Could you give us a little bit of background about you and the bookshop?
I’m Martyna Dearing - I’m 27 years old, I am a Polish immigrant, [and] I currently live in Virginia, United States. It’s a long story [of] how I got there, but at this moment, I own an independent bookstore in Warrenton, Virginia, which is this very small town – very random for a Polish person to end up in!
I am a writer as well. I just re-published my first book, and I am about to publish (in a little bit less than a month) my book of poems – my first book of poems. And I’m working on some other things - I also write online for Vocal Media, and I just have a bunch of different projects. And now, here, I’m starting my journey with podcasts!
Brilliant, awesome. So, first question is – what were your motivations for setting up the bookshop?
See, it feels like there were so many that it just felt insane not to. You know, every single time someone comes to the store, and I say, "oh this is why I opened the bookstore…" but there are so many “whys”. I think from the very beginning, since I was a teenager, I said, “Oh, I’ll just go to Canada in a little town, and I’ll open a bookstore and a little café”. I love collecting mugs, so I had this idea of travelling around the world and bringing mugs from all over the world and have a coffee shop with mugs. So I always had that idea of creating my own creative space.
While I was willing to accept not being creative because that’s what I thought grown-ups do, I could not accept not being able to grieve.
But then recently, I came back to writing and I came back to performing. I started performing on a stage, I started doing slam poetry; and all of this creativity [was] coming back to my life after years of not doing anything about my art. It just seemed like the corporate environment that I was in - the responding to emails from 9 to 5 – was just really restrictive to me. I felt like I had so much in me to put out in the world – the stories, the passion, the willingness to help other people share their stories – anything that is remotely creative, I wanted to share that with people. Even the space that I designed within the store – it wasn’t just about the mission of the bookstore, but how you come in and you feel the bookstore vibe, and you have the wine and everything. I had all these ideas buzzing in my head and I just wanted to put them in life.
And then the most important thing I think what tipped me over the edge – because I always had that creativity in me, but I never had the guts to do it – when my husband died in 2022, I just realised that not only my job was restricting me from being creative, but it was restricting me from grieving. And while I was willing to accept not being creative because that’s what I thought grown-ups do, I could not accept not being able to grieve. At this minute I wouldn’t say that it is - but at that time, when that happened - grieving was all what I had. I could not prioritise my work over it - and I felt like my job required me to do that. I was not willing to do that, so I decided to quit my job and create a space where I was free to create, to grieve, and to put everything in me. The store is how if I just poured my soul into a space – that’s the store.
And you can tell that. I’ve been to the store, and it is – it’s so you, and it’s welcoming and cosy. It’s somewhere you just want to hang out and be, which is illustrated by all the people that come in and just sit on the sofa and hang out. You know, the teenagers that you had coming in and just doing homework and like…that demonstrates what the space is because you’ve got all these people coming in and doing creative things like your open mics, and your writers’ group. You’ve also got people of all ages coming in, discovering a new space for them, and a love of books and reading and creativity. I think it’s so true to what you envisioned, or wanted to do. At least when I go in, I’m like, ‘yes, I know exactly what this is.’
I feel so privileged that it really translated into the space and people see it that way.
Because I did not want to just open a bookstore to sell books. I love books, but that’s not… [it wasn’t] just one passion where I only want to sell books to people. And I think it’s amazing that that was the response from people – that they saw it in the bookstore and in me, and they keep coming. We created a community and it’s amazing that it’s a bookstore, but it is a community. I mean, we’ve been open for…is it today?! It’s [the] 17th, right? It’s two months! Drew’s Bookstore, happy two months! It’s been two months and it already feels like a community so I’m really looking forward to see how it goes within a year – it’s going to be, I think, absolutely amazing.
Yeah, you’re going to evolve even more, it’s amazing. And I know that part of your USP is you being a self-published author, and promoting self-published authors and indie authors - particularly in the context of them not being able to get that visibility in other and bigger bookstores and chain bookstores, for example. Can you tell me a bit more about your self-publishing journey, and the experiences that followed?
Wow, so the first time I published a book, it was March 2020. I had no experience in publishing my work…in publishing a book! I had no experience of publishing online, not to say a whole book! I had no experience in editing. I just had so many big emotions at that time – I was going through so many changes as an immigrant in [the] United States. I just had to have a space to vent, and that’s what I did. And it is raw - it’s very rough around the edges. But it kind of just flew out of me. It’s so funny because this is not the order people go in, but this book was my first step in writing. You know, people would start with essays, articles, or something – no, I started with a book and then I moved onto essays and stories posted online on Vocal Media, a platform for writers where I’ve just started getting noticed. But I started with a book! And it was very poorly edited.
Everyone is so ready to “help” self-published authors as long as they pay them.
The worst part was that I did pay around $1000 or a little bit more to a self-publishing company that I thought were helping me, but honestly now I know that you can do all of it on your own if you just spend a little bit more time on it. I had no idea at that time. I was kind of in a rush – at the same time, I didn’t think I would ever be able to do it on my own. That was my thought when I was trying to publish a book. Like, how would I ever publish a book with[out] anybody’s help, right? So I paid them a little bit over one thousand dollars. I had big hopes, and those hopes got crushed very quickly [once] I understood that self-published books were not even ordered to be on bookshelves.
I went to Barnes & Noble, and they were local to me, I lived there; I asked if they could put [my book] on their bookshelves, and they said no because it’s ‘on demand’ or something like that. I’m not sure exactly how they [publishing company] did it, but I think what they did was publishing probably through Amazon, and my book was just not available to order whenever the bookstores wanted.
What I didn’t know before is that a self-published author can use different platforms, and if they use Amazon[’s] platform - which tends to be, in reviews, one of the best platforms for self-published authors – what they don’t understand is that no bookstore will ever stock their book on their bookshelf if they self-published with Amazon only. So your book can be available on Amazon, but it will never be in a bookstore if you published with Amazon, which a lot of authors don’t know.
That’s sort of the dream for authors really in a way - to have their physical book on the shelves in a store.
Yes, yes – exactly! I mean it’s nice to have it online, but I think us writers [and] self-published authors - we put so much soul and our heart into those books, so [to] not be able to see them on the bookshelves, it’s heartbreaking.
So back then, I already started having the idea of having a bookstore with self-published authors [and] indie authors on my bookshelves, but there was Covid. Covid hit literally a week after I published my book. I was in my early twenties, I was just married, we had no money. I remember trying to rent a space, and my husband and everyone was saying, “there is no way you can do it”. And I get it - I get it because we just needed to pay the bills. And there were many times when I had to tell him [Andrew] there’s no way we can do it. It’s just a part of growing up, you know. I’m still 27 and I can tell you, creating a bookstore from scratch by myself (only recently I hired an employee) - it’s not easy.
One thing that everyone [in the bookselling industry] knows about self-published authors is that they, again, don’t know better - so they try to set up a low discount. Again, bookstores won’t buy their books – because their discount is too low. In [the] publishing industry, just in general, a wholesale discount for bookstores is around 40%. Every bookstore can buy a book with a 40% discount, so they make that 40% when they sell the book, right? So it’s not quite half-half, but they pay half for the book and the other half goes for them. A lot of self-published authors tend to put the discount at 15, 20, maybe maximum 30%, because they think they want to make more money on it – which I completely get. Because believe me, I’m not making a lot of money on my books. But when I think long-term – do I want my book to make a dollar more on every single copy, or do I want more bookstores to be able to purchase this book? No bookstore will purchase a book under the 40% discount, because that’s what they do – and that’s what they stock. They stock the popular books because that’s the discount.
And of course when you’re a bookstore, you want to make money – you have to make money because you have to pay the bills, you have to pay the rent, you have to buy more inventory. And it’s really hard when you have a self-published author; you maybe want to help them, but you are not going to make money on their book. And it’s really sad but that’s true. And [it] might be me being a terrible businesswoman but I decided whatever is the discount I will still take a chance on them. When I purchase books directly from the author – I tell them I take the books for 30% discount. If I buy it from the book distributor, I just kind of accept that the discount is not as much as a I want it to be. And I just hope the book sells.
I’m not trying to make money on the self-published authors, I just try to help them to grow because I know how hard it is. So I’m kind of just accepting the risk of maybe not losing my money, but not making any money on self-published authors as a bookstore owner. Because I do believe that at the end of the day I am making a difference. I do not do consignments – I think that if I pay for Colleen Hoover books upfront, why wouldn’t I pay for this person’s book? Why do I have to wait to see if it sells? It’s not fair – no one is waiting for Colleen Hoover’s or J.K. Rowling’s or Paolo Coelho’s books to sell to pay for them.
I think it is not fair for self-published authors to be treated completely differently – we have completely different standards for self-published authors. We do not believe their work is good enough, we won’t sell their books. Then there are so many what are called ‘vanity publishers’ – [like] the one that I used – and vanity Instagram pages. Everyone is so ready to “help” self-published authors as long as they pay them.
Without actually understanding what the real challenges are for them.
Yes, exactly! Because as a self-published author, it’s almost [like] you’re losing money to get your story out there instead of getting paid for it. And we’ve spent probably hundreds of hours working on this book – on editing it, on publishing it…you don’t even know how much goes into just formatting a word document into a book to look professional. And, you know – we edited a book together* - it was hundreds of hours. And then marketing it – to ask a self-published author to pay someone just to review it, just to read it – it’s outrageous.
As a bookstore owner, we should be paying the authors – not them paying us to have their books. The only thing I do charge for [is events] – but I’m not very consistent about it, if there’s an author who really wants to have an event at my store, I will sometimes accommodate them without a fee. I tried with a $75 fee then I talked with a self-published author – I felt like it was too much, so I ended up on a $25 fee for an event. Because if someone has an event at my store, I spend a lot of money and time promoting the event, boosting Instagram posts with them and their books, which costs money as well. So I think $25 is not a big expense – especially I hope in [the] summer there will be a lot of events, a lot of crowd and everything, we have a farmer’s market and festival in our little town. So I feel like it will be really worth it to have events for $25.
There are bookstores that charge fees for consigning somebody’s book – so I pay to have my book at somebody’s bookstore. I can either pick up my book if someone doesn’t buy it, or if they buy it I get 60% of what it is. So they still take the books under a big discount and then you have to pay the fee. So I think that self-published authors get a very, very short end of the stick. I just don’t think it’s fair.
And then as a self-published author – as you said, I have two identities – I think I’m trying to bring my work ethics and just my humanity into the bookstore and show them some understanding. So many authors just reach out to me and thank me for what I’m doing. Again, there’s a community of people who come to the store and perform and just chat to me about everything. But there is also a community of people who have never been to the store because they’re from all over the country, and they’re in touch with me just because I helped them sell their books and I try to promote their books. I think that’s really cool.
I was going to ask you what the biggest challenges you think are in terms of running an independent bookstore – I mean, you covered some aspects…but what’s the one biggest challenge?
Oh, money. Money. I’m going to be honest, when I decided to open a bookstore – it’s not like I didn’t have huge savings, I had no savings. I was going insane over coming up with [a] stupid five thousand dollars for first month’s rent and deposit. I did not have a lot of money. I was lucky enough to – in the middle of it – get a little bit of insurance money for my husband’s death which put me in a good position to invest in the store and stock it up with inventory. But today, I’m basically back to having no idea how I’m going to pay rent on 1st February. It’s hard because it’s January. We all know that January is kind of dead in the retail world. No one comes because everyone spent their money for Christmas – Christmas trips, Christmas gifts.
It’s grey, and it’s miserable, and you don’t want to leave the house!
It’s disgusting outside, yes. So I know that it’s not just about this month, it’s about hopefully in [the] summer when we have the farmers’ markets and the live music and everything, it’s going to be so much better.
The town will be buzzing, I’m sure you’ll have so much footfall.
Yes, so I know that I just need to survive the next few months. But it’s definitely money, because of course, a person who would come open a bookstore with huge capital because they come from a wealthy family, they have capital from other businesses – they might have a completely different struggle. But I’m sure that bookstores are just not the most profitable – you are pouring your soul into it, and you want to help other people, you want to create community. I mentioned on Instagram I want to keep the Open Mic free – because I want to bring those teenagers that I know that for some of them $5 makes a huge difference whether they come or not. And I want to keep this space open for them. So I don’t want to charge them stupid $5 even if I know that $5 from every single person would really make a difference for me as a bookstore owner. I think that’s the challenge for me – to try to help people, try to have the community open to everyone but at the same time I am a business owner. I’m not just a bookstore owner, I’m a business owner.
It sounds like a juggling act.
Yes, and you need to figure out how you make money while creating a community accessible to everyone. Because that’s the thing – maybe it’s not even that it’s about bookstore itself, but if you want to create that community, if you want it to be welcoming to everyone, you can’t just try to make money on these people – to me. It’s just like with self-published authors, you know. And that might be the reason why I might not succeed, but I’m okay with it because I’m not willing to use people for my profit.
We have just been open for two months, and the second month is January which is unfortunate – I knew that it was going to happen, but with the lease I kind of didn’t have any other choice. I think it’s just time, creating the community, letting people know [we’re there] because we are a little bit off the street; we are in a small basement which is lovely - it’s cosy, it’s quiet but at the same time it does pose a challenge for people to actually notice and find out that I [am] there. So when people come in, they love it. But they need to know they should come in! So I think the location definitely has its own advantages and its disadvantages, and it would be easier if it was right on the street and everyone was coming in – but at the same time, I do believe that long-term it will be a really amazing location.
The great thing about bookstore[s], you don’t need a body type. You don’t need a look. You don’t need anything to read a book.
I do have other ideas how to expand the bookstore, but again, it’s money. It all comes down to money, you know. And when you are 27 and you have five pets to feed, it’s not easy. It’s not easy. Of course, if I had a husband and he was working full-time outside of it, at least he would be bringing income. Right now, I took that chance and I quit my job because I wanted to fully, fully commit to the store and to my writing.
And I know in the first two months, I would absolutely not be able to work remotely while having the bookstore. It was too crazy – Christmas time was crazy. Now I know that if I kept this job it would definitely benefit me financially. It would definitely help me. But I just can’t force myself to regret it. Because I think that if I was constantly stressed out about emails and being in the corporate world, and not fully just immersing myself in the being a bookstore owner experience and being a writer – if I kept one leg in and out, then I think the bookstore wouldn’t thrive the way it thrives. And I would be absolutely exhausted – emotionally and physically. I already am! But if I tried to keep my job for longer than I did I don’t think it would be beneficial which, right now, is hard to accept because of the money issue. I just hope that in a few months, I will be like, “Okay. It was hard for a couple of months and now it’s going to be okay”.
It will be okay! It’s all going to be good.
How do you feel about the role of social media in your business and in your industry? At the moment, it’s your only real marketing for it – so how do you feel about having to juggle that?
What I hate about social media is influencers showing us they have perfect life, perfect bodies, perfect diets – which drives me crazy – so I have that issue with social media, to making people feel like they are not good enough.
The great thing about bookstore[s], you don’t need a body type. You don’t need a look. You don’t need anything to read a book. So really the bookstore I feel like it’s the grey zone, when really social media can be so beneficial because there’s really nothing I could put out there that would be impacting negatively any kind of teenager or even a grown-up. I think it really does not have that negative impact that usually social media does. Because what do we do? We post about books, we post about open mics, we inspire people. We do not try to choose the ones that are the best looking, we promote self-published authors which is great because we do not only talk about the famous writers, we try to help Etsy sellers and small businesses, female-owned businesses. So in this particular field of bookstore, I do not see anything negative. In my business page, I do not see anything negative about social media.
I think it help me tremendously to create that community – people follow us on Instagram and then they come to the store. People who can’t come to the store get to see the authors – the self-published authors. The other day, a widow I met on a widow retreat, she placed a huge order and she ordered a bunch of self-published books too. And I think it’s nice, because she can’t come to the store, she lives in a completely different state – but at the same time, she gets to see what I’m doing and then also support self-published authors.
There is this one author – I always sell her books, I guess have that kind of community - but Sara Rian, she has published a bunch of grieving books. She is a griever, she lost her mum as far as I know, and her poetry is beautiful. I just placed another order with her because her books are selling so well. I already sold out one of her books and just keep getting orders for her books online and people pick them up. So I’m really happy that I could help her, you know. And that’s the best part, you know – I’m in touch with those authors, like I would never just text Colleen Hoover, like…
It's that connection – social media as a connection tool.
Yes, I would never text someone, like, “Oh I sold your book” but I do that with self-published authors.
Awesome. So, I want to get your thoughts on the book banning that is happening in the US. It’s something I think is more prevalent in the US; I’ve not heard of it as much here - I think there’s a danger of it spreading over here, but I haven’t heard of it as much. But in the US, it is rife.
So I actually talked about that with a couple of my customers in the store because someone came in and they were from Florida, they were visiting their family over Christmas. And they looked at my children’s section – children’s section – and they said, “Well, all these books are banned in Florida!”. And yes, I do – even in my children’s section – I have LGBTQ positive books, I have books for teenagers about finding their gender identity, saying that it’s okay to be trans, saying that it’s okay to be in love with your friend of the same sex. I try to support any kind of race, any kind of culture; I have books in Spanish, I have loads of dictionaries for kids and language books for kids in different languages because I think it’s important.
With the book bans, when I talked with someone about it, it hit me. Honestly, I think that banning a book by these crazy politicians that think they have that much power to stop someone from reading it – because they can only ban it in government places in schools, right, they can get it in libraries - and I know, I know this is harmful. I know that – I’m not trying to take that away from banning books. But…it is kind of giving them free marketing. Because everyone, as soon as they hear that the book is banned, they will go to the store and buy it. They are doing with kids and teenagers the worst thing a parent can do – forbid something. As soon as it’s forbidden - this kid might have absolutely no idea about this book, would never reach for it – but just because a Florida politician forbid it, they will go to the bookstore and pay for it. Just for the sake of it. They might not even read it! But they will give the author their money.
So I do not agree with banning books – I think that it’s incredibly harmful to ban any books from schools or any subjects. I’m huge believer that kids should not have to learn about life from TV. Because I was that kid. I was a kid from a Polish small town, and I learned anything about gender, sexuality – any subject that is slightly “inappropriate” in some grown-ups’ eyes – from Canadian and American shows. And I don’t think that was the best way to do that.
Oh really?
I mean, I think it would be so much more helpful if – and I would come much sooner to the person I am today – if I wasn’t told that it was wrong.
I see, so the TV shows that you were watching were saying that it was wrong.
Yes, kind of – they weren’t saying it was banned, but at the same time-
It was insinuating it.
Yes, and at school, there was no subject like that; we would never talk about gender identity, about sexuality, in classes. I think even if I would never say I was racist because I never had any kind of prejudice that other race was not equal to me, I made so many stupid comments.
I will never forget a conversation with a friend in London (for some reason it’s been on my mind lately). This guy was from Africa and was black, and I made a comment that being bullied as a redhead was basically just like him being black. It clearly came from my ignorance – I 100% own it today, that it was incredibly inappropriate. And it’s nothing - being bullied is nothing like growing up as African American, even Asian person, or Mexican person in United States or in other countries. Nothing like it. I was 100% wrong.
I think some people who probably didn’t have access to these books when they were younger are now making poor choices because of not being well-informed.
But this comment [was] from me being raised in a country where I had no access to that knowledge outside of TV and books. Yes, I had some kind of idea – but I was never taught anything about it at school and I think it would [have been] so much easier for me to get this knowledge and the way I am today, how tolerant and respectful I try to be to other people and understanding. I think I would be that person so much sooner, and not just a stupid teenager making stupid comments if that was taught at school. And I think that’s what happens with banned books; if they made them accessible it’s not like suddenly everyone would read them, but people would have access to that and make more appropriate choices.
Like informed choices.
Yes, and well-informed choices. It wouldn’t affect their choices – they would just make those choices well-informed-
It could affect them, but like once they’ve had enough information to make these choices.
I think today if a child is born gay-
Oh! I thought you meant like behaviour towards other people.
Just in general – behaviour towards people, yes, but also I think the biggest worry amongst like Florida or Mid-Western people in United States is that if this child reads a book about being gay or trans they will suddenly decide to be gay or trans. No! I think it must be within them to even consider it. For me, reading a book about Paulo Coelho, about being Buddhist – I’m not going to suddenly go off to monks, you know? I will just be well-informed about them and respect their culture more. And that’s all what it is.
I think some people who probably didn’t have access to these books when they were younger are now making poor choices because of not being well-informed. I really hope that kids – as I say – will use it literally in reverse, and will actually use it as a chance to reach for those books instead of not reading them at all.
That’s awesome. Okay, what or who inspires you?
I’m going to be really obnoxious right now – me.
So many people inspire me; people who come to my store every single day inspire me, my friends inspire me, my dogs inspire me. Everything…the world inspires me. But I’m also, I think, my biggest inspiration.
Because I always say, when people are being racist or people are being just stupid, making obnoxious comments and everything – there’s always this way of people try to justify, “oh they were born in a small town without access to that kind of education”. It’s so easy to make excuses for people but I was born in a small town when literally probably for the first ten, fifteen years of my life I’ve never seen a black person or many other ethnicities. I just saw white people my whole life. I was raised as a Christian. And I did question, I did seek knowledge, I did want to get out. And I got out, and it’s like people say, “oh you said you will open a bookstore, and you did open a bookstore!”. But I said when I was 12, I said I will go to United States and no one believed in me. And I mean yes, my parents supported me when I finally got there, but for a few years they were saying, “there is absolutely no way for you to go to United States. We could never afford even a ticket or you staying there”. And I said I will figure out a way. I did figure out a way! And it was not very expensive – I became an au pair, which the program was actually cheaper than plane ticket to United States. I got to stay for a year, and then I kept pursuing it.
So I think – we were talking about humility [prior to interview] – and I am not being humble right now, but I am amazing for getting to the place where I am. For opening a bookstore in United States and becoming a self-published author in United States when this is not my native language. And again, I would never be there if not for my husband. For his family – his family supports me so much and all of them inspire me, but the same time, I think I like to acknowledge that I really – as I said earlier today – I really feel like I feel so self-fulfilled since I quit my job.
That is inspiring, because you’ve made that for yourself.
I think it’s not about saying ‘oh I’m amazing’ and everything. Even with the bookstore – and I still might fail – but every time I have this crazy idea of going to United States, getting married, travelling, moving to London, opening a bookstore, writing a book - I have so many people telling me it’s not a good idea, it’s not financially responsible, you should think about it more. I have so many voices of reason, which I really appreciate, because I know that I can be impulsive and make irrational choices like coming to England for my best friend’s birthday last minute and booking very expensive last-minute flights. But… I listen to all those voices of telling me, “you can’t, you shouldn’t” and I take them, I think about them, and I do what I think is right for me in the moment. And that’s how I got to, like, this is my first podcast which I’m so happy about it, but I will be doing another one tomorrow! And in a couple months!
And I just think it’s really awesome that like a small Polish town girl got to the place I am today, and while I had a lot of people supporting me, I also had sometimes the same people telling me it was a horrible idea. A lot of my ideas were horrible ideas. So I think that doing that with all these comments and despite them - I think that’s really inspiring. So I hope to inspire other people and at the same time, most people in my life – everyone in my life - inspires me in some way. Whether it inspires me to do something because of them or in spite of them.
That makes sense. I’m going to finish off with a few quick questions.
If you could spend a day with any five people in the world – dead, alive, or fictional – who would they be?
Oh my god, okay. Louise O’Neill – she’s a, I believe Irish author, she’s absolutely amazing. I really just want to talk about her ideas for the books. She’s not very famous, she’s just…I want to get inside her head.
Okay - Martyna Wojciechowska – she inspired me; she’s a Polish woman, Polish traveller – she climbed Mount Everest, she made a lot of documentaries about women around the world. I always wanted to meet her; she was my inspiration my whole childhood.
Next…Edgar Allan Poe – because one of the first poems in English I learned by heart, and I absolutely fell in love with – and by the way it’s very ominous – but it was ‘Annabel Lee’. It’s basically about a man who lost a woman and he’s just talking about missing her; it’s so ominous in my situation but I remember I was 17 and for some reason I was obsessed with that poem. And right now it feels very weird to say that but that was it.
Next person… shall we just finish there? Because I have so many people that I would love to…and when we finish I’ll come up with another 15.
If your life story was to be made into a film, who would you want to play yourself?
Emma Stone. The looks are kind of similar, and at the same time I think like she’s very quirky and kind of just has similar vibe to me. She’s outgoing but the same time she can be just very…I don’t know, she can be very weird in movies, and I feel like she would portray me very well. And fun fact – that Andrew’s family told me about it – Andrew was in love with Emma Stone for like his whole teenage years, so they always said they knew that he would marry a redhead because he was always obsessed with redhead actresses.
That’s so funny. Okay, last one. With what three words would you describe yourself?
I ask that the other day [to] someone – and they gave me a very basic response. And I thought about mine for a moment, so this was my response. Tragically - I said ‘amazing’ because I didn’t want to say ‘beautiful’ to a guy because he would feel that I’m self-conceited but the point was – tragically beautiful soul.
Wow.
So it’s not adjective, and when I say, “tragically beautiful soul”, you can take each word separately – ‘tragically’, tragic – ‘beautiful’, not in a looks way, I think it’s more about inside – and then ‘soul’, it’s not adjective but it really, when I think about myself, I do think of myself as a soul. Especially I always kind of had the grasp of it after my philosophy classes and after losing Andrew, I really see myself more than as a person, just a soul. Because when he died, I really want to have that thought that we were going to meet again, whether it’s in heaven or I wrote in my next book – I really hope that he like waits for me and we get reincarnated together and like we fall in love again. So I really like – yes, it is who I am today, this is how I look and everything, but I don’t know I just think when I think about myself it’s like something in my soul. And especially when I started writing, it just really feels like – it almost feels tangible since I started writing. It feels beautiful but also tragic because of everything that has happened to me recently and just generally in my life. So I think it’s – you can take ‘tragically beautiful soul’ as a phrase, or you can take it apart.
I love that. That’s a perfect way to end. Brilliant, thank you!
This interview has been edited for clarity, but has largely been kept verbatim to capture Martyna fully.
Since this interview, Martyna decided that small town living was not for her, so she closed down the physical store and moved to Austin, TX. She is currently running Drew's Bookstore as a successful mobile bookstore visiting markets in Austin, and hopes to never stop promoting indie authors and other small businesses.
Martyna is currently writing her third book, 'Life After Death', and releases chapters weekly for subscribers. For $5 a month for four months, you can get access to the book that hasn’t been published (or written) yet. See the link here: https://www.drewsbookstore.com/life-after-death#
Follow Martyna and Drew's Bookstore here:
You can buy Martyna's books here:
Green Card Marriage (USA) https://www.drewsbookstore.com/martynas-projects/green-card-marriage
Green Card Marriage (UK) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Card-Marriage-Martyna-Dearing/dp/B0CN3XCKH6
Love, Death and In Between (USA) https://www.drewsbookstore.com/store/p/love-death-and-in-between
Love, Death and In Between (UK) https://amzn.eu/d/0gmeVEFY
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