Today we’d like to introduce you to Shari Stauch
Hi Shari, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Shari Stauch has been involved in publishing, marketing and PR for 30 years. She was the co-creator of Pool & Billiard Magazine and in 2004 she retired from the Women’s Pro Billiard Tour after a 20-year career as a top player and marketer/co-creator of the tour (inducted into the WPBA Hall of Fame in 2007) to pursue development of Where Writers Win, working with emerging authors. Then, in 2019, she realized a local-focused dream, opening up Main Street Reads, Summerville’s independent bookstore. Main Street Reads turns six years old this March and has quickly become a focal point of the community. On February 15th, it will bring the first-ever Book Festival to Summerville – more at https://mainstreetreads.com/summerville-book-festival-2025/
As former board chair of Charleston’s Center for Women, she served as moderator for the Center’s Women’s Writer Series, and she is past producer, alongside author Bren McClain, of the South Carolina Writers Workshop (SCWW) Conference in Myrtle Beach, SC, along with Charleston’s Pubsense Summit and PubSmart.
In 2008, Stauch signed on as Co-Director of Programming for Words & Music: A Literary Feast in New Orleans, and re-launched the organization’s website. Stauch continues to work with the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society as well as with publishers, agents, editors, and emerging authors throughout the U.S., using her marketing and PR talents to help authors broaden their audiences, and publishers realize greater sales potential.
Shari has given workshops and keynote speeches at conferences across the country, including the Writers Digest conference NYC, Tucson Festival of Books, Chanticleer Writers Conference (Seattle), Lawyers for the Creative Arts (Chicago), Florida Writers Conference, Publish15 (Atlanta), IPBA Publishing University, Pat Conroy Literary Festival (Beaufort, SC), Historical Writers of America and the International Women Writers conference (Matera, Italy).
Stauch is a certified coach, an award-winning essayist and fiction writer, and author of four non-fiction books (Precision Pool, Pool Player’s Edge). She is also a contributor to Office For One: The Sole Proprietor’s Survival Guide and You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls.
More info at https://writerswin.com/the-team/shari-stauch/ and https://writerswin.com/shari-stauch-career-timeline/
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We’ll focus on the just recent past here – the bookstore. We opened in March of 2019 and was very exciting for the community. One year later, March 1, 2020, we had a wall-to-wall crowd for our one year birthday party… and two weeks later were forced to close for the pandemic.
We worked with local eatery Eva’s to create a “Book & a Brownie” so that readers could order their books, left outside on a stool, packaged with a freshly baked brownie.
We then began holding “Stories on the Square” weekly storytime, putting hoola hoops around the littles’ chairs to help teach them about safe social distancing.
Both were a hit; that, combined with an incredibly supportive “shop local’ community, allowed us to survive, and eventually thrive.
Each year we add book clubs and book club members, and lots of signings and special events. The bigggest struggle is simply time to do all the things we want to do!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Main Street Reads?
Main Street Reads launched in the heart of Summerville on March 1, 2019 to the delight of residents who universally claim, “You can’t be a town without an independent bookstore!”
We’re part of an arts renaissance in a historic downtown center that boasts a town square/bandshell, community theatre, weekly farmers/artisans market, an arts center, and… our indie bookstore, all within two city blocks!
Besides book signings, release parties and our newly formed Summerville Book Festival, we are most proud of our regularly scheduled clubs that include Main Street Writes (Monday night writers group);
Stories on the Square children’s story time Wednesdays); and monthly clubs including Thriller “Thrill in the ‘Ville, Fab Fantasy, Kiss & Tell Romance, Adventures in Reading Kids Club; and Peaceful Mornings
and Silent Nights quiet reading events.
How do you think about luck?
Good luck is just preparation meeting opportunity (I think Oprah said that).
And bad luck? I think it’s what we do with the hand we’re dealt. I’m proud to be part of a community that steps up to help each other and grow closer and stronger in bad luck times, from a pandemic to hurricanes to yes, even recent snow days.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mainstreetreads.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mainstreetreads/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MainStreetReads
- Twitter: https://x.com/mainstreetreads
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX-bI_DyWTxKjIptFQvodZvdubDO9CBj6
