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Wearing a fetching green T-shirt that says "Reading is Sexy" in bright yellow, Reading Frenzy proprietress Chloe Eudaly holds up an example of a slightly slipshod stapling job on a small independent publication. "Bust started out as a zine--not even saddle-stitched, one of my biggest pet peeves," she says of the now full-color, glossy, nationally distributed magazine that was once a stapled-and-photocopied affair.
In honor of Reading Frenzy's 10th anniversary, a list of Eudaly's top-10 pet peeves--which also include "talking on your cell phone in my 250-square-foot store," FYI--will be on display alongside fan mail, hate mail, posters, press clippings and photographs from the bookstore's illustrious and eventful past. Since Reading Frenzy's inception, Eudaly not only has been an agent and scholar of independent press but has also facilitated hundreds of performances and readings--everything from a Joe Sacco slide show to a Q&A with Dave Eggers to a screening with "champagne anarchists" Decadent Action. She's also seen young patrons go from being comic-book and zine hounds to becoming publishers themselves.
In 1998, Eudaly and local letterpress printer Rebecca Gilbert founded the Independent Publishing Resource Center in the office they shared above Reading Frenzy's space at 921 SW Oak St. "We were both spending a lot of time in the store explaining the D.I.Y. process to aspiring self-publishers and thought it would be great if there was somewhere they could go to access equipment and information and work on their own projects."
The IPRC has since expanded to include a library of more than 4,000 publications produced independently (many by hand), and it provides workshops in bookbinding, letterpress printing, printmaking, publishing software and other publishing methodologies for a fraction of what any art school would charge. "Many of our customers keep in touch long after they've moved away and bemoan the fact that their new hometowns don't have anything like it," Eudaly says. Out of all of Reading Frenzy's accomplishments (besides surviving 10 years as a small business), perhaps the greatest is that the small shop on Oak Street has become an integral part of Portland's literary landscape.
Reading Frenzy anniversary events include an Oregon Food Bank drive Wednesday, Sept. 1, with a discount for bearers of organic canned goods; a First Thursday in-store archival display from 6 to 9 pm Sept. 2; and a Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund benefit at Nocturnal Saturday, Sept. 4, followed by a dance party. See www.readingfrenzy.com or visit the store at 921 SW Oak St., 274-1449.
WWeek 2015