When Hilary Lowe ’07 noticed neighborhood bookstores closing in her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, she vowed to return to her roots and open an independent bookstore.
This year, she did just that.
In April, Lowe and her husband, Mike Gustafson, opened a two-story location aptly named the Literati Bookstore. The 2,600-square-foot general shop offers a broad range of literary fiction, poetry, and social sciences.
“‘Literati’ is a name my father suggested,” says Lows. “In Latin, it means roughly well-educated people interested in literature. Ann Arbor is a college town whose residents are engaged in the world around them. Ann Arborites love to read.”
A few years ago, the downtown area witnessed the demise of many bookstores as they shut their doors for good. When Michigan-based national bookstore chain Borders closed for business, it shuttered four Ann Arbor locations, adding to the decline of brick and mortar retailers.
Living in New York and working for Simon & Schuster at the time, Lowe thought about moving back home to buck the trend. She met with the owner of a local independent bookstore in Brooklyn – Greenlight Bookstore – to learn as much as she could about the business, and used her position to network with more than 60 independent stores throughout the country and spark her interest.
“After the first day, spending time on the bookstore floor connecting readers to books, I was hooked,” Lowe says. “At that point, I began researching. Then, I created a business plan.”
She saw the fruition of her hard work this spring when she opened her store to much fanfare. Her years at Scripps College prepared her for this new challenge.
“Scripps creates thinkers,” Lowe says. “My Scripps experience directly translates to our philosophy at Literati. We don’t just aim to sell books. We aim to bring fresh ideas and new voices to the community that downtown visitors wouldn’t otherwise find.”