Fact & Fiction: An Integral Part of Life in Missoula

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Since 1986, Fact & Fiction in Missoula, Montana, and its owner, Barbara Theroux, have been fixtures in the city's cultural and literary life.

Theroux, who came to Missoula by way of Pennsylvania, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, trained as a school librarian, joined the U.S. Forest Service, and started her bookselling career at university bookstores in Pullman, Washington, and then in Missoula, at the University of Montana.

The popular general bookstore, originally located on Missoula's Main Street, relocated in 1998 to North Higgins Street, with help from customers and friends of the store. "Main Street in Missoula is not the main shopping street," explained Theroux. "Our current location is a main drag with lots of coffee shops, galleries, clothing and shoe stores -- a great retail mix."

Both locations were 1,700 square feet, but the current store, in the 1875 Bluebird Building, offers a long, narrow configuration. "It has lower ceilings and makes the place cozier," Theroux said, comparing it to the former location's large rectangular shape and very high ceilings. The owner and other occupant of the Bluebird Building, originally a vaudeville theater, is an architectural firm, "which has distinct advantages," said Theroux.

The firm recently added a conference room that adjoins the store through movable, wooden walls. Theroux explained that elegant space is also used for bookstore events, including signings and workshops, as well as a rehearsal space for a recorder ensemble.

A former ABA Board member and teacher at the association's Booksellers Schools, Theroux has been involved in a variety of book-related activities throughout her career, including the Montana Book Award and The Montana Festival of the Book. She has received numerous awards, including a cultural achievement award from the Missoula Cultural Council, the 2006 Volunteer of the Year Award for her role as president of the Friends of the Missoula Public Library, and the Charles S. Haslam Award for Excellence in Bookselling.

Fact & Fiction has focused increasingly on Montana history and Montana writers, because, Theroux explained, "[The store] gets so many requests. We now designate books with a sign on the shelf if they're written by someone who currently lives in the state." The store averages about six events a month, she added, "and that includes everything from local, self-published authors to our Harry Potter party."

Theroux noted, "BookSense.com and the Book Sense Gift Card Program have allowed us to do these things well in a somewhat inexpensive way. Being a former [ABA] Board member, I trust that ABA will design something good for booksellers. The more members that participate [in these programs] the stronger they become.

"Publishers are catching on to what the independent stores have always done -- calling attention to books in unique ways, grabbing the reader, and knowing how to match books with readers."

Theroux also talked about a new landscape of bookselling that includes the mixed media of social networking sites, web casts, cable television, and interactive author sites. She told BTW that the youngest member of the store's small staff designed a Fact & Fiction MySpace page, myspace.com/missoulabookstore.

In 2001, author Claire Davis, a former Fact & Fiction employee, paid tribute to Barbara Theroux and the store in her acceptance speech for her Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award for Winter Range (Picador). Davis, who enthusiastically credited both the store and Theroux for her success as a writer, concluded: "It's the independent booksellers who invariably get real literature out into the public eye... I've been privileged to be so immersed in that thing I have been passionate about all my life -- reading and writing -- and granted the opportunity to see literature from its many varied angles. But truthfully speaking, one of the brightest, most satisfying, was in that small town bookstore in Missoula, Montana." --Nomi Schwartz