BTW News Briefs

Bookseller Roxanne Coady Featured in Fast Company

Independent bookstore owner Roxanne Coady of R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Connecticut, was recently featured in the September issue of Fast Company Magazine, a national publication aimed at business executives.

In the introduction to the article,"Chapter Two," written by Chuck Salter, Coady is described as "a [former] high-powered accounting executive [who turned] her back on the profession to open a small-town bookstore. Defying the odds and retailing trends, Roxanne Coady has made R.J. Julia Booksellers one of the biggest independents in the country."

The article is available on the Fast Company Web site at http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/74/coady.html.

Louise Glück Next U.S. Poet Laureate

On August 28, the Library of Congress announced that Louise Glück, former Vermont state poet and winner of a Pulitzer Prize, will be the next Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. Glück will assume her duties in the fall, opening the Library's annual literary series on Tuesday, October 21 with a reading of her work. In addition to programming a new reading series, Glück will participate in events in February and in May 2004 at the Library of Congress. She succeeds Billy Collins who served as the Library's Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2001-2003.

Glück was born in New York and studied at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College, and earned a law degree from Williams College. She currently teaches at Williams College.

New Survey Reveals Changing Shopping Habits in Women

As was reported by the Associated Press, a new survey, "Retail Rituals: Women's Changing Attitudes Toward Shopping," which was conducted for frank about women, a North Carolina consulting firm, by researchers at St. Louis University and Louisiana State University, revealed that nearly two out of three women have markedly altered the way they shop over the last two years. Many women no longer consider shopping as pleasurable and will not buy unless they receive deep discounts.

The online survey, conducted in June with a total of 753 respondents, had a margin of error of plus or minus three percent. It was conducted for frank about women's clients, which include TJ Maxx, Oxygen, Eddie Bauer, Stop & Shop, and General Motors.