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Politics & Prose Bookstore Owners to Retire
One of America's best independent bookstore and a Washington, D.C. icon is facing a big challenge, as its owners contemplate retirement.Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, both aged 74 and recipients of this magazine's Outstanding Women of Independent Publishing Award, are ready to "stop and let somebody else take over for the future," Meade told the Washington Post. "I just don't have the energy like I used to." Cohen added in the interview, and she is reportedly seriously ill.
The store is said to be in good financial shape, but pevious attempts to find successors have failed, and Meade and Cohen have much concern about their 60 employees.
After receiving our Outstanding Women of Independent Publishing Award in 2006, Barbara Meade described the store's secret to success: “Women are important to the world of publishing because men, more than women, put their primary emphasis on the money, making it, divvying it up. I think women are more gifted at long-term thinking in which the financial returns may be smaller but the impact of the store in the community is much greater. The rewards are monetarily less but the continuing presence and accumulating readership of the store make for a different but important kind a contribution.”
Here is the letter posted on their website:
"To our friends and loyal customers:
Today's press carries the news that Barbara and Carla are planning to retire after 26 years of growing an initially small store into a space five times larger in square footage, and over 20 times larger in sales. We want to reaffirm that Politics & Prose is still thriving, ending the fiscal year with record sales; but we are looking to a successor from a younger generation to take our flourishing business in some new directions while assuring that Politics & Prose maintains its core commitments to excellence in literature and community involvement.
Although we are contemplating retirement, we anticipate maintaining a regular presence during the transition, and hopefully afterward. Our goal is to find new leadership to operate the business in the spirit which has been our hallmark. As always, we'll see you at the store!"