02/10/2026
Open Letter To Our Much Loved Customers and Friends for the Past Eight Years and Two Months:
That's right. It's been eight years and almost two months since we opened on December 15, 2017. It's been quite the ride. Snowpocalypse winter events and a heat dome in summer, a global pandemic . . . remember that time? That's what keeps going through my head this week. Remember that time?
Remember that time when local customers were picking up their orders outside the front door in a planter box shielded by a huge blue and yellow IKEA umbrella? Were you there when the umbrella was caught by the wind and blown up onto the highway and made it all the way down to Big River Grill before I caught it?
Remember that time when Ronit Plank - Writer & Editor came to read from her memoir about being a kid when her mom went to join the Bagwan? We had about ten people in the chairs in the first location, and we were squeezed in there and everyone had a really great time with the conversation after the reading. Remember the huge crowd in the big location when we first moved in and our own local author Stephen Proctor came with Wild Wonder right after we'd moved into the space? Remember moving into the space?
That's the photo I have saved on the front counter's computer desktop -- the moving day photo. (zoom in to see the people) This is what it means to do business in Stevenson. It was a hot day at the end of August, and friends and a few faithful family members spent the day passing the entire contents of the sales floor, hand over hand, from one location to the other. It took us one and a half hours to move all the books. That was a good day.
We've had a lot of good days over the last eight years, and we're ready now to pass our brave little bookstore to the next owners.
PLAN A: spend this last week of our ownership running specials and having fun.
PLAN REALITY: open during the hours it's possible to be open. Post those hours in the door, and hope they work out. UGH!! It's pretty poor payback for these years of friendship with our people. We wish it were different.
As most of you know, my husband's Parkinson's crashed through all our support systems and workarounds early in the fall, and we were unable to be open throughout the entire fourth quarter of 2025 (although our intrepid employees managed to open for a week before Christmas, and you came! We are so amazed at you!) In the end, my retirement isn't quite the victory lap I'd imagined it to be, but I'm more than ready.
And in news that humbles me with gratitude, I can announce that LOCAL FOLKS ARE BUYING THE BOOKSTORE!
Our last day will be Saturday, February 14, and Megan and Jackson Vanderpool will reopen in March with the combined businesses of Riverside Resale and North Bank Books. They'll be posting more details as they go, of course. But for my part, the end of this chapter of my life feels like closing a book I've really loved. And now maybe I can get a couple of books written myself. If I manage it, you'll know. I'll be in the bookstore to do the first public reading.
With so much affection,
Stephanie
P.S. Tell your bookstore stories in the comments, and I'll pick a winner and leave a gift card for you at the front counter for you to use in the newest edition of North Bank Books when the next chapter begins.
Stevenson Downtown Association - A Main Street Organization Archer Mountain Acres Hotel Stevenson Gotta Hava Java Bloomsbury of Kanaka Creek Farm Traverse PNW Market Skamania County Chamber of Commerce
