Independent Bookstore Day at Bound to Happen Books

Bound to Happen Books celebrated their one-year anniversary of opening to the public when they commemorated Independent Bookstore Day on April 30.

Independent Bookstore Day featured activity booths, a story time, giveaways, a pop-up booth featuring the Cornerstone Press, UWSP’s publishing house, and an evening wine tasting. 

Bound to Happen Books was founded in April 2021 by Nicole Menzel, Lyn Ciurro and Rachel Ziolkowski. 

Menzel is the book buyer for Bound to Happen Books, curating the selection of books that make their way to the bookstore’s shelves. 

Menzel listened to a need expressed by community members for more diverse literary choices, and she has responded by curating books that showcase a wide range of experiences, including those written by Black, Indigenous, people of color and LGBTQ authorship. 

Bound to Happen Books thrives on the connections made within the community.

By sharing a space with Process, a low waste shop downtown, Bound to Happen Books was able to establish themselves and build their initial clientele.

One year later, Bound to Happen Books explores outreach through the local public school system, helping teachers curate book lists for classrooms, hosting poetry nights and establishing pop-up events with local businesses. 

The business connections Bound to Happen Books has made are mostly local, including central-Wisconsin-based authors, UWSP professors, and smaller publishing houses, but their partnerships are only expanding.

Bound to Happen Books recently landed a distribution deal with the “big five” publishing houses: Penguin Random House, Scholastic, HarperCollins, Macmillan Publishers, and Hachette Livre. 

“Things always fall into place and we’re like, ‘it was bound to happen,’ and that’s where the name came from,” Menzel said.

Cornerstone Press, UWSP’s publishing house and teaching press, celebrated Independent Bookstore Day alongside Bound to Happen Books by showcasing newly released titles at the event. 

Ross Tangedal is an Assistant Professor of English at UWSP and became Director of Cornerstone Press in the fall of 2016. 

Cornerstone Press has flourished under Tangedal’s leadership. The publishing house printed 12 books in 2021 and went on to release 16 titles in 2022.

In January, Cornerstone Press signed a distribution deal with Ingram Book Company, the largest wholesale book distributor in the world, allowing titles published by the press to be circulated around the globe. 

Cornerstone Press continues to prioritize stimulating the Stevens Point economy at every step possible in production and distribution. 

“We just recently shifted our model to have all of our books printed on campus with Point Print and Design Studio,” Tangedal said.

This is Tangedal’s first experience working in the publishing world after ten years of study in theory related to literary industry and publishing, but he is grateful that this program allows students to have an opportunity he didn’t have in college. 

“We’re allowed to be a year-round business, and so we’re giving students that actual experience,” Tangedal said.