Alex
Welcome to Paper Defiance, a fortnightly podcast all about indie bookshops and their owners. My name is Alex, and I am recording this on Wadawaurang land, in Ballarat Australia. It’s exciting to have you join me.
Today we’re staying in regional Victoria, but heading for the coast. Queenscliff is a splendid little town on the Bellarine Peninsula, and I love it very much. Matt is the third owner of the Bookshop at Queenscliff, and Ii’m pretty sure I’ve bought books under each of the owners. Matt’s passion for the shop itself and for buying from indie bookstores is infectious. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did – and as always, hang around after the interview for a vignette from someone talking about their favourite bookshop.
Matt
My name is Matt Davis. I am the co owner of The Bookshop at Queenscliff, in Queenscliff, Victoria. How’s that – is that enough?
Alex
Yeah, that’s good. So how long have you been the owner of the bookshop?
Matt
It’s coming up on three years, Jane and I bought it end of October 2019. Just before COVID, I guess. So we’ve been the owners for almost three years. The shop itself has been in the town for about eight years, I think, or maybe even nine years. And we’re the third owners. It was started by a lovely local lady, Mary Lou, who’s still in the town. She started the bookshop, which is incredible, I think. And then she also started the Queenscliff Literary Festival at the same – well, not exactly the same time, but shortly thereafter. I don’t know how she did both. It’s quite incredible actually, what a woman. It’s a great gift to the town I think, both of those things, to the cultural life of the town. And then Matthew and Lisa Jose from Canberra bought it from Mary Lou. And they ran it for three years and Matthew’s – his day job was in politics, and he sort of had had enough. But then I think when Anthony Albanese got the nod for the Labor Party, he asked Matthew to come back and work in the office. And that seemed like too good an offer to refuse. And so now he’s in the prime minister’s office, I guess – so they sold quite quickly, actually, he took that job and they wanted to – great opportunity, so they moved back to Canberra. And it was right around the time when Jane and I were sort of wondering about what we were doing, I guess. So when it came up – well, it’s kind of funny. We were in Europe, we were doing six months on, six months off, and we were on holidays. It sounds very, really bourgeois, doesn’t it? But we were on holidays. We were working really hard. But then we took a holiday. And I saw the post on Facebook of all things, that the bookshop was for sale. And I showed the computer to Jane, I said, check this out. And Jane said, Oh, God, I hope someone good buys it. And I said yes, us. And she just thought that was hilarious. But yeah, I didn’t convince her – I sort of asked her to think about it, like try it on, like imagine that: we could own a bookshop. And, you know, we could give Frankie daughter a little bit more of a stable footing, I think, in the world, because at that point, she was being dragged back and forth. And she was great, she’s a trooper, and she was a resilient kid. But she was getting to that age where she was really developing friendships. And I could just see, she just needed some stability and the bookshop would be able to do that. So yeah, we bought it, we bought it online,
Alex
Presumably not sight unseen. You had actually experienced the place before you bought it.
Matt
We’d been in it. Yeah, we’d been – we were customers. So we’d been in the shop, but as just as customers not as prospective owners, so all the prospective owner sort of stuff was done online. It was like we bought it on – we sort of joking we bought it on Gumtree, which we kind of did.
Alex
That sounds like such an Australian story really, doesn’t it? “Yes, I bought a bookshop on Gumtree.” When you took it over, were there things that you wanted to do or to change in terms of the physical layout or the setting of the shop?
Matt
We did a little bit yeah, we did. We wanted to make it – we were really fond of the shop – it’s in a great position, Matthew and Lisa had actually moved it from where Mary Lou started it; they’d moved it to just a fantastic position right on the front corner, the first corner in town. Can’t miss it as you come in. Lots more air and light; no, there is more air. But lots more light, lots more windows. So they did all the hard work. We sort of say they did the hard slog and then we just came in and just benefited from their work. But we did want to make it ours, yeah, of course, aesthetics that Jane and I share and that we have individually that we wanted to bring to the fore – some basic stuff like we changed the logo and we made it something that sort of represented us more, maybe more of the town as well. And yeah, we did; we painted the walls. And we put in some new shelves. We sort of changed one whole side of the shop, all the shelving was custom built that we got. We got that done. Yeah, we had another custom built table brought in – friend of ours, Louis Rodgers is an amazing sculptor and furniture maker, he designed this beautiful big red table and soon as you walk into the shop you see it. So we got Louis to make that for us. There’s lots of, I would say, little aesthetic sort of things – physical aesthetic. The biggest thing, I think, for us, is the makeup of the stock. That’s really where – I guess that’s where our passion lies. And so it started, it became quite organic, it has moved in a really organic way in that as soon as we took over, we bought in a few books that we love. And in some ways, like I ordered books that I thought no one will buy this book. But if I’m going to own a bookshop, this has to be on the shelf. And the funny thing happened is that all the stuff that we love, that we thought was too esoteric, or weird, or expensive, or whatever, edgy or niche, they’re the books that sold. So that was really surprising and exciting, because then it was, whenever from then on really, as soon as we see anything that we love, we just get it for the shop. And that’s a barometer now. And so the stock mix really changed – has really changed over the years. You know, you inherit a shop with stock, and then you either sell that through or you can send some back. And so over the course of sort of, I think that first summer, sort of six months, well, not quite six months, because then we had COVID. But say four months, we sort of – we really like, leant into what we love and and then it’s grown from there. Now it’s just a really odd little shop at times. Like there’s some really interesting stuff we import and books that we you know, we just love that we’ll just step into and promote and handsell really.
Alex
Is that in both the fiction and the nonfiction, your quirky takes?
Matt
Yeah, there’s a bunch of stuff that we love all over the shop. Even in kids’ books, you see a lot of kids’ books, a lot of commercial stuff, a lot of just, I would say quite average books for kids. But if you dig a little bit, there’s some just absolutely beautiful kids’ books that are so sophisticated, subtly sophisticated, beautiful and simple. So yeah, we have favorites, and we just go back to them over and over again. The joy of bookselling, I’d say, is that – it’s sort of introducing people to stuff they don’t know. And then them coming back and going, Oh, my God, that book you recommended that just, I can’t believe it. It was so great, or –
Alex
I think every time I’ve been in there the last few times, I’ve found a book that I either didn’t know I was looking for or that I had been looking for, and I found there. So it has been a very good experience.
Matt
Yeah, that’s great. I love the surprise. That’s my dream, actually – people like that, like your experience – will come in and see something and go, oh my God what’s that? And then it’s the most, it’s just what they needed – yeah. They didn’t realise.
Alex
How did I not know there was a new Anna Clark book? was my last experience a couple of months ago. And I was just like, I just – this is mine now. Thank you very much. To go back to what you said at the start, the logo for your shop, I think it’s extraordinary. Can you describe it? And how did you come to it?
Matt
That’s Jane really. I mean, it took a lot – it took a long time, we looked at lots of different ideas. We wanted to do something nautical. Because we’re right on the water. We wanted to do something maybe that’s a bit old fashioned. And then we love bookplates you know, ex libris book plates and things like that. So we looked at a lot of stuff like that. And then Jane found that one – that’s adapted from a book plate, from an old book plate, an ex libris – I guess it was a stamp, might have been a card actually. But that design of the mermaid, yeah, it’s a mermaid reading a book. So we just sort of adapted this old, antique kind of book plate. And this mermaid. And so Jane just worked with our designer toing and froing and little adjustments and things like that. But from the concept – I think it’s pretty close to the concept, to the original. Just a few little tweaks and things to make it ours I guess, but we love our little mermaid; seems to be fit. Yeah, she fits the shop and we made a stamp as you would know, probably; we made a stamp. So we stamp our customers’ books if they want a stamp in there. And she’s playful. I like that the bookshop, you know, we have lots of – we like chunky serious books, but there’s always a sense of humour – we hope – there’s a lightness to it, a cheekiness and I don’t think books or bookshops should be too serious. You know, we’re talking about ideas, and we love ideas, and we love writing and – but it’s fun too, it’s fun for us anyway. So I like the idea that the mermaid is – there’s a lightness to her. There’s a sort of cheekiness too.
Alex
It’s a relatively small space, your bookshop. But do you have a part of it that is a particular favourite for you or a particular aspect, that’s a favorite part?
Matt
I like the chair, there’s a chair in the back left corner that sits next to the fiction section. And you can see the whole shop from there. That’s a pretty nice – I find myself there at the end of the day, sometimes, just have closed up, and I’m putting books away, and I might sit there and just read something for a second. I love the classics corner. And there’s a little, we’ve got little books down there and sort of – I love seeing young people come in – you know, young people just make a beeline for that corner; it happens all the time. They just walk straight there, they know what’s there. And you see them with the spinner, and they’re just looking at, and they’re pulling out Austen, and they’re pulling out Hemingway, and they’re pulling out Green, and they’re just like, they’re hungry for information. So I love that part of the shop. And I love seeing people in it. Yeah. But I love the kids’ part too, the kids’ section’s so great – see the little people my daughter’s age, just pull up the stool and just sit in the sort of fiction, the kids’ fiction section and just start pouring through it. It’s great. You’re right, that it’s a small shop. So there’s not many areas, really, it’s just that one area.
Alex
You pack a lot into a small space.
Matt
Yeah there’s a lot of books in there.
Alex
In the three years that you’ve been running it or so, have there been things that have particularly surprised you?
Matt
I think initially, I think – I’ve existed, I’ve lived in my own world quite a lot. I’ll expand on that. But I’m a musician, and the music that I really like, no one really likes it that much. Except for me. And maybe 20 other people. It’s really – I feel like I’ve lived in a really niche world, right? Where the things that I like, the movies, I like the music I like etc, no one really likes it or cares for it, which is fine. You know, you kind of get used to that. And I felt that I was – with the, with books and a bookshop, I kind of felt that it would be like that, that no one – I will like it. And Jane will like it, but no one else will really care that much. And I was shocked in that first few months how much people love bookshops. Like, honestly, I know that sounds kind of silly of something. We’ll try it but but I was shocked. I was really pleasantly surprised. I was like, Finally I’m doing something where other people actually like it as well. I’m not just on my own. I was really surprised. People are passionate about bookshops – book people. Not everyone, let’s be serious. It’s still a minority. But I was just so pleasantly surprised at how much people love book shops and love that bookshop even, you know, before we took it over -it was just, there was a lot of people in the early days who were just so grateful that someone bought it, actually, that it kept going. They were really worried it was going to close down. And so yeah, I was surprised by that. And then that – coming back to what I said before – I was, I’ve been surprised at how much people wanted to step into the edgier stuff I guess – well not, it’s not edgy, I don’t mean to say edgy, but just like the more unknown books and they’re sort of maybe kind of strangeer books or just the unheard of authors? How willing to try they are – they were and are. That’s been really heartwarming. I think they’re the two things, it has been just such a pleasant surprise.
Alex
Your first point about your surprise in terms of people actually loving bookshops: you said earlier as well about how important it was that the bookshop was just started in the first place, 10 or so years ago. Queenscliff as a town is relatively small, gets enormous over summer with a lot of tourists, obviously. Why do you think book shops are important? Like why is it important for a place like Queenscliff for that bookshop to be there and to continue?
Matt
I mean, it’s – I think it’s kind of simple, really, I think what we’re talking about are ideas and we’re talking about art, creativity. And a bookshop just automatically becomes a house for those things, or representative of those things in a town, in a place. So at its best, I think a bookshop can be like a cultural centre where people can come and they can engage with art. And they can engage with fiction and poetry, and illustration, and ideas. They can do it on their own terms, they can come in and they can engage with these books, they can also be in a space with other people that are interested in the same thing. When you walk into a bookshop, you’re surrounded by people that are like you just straight away, you know, which – I don’t know about you, but I don’t know that we get a lot of that in our life. You know, you go to school. There’s all these kids at school, if you’re lucky, you find a few of your own people. You know, if you’re really lucky, someone in your family is your people, but not always. And then you go through life. And you know, you, if you’re lucky, you will find your people. But it’s rare that you’re all together. But you walk into a bookshop, if you’re a book person, you are surrounded by people. And some of them might have some pretty different ideas about what books can be, or what’s great. But ostensibly, you’re really similar. So I think a bookshop in a town can create this sort of cultural centre where people can come together and even just by being in the space together, is a sense that there’s a sense of communion, I think. So yeah – and I just, it does, and of course, it flows out, like it creates, it’s aspirational. It’s like that thing of you can’t see it, can’t be it. But you see kids come in the shop, and they’re like, here’s a book that this young lady wrote, and she’s just signed it for you. And maybe I could do that. And, of course you could, and we’ll put it in the shop – and it creates this avenue, creates this – it expands out and expands out into other art forms. You have artists coming in to engage with the books, musicians, poets, of course. But the visual artists and you know, other creative people engaging with books as the centre, and I think they’re – at their best, they just, they can be, they can save places, they can really make a town or make an area, they’re cultural institutions. And I think – I mean, I’m biased, of course, because I own a bookshop – but I do think that people, everyday people, how can I say this without without sounding desperate? By choosing to buy your books from a bookshop, like an independent bookshop, you’re investing in Australian culture. You choose to buy from Booktopia or Book Depository, Amazon, then you’re not. I really noticed this in the start of the pandemic, when we – we locked down really quickly; we actually shut before we had to, because we have an elderly population. We were really worried about them. I know from just the way customers reacted, that the customers in our town were sort of deciding: at the end of this, do we want this bookshop in our town? And if the answer is yes, then we better buy some books. And we were just overwhelmed by the support. And that’s the thing: if you want culture in your life, then you have to buy your books from book shops and go in there and engage with them. The flow on is just – it’s incredible, what it does for writers, what it does for families like ours. It really makes a huge difference.
Alex
You still sound very enthused, almost evangelistic for the book shop. Has that developed over the last three years? Were you at this same level of commitment when you bought the bookshop, do you think?
Matt
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it’s different, slightly different because at the start, you just want to make it work and we were very green. I’d worked in bookshops before. So I knew kind of what I was getting myself into, but I didn’t quite – so I had a little bit of experience but not – yeah, I learned a lot in those first few months. So at the start it was just a lot of energy of just desperation to learn the business and figure out how to do it. And then you’ve got the pandemic and so the energy shifted to how do we keep the lights on and not go under. So there was a lot of energy, there was a lot of motivation, back to the wall kind of stuff. And then, you know, as things have opened up, and we’re now sort of, I guess, in some other stage of this pandemic – I love books more than ever, I guess. And I’m encouraged – I guess we’re through that part where I’m not worried about the bookshop going under. And I know, we know enough about how to run it so now it’s just, it’s kind of the question now is what do we want this to be? Or what do we think this place is? And so now, it’s like the Act Three, and it’s like, oh, okay, now there’s fun. This is the fun part. Now we can play with it. And we can get more adventurous with our stock. And we want to do some new shelves actually; finish the sort of built ins all the way around on the other side with the kids’ section. So there’s physical stuff to do, we’re getting a new table, we’re getting into events – like events are gonna start again, which we haven’t really had the opportunity to do because of the pandemic. We’ve got our first sort of big event at the end of the month. So yeah, I’m excited about what it might be. Still. Think they’re great things, books and bookshop.
Alex
Matt, I’ve got two final questions for you. The first is what are you currently reading?
Matt
I’m reading Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait. She wrote Hamnet, historical fiction. I haven’t read her before. But I – it’s the kind of, seems like, well, the Hamnet was a really big book in the shop. A lot of customers really liked it. And I thought this one will probably be similar. It’s just come out, actually. So I’m sort of racing to try and – not racing, but I’m reading, trying to read it quite quickly, so I can get up to speed because it’s on the shelf. And I usually have, I’m usually reading three or four books at once. But this is the first time in a while I’m like nup, I’m just gonna read this. And I’m enjoying it, actually, I’m enjoying being chained to one book.
Alex
It’s quite a commitment to only have one on the go.
Matt
What about you?
Alex
I’m reading a very old collection of feminist science fiction stories by an author called Pamela Zoline, who only wrote about five or six short stories in her life, one of which is collected in like every single feminist science fiction anthology. It’s called The Heat Death of the Universe. And I didn’t know she wrote any other stories. And then I found this collection. And I was like, I love The Heat Death of the Universe. So I should read everything else she’s written, which is unfortunately not hard. I’m a science fiction reader. So I understand the niche.
Matt
Yeah, it’s been one thing about the shop – and this is one reason I’m reading this book now – is I’ve found myself over the last few years reading stuff that I’m really interested in but that – this comes back to what I was saying before – that almost no one else cares about. So I’m just trying to read things that are – just have a bit more of a, I’d say a broader appeal. Rather than being such a niche, just a total niche idiot. I’m trying to – just trying to spread my wings a bit. So it’s nice to be reading. Have you read The Wall?
Alex
No.
Matt
I read that last year. That’s – I’ve never read science fiction. I never had any interest. But last year, I picked up The Wall. John Lancaster.
Alex
Oh, okay.
Matt
I think that’s right. It’s published by Faber. And I thought, Oh, that’s interesting. Science fiction published by Faber. And so I just started reading it in the shop and I could not put it down.
Alex
Cool.
Matt
Fantastic. It’s a it’s kind of a thriller. It’s slightly dystopian – it’s like set just in the future, where all the rich countries are sort of, have walled themselves off from the others. And this takes place in Britain. So Britain’s got a wall around it. And every citizen has to do two years on the wall, conscription. And it’s narrated by a guy starting his two years to protect the country from the others who are trying to get over the wall and into the country. It’s fantastic – gripping. You’d love it, if you like science fiction.
Alex
I’ll look into it. Awesome. Thank you. My final question for you is basically what would you like people to know – what would you like listeners to know about The Bookshop at Queenscliff?
Matt
Well, I think … what do I want them to know, I think it’s a really cute, small, cozy bookshop with a deceivingly broad and interesting range. And hopefully, it’s just a really nice place to come in. Like the energy in the room in the shop is really big for us – that it’s really just a gentle, beautiful, welcoming, warm place. So we spent a lot of time thinking about that. Not drilling it into staff, but kind of – that it’s just got to be just such a chilled and gentle place to be. So yeah, it’s a really loved little shop with hopefully books that you’ll just won’t see anywhere else.
Katharine
Hi, I’m Katharine and my favourite bookshop is The Bookshop Darwin. It was once an Angus and Robertson but survived; that they have a chalkboard sign outside with a new pun or thought on it daily. And they always have very good April Fool’s posts, such as “They will now be open for 15 minutes at midnight for readers who need the next book in the series right now”. If you shop there too often, they’ll give you a discount. And they recommend books with “Oh I actually thought of you when this came in”. That’s mainly Ashley, who also greets me by name. They do book launches, they win book themed trivia nights, and overall, they’re just my favourite bookshop.
Alex
Thanks for listening to this seventh episode. If you enjoyed it, consider leaving a rating or a review, or just tell someone else about it! You can find paper defiance on Twitter as paperdefiancepod. On Instagram, as paperdefiance. And on Facebook, it is Paper Defiance Podcast.
This podcast is created and produced by me, Alexandra Pierce. The music is called Loopster, by Kevin MacLeod; you can find the attribution at paperdefiance.com.
Music: “Loopster” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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