Guns and Books a Winning Combination for Wyoming Bookstore

By Jenny Shank, 3-11-08

	Caption: Wheatland Book Nook, photo courtesy of WheatlandMercantile.net.

As the folks over at the Wyoming Arts blog recently noted, a few weeks ago Publisher’s Weekly featured Torrie Rice’s Wheatland Mercantile Book Nook in Claire Kirch’s article, ”Wild West Bookseller.” Kirch writes:

“According to Rice—a self-professed ‘bookaholic’—Wheatland, a primarily agricultural community adjacent to a desolate stretch of I-25, halfway between Cheyenne and Casper, had always lacked a bookstore. The local library ‘didn’t have much,’ either, for the town’s 3,500 residents.”

So in 2003, Rice started a bookstore, but that’s not all she sells:

“This being Wyoming, where a Wild West mentality still thrives, Rice sells the 4,000 titles in her inventory alongside products made and sold by her husband, Jef Rice: custom-built handguns and rifles.

‘Sometimes, men come in for the guns and their wives come in for books; other times, women come in for the guns and their husbands for books,’ Rice says of her diverse clientele.”

Now we’ll head south from Wyoming on I-25 to Denver, where the venerable Chicano community theater El Centro Su Teatro has a number of events scheduled for the spring, including its Spring Reading Series.  The series will conclude on March 16, with El Centro’s actors reading from “new plays over a cup of coffee” (2 p.m.).  Next month, El Centro will host its 9th Annual Neruda Poetry Festival (April 17-19), guaranteed to feature “the hottest Barrio Slam.”

Authors across the region are encouraged to throw their hats in the ring for the annual High Plains Book Award, sponsored by the Parmly Billings Library, to honor “literary works which examine and reflect life on the High Plains.” Nominations are due by April 1.

Finally, the Boulder Book Store is hosting its 2nd Annual ”Boulder Book Store Talks to Book Clubs” event on Tuesday, March 18 at 7 p.m.  They will be recommending books that will prompt good discussions, talking about people’s book club experiences, and giving away prizes.  To complete the book club atmosphere, cheese and wine will be served.

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