about the owner

---

I feel like I've always known what I wanted to do-- share the excitement and empowerment of the written word with other people-- but, until the past five years, I haven't known exactly how that should manifest. I worked at a local bookstore for eight years and managed it for over half of those, teaching myself about the business along the way. I thought, maybe, I wanted to be an English professor-- so, while getting my MA at WIU, I co-taught a class on American Horror Literature, led a  workshop on poetry and creative writing centered around the history of Moline's Riverside Cemetery, and helped other students compose their papers in the writing center while finishing my thesis. I then turned to library work, which I love and still do!

But, nothing I do is conventional. I made an oddball academic, am not a certified librarian, and, some would argue, I'm not even a real bookseller (I guess it's the super glamorous and not sweaty at all transient lifestyle of TML that has some all riled up). 

So, that's where The Macabre Librarian came from. The benefit is that if you don't fit inside a box, you might be able to bring something unique to the table. 

I hope there are people out there who connect with what we're trying to do and find some encouragement in this nontraditional bookstore format. Read what you want. Cut your books up and wear them as a hat. You are weird and because of that, you are free.