Frannie Gilbertson: BOOKSTORES

Frannie Gilbertson is a shortlist winner nominee of the 2024 Adelaide Literary Award Contest in the category of Poetry, with her work titled Bookstores.

Frannie Gilbertson is a native of Fort Worth, TX and has an English degree from Texas Wesleyan University. She completed her first full novel in middle school and has been writing ever since. She published her first novel, The Secret of Us as a senior in high school and is now the self-published author of the Fast Lane series on Amazon Direct Publishing. Frannie writes in all genres most notably fiction and poetry and is frequently featured in Adelaide Literary Magazine. She is also an avid reader of all things dark romance and fantasy and is a major Swiftie! When not reading or writing, you can find her taking pictures for her bookstagram (@littlelovelyreads).

Bookstores

Bookstores are unique places.

They have shelves full of creatures from uncharted lands,

Heroes and heroines fighting demons and monsters to save their families,

Ordinary boys and girls, boys and boys, girls and girls falling in love between the pages of an unexpected romance that only a select few will be able to share with them.

They are places to hide and places to shine,

places to dream and places to act,

places to fear and places to embrace.

It is all here amongst the rows and rows of ancient parchment that trees gave their last breaths to become.

A second life,

a reincarnation of sorts, books are,

but bookstores…

Bookstores are where the dreamers go.

They are where the lovers embrace

and the adventurers roam.

They are where the poets sleep

and the lonely hearts meet.

They are where the broken hearts go to recover

and the bitter souls go to mourn.

Bookstores are doors to the people we seek to be, the people we are, and the people we once were too afraid to face.

Where Hemingway and Poe can mingle and share drunken pasts that only they can understand.

Bookstores are where Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, and Harper Lee can toast to the stories that others were too closed-minded to read.

They are where the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen can laugh and flirt with the lovers they never aim to please.

Bookstores are where Emily Dickinson and Emily Barret Browning can weep for their sorrows and dance in their triumphs.

Bookstores are where artists go to write and be written about.

They are peace and comfort,

anger and sorrow,

love and sensuality,

They are a place of wonder.

Bookstores are magic.

And I, within them, become magic too.

Frannie Gilbertson