Writing from the Heart, Reading for the Road

A Wonderful Story Unfolding, and You Can Be Part of It!

July 5, 2024 at 5:50 pm 4 comments

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This is such a wonderful story. I’m going to tell you just part of it.

Penelope Fletcher is this wonderful, heroic, quintessential indie bookseller who started her bookstore–the Red Wheelbarrow–in Paris, on the Right Bank, in 2001. This was a much beloved bookstore among all serious readers and writers of books in the English language in Paris.

Then, for a variety of reasons, Penelope was obliged to close the shop, and return to Canada for a few years. Everyone missed her, and the Red Wheelbarrow.

But she came back in 2018 and reopened her store, this time on the Left Bank, right across the street from the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens. This made everyone so happy again!

At first she had just a tiny little store, right next door to a bookstore selling books catering to the far-right. It was funny kind of location for this liberal Canadian to find herself in.

But then another, somewhat bigger bookstore space opened on the other side of the far-right bookstore. And so the Red Wheelbarrow opened another part of the shop there. Now the Red Wheelbarrow had two parts, one on either side of the far-right bookstore. (The Red Ballon is the children’s section, and the Red Wheelbarrow is for adult books.)

Recently, for whatever reason (maybe the far-right bookstore felt surrounded, literally sandwiched between all those book-buying liberals?) Or maybe they just weren’t selling enough books. In any case, the far-right bookstore moved out, leaving a nice big space into which Penelope can now expand the Red Wheelbarrow and bring it all together.

So. She now has the keys to the new shop, and the signs have been painted over. All the store needs now is for the worldwide book-loving community that has for years benefitted from the warm accueil found at the Red Wheelbarrow, and the wonderful support for readers and writers, to step up and help them fill that space and open those doors.

If you can be one of those people, please consider donating: every little bit helps! Here’s the link! https://www.gofundme.com/f/adieu-farright-bookstore-hello-red-wheelbarrow

And if you can’t donate, just be sure to visit the store and buy some books there the next time you’re in Paris. Then stroll across the street and read your books in the lovely Luxembourg Gardens. It’s an absolute must!

Janet Hulstrand is an American writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France; and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.

Entry filed under: About Paris. Tags: Anglophone, books, bookshops, bookstores, indie booksellers, indies, Paris, The Red Wheelbarrow.