17 March 28th-april 3rd, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | For the next 22 years, Changing Hands on Mill was a hub of Tempe cultural life. “We started having events there and we just really found that the community was very supportive of our bookstore, and we just never looked back,” Shanks says. “That has been the model that we have used for all these years: Pay strict attention to what people are asking for, listen attentively and then give them what they want. And if you do, they’ll continue to come into the store year after year. And so we really grew, not only the building around the books, but we really built that community around books. “One of the mayors said, ‘Changing Hands is like the living room of the down- town,’ and that’s really what it was.” End of an era Over the decades, the store expanded into a 5,000-square-foot space that sold books, hosted events and served the community. But Mill Avenue was changing, and not for the better, in Shanks’ opinion. In earlier years, Mill “was really a family-centered downtown, and it was very unique. It wasn’t a cookie-cutter downtown like so many cities have, with chain stores,” Shanks says. As nearby Arizona State University grew, developers had a different vision for Mill: fewer local shops and more chain stores. Businesses like Borders bookstore and home decor chain Z Gallerie moved in, changing the flavor of the street. “It devolved into something else,” Shanks says. Changing Hands had opened a second location at Guadalupe Road and McClintock Drive in south Tempe in 1998, and in 2000, the Mill Avenue location closed. “It was really horrible. I was crying all the time,” Shanks says. New directions But the store pushed ahead, and around the time that the Mill location closed, a key personnel change occurred. Cindy Dach had known Changing Hands on Mill as a “sweet, funky, well-curated bookstore,” and got to know the team more in her capacity as an events programmer for Phoenix Public Library. When her time at the library was coming to an end, she reached out to the store and offered to grow its events. From a part-time worker, Dach became general manager and eventually a partner with Shanks and Sommer. “She’s just such a force of nature,” Shanks says of Dach. “We were doing events before, but nothing on the scale of what we started doing once she was working with us.” Before the pandemic, Changing Hands was running up to 400 events per year between its two locations, everything from author events to writing workshops to children’s storytimes. “Events became another arm of Changing Hands, and it was a way for us to introduce the writers who had written all those wonderful books that our customers loved,” Shanks says. “It was an experi- ence you couldn’t get on Amazon. Augusten Burroughs is not going to be on Amazon for you to meet him, or Garrison Keillor, or Madeleine Albright, any of those people. So we really trained our community to start appreciating what it was like to be able to go to a reading and see and talk to and get a signed book from an author.” Changing Hands flourished in the early 2000s. Gift items helped the store’s revenue and even in the new location, it remained a place for the public to gather. A friend of Dach’s once told her, “One of my favorite things about Changing Hands is who you bump into when you’re there.” The store got a huge boost in 2009, when Publishers Weekly awarded it Bookseller of the Year. In 2014, a second location opened at The Newton at Third Avenue and Camelback Road. The Phoenix store has more of an urban vibe compared to the Tempe location’s suburban feel, Shanks says. The concrete floors are sleek and chic, and the First Draft Book Bar inside allows shoppers to grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, sit and read. Highs and lows Owning a store is not without its chal- lenges and Changing Hands has faced its fair share, from floods to recessions to the rise of Amazon and big-box booksellers. Dach says that the staff handles the bad times the same way they handle the good times: together. “No matter whether it be a super high or a challenge, it’s continually the way our colleagues sort of say, ‘OK, we’re all in this boat and let’s all grab an oar,’” Dach says. That philosophy kept the store going through the dark days of COVID-19, when the owners had to find ways to keep the lights on and employees on the payroll. “It’s a big ship, but we can turn it on a dime,” Shanks says. “We were able to make decisions quickly. Every day was a new adventure, and every single day we were trying to figure out a new way to do some- thing better.” That meant tactics such as placing jigsaw puzzles in the window so customers could stand outside, call the store with their orders and have them placed in the trunks of their cars, and pivoting to mostly online business. “All I can say is I have been lucky enough to work with an incredible group of people over the years, from my early partners until now, and it takes a village to make a bookstore and I have been so fortu- nate,” Shanks says. “I think bookstores just attract a wonderful kind of person who’s smart and resourceful and creative and that’s what it takes. I think the library was coming to an end, she reached out to the store and “She’s just such a force of nature,” Shanks says of Dach. “We were doing events before, but nothing on the scale of what we started doing once she was running up to 400 events per everything from author events to writing workshops to children’s storytimes. “Events became another arm of Changing Hands, and it was a way for us to introduce the writers who had written all those wonderful books that our customers loved,” Shanks says. “It was an experi- ence you couldn’t get on Amazon. Augusten Burroughs is not going to be on Amazon for you to meet like to be able to go to a reading Changing Hands’ uptown Phoenix location opened in 2014. (Photo courtesy of Changing Hands) Rock star Billy Idol brought his memoir to the Tempe location in 2014. (Photo courtesy of Changing Hands Bookstore) Chapter 50 from p 15 >> p 18
