiting Seattle’s Elliott Bay Books or Boston’s Harvard Book Store.

15. Do you have an unusual skill or talent you’re proud of?

My skills and talents are all terribly banal. I suppose I’m uncannily good (and far too competitive) when it comes to lawn games of all stripes.

16. Are there any fandoms you’re bashful about being in?

The author Chris McCormick, in the course of doing “research” for his second book, got me hooked on professional wrestling. I’m not that bashful about it, though, really; I manage to bring it up in most conversations.

17. Is there a book you’ve been meaning to read for more than three years?

Renata Adler’s Speedboat. I know, I know.

18. Any grammar pet peeves?

Oh man, all of them.

19. What would you title your memoir?

Never Up Early Enough.

20. Write something that rhymes.

This isn’t a question! I call foul.

20. That wasn’t a question, so we’ll have to add one more. What was your last impulse buy?

Claire-Louise Bennett’s Pond. It’s a fragmented novel, the unholy lovechild of Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation and Amy Leach’s Things That Are. No regrets.

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