Jane

For nearly 10 years before she owned the bookstore with her husband Dave, she’s been a bookseller here. Her previous gigs included serving as the Events Manager, management committee member, and becoming a journeyman book buyer. At least, almost one. She focuses on our body, mind, soul and religions collections. She’s been involved in hosting events, and becoming pals with all of the weird and wonderful people who make this community great. She loves nothing more than to be astonished by the latest brilliant novel. But buyer beware, stop her from telling you a book’s ending that you’re thinking about buying since she has somewhat of a problem controlling her blood/sugar balance when she gets excited about the book in question. That said, it’s nothing compared to her passion for all things relating to baseball.

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Jim

Jim has spent his entire life running away from Bainbridge Island, only to smash himself repeatedly on the rocks of its ceaseless siren song. A former newspaper reporter and editor, Jim now lives the “four gigs equals one Bainbridge income” life, doing manuscript editing, corporate copywriting and housesitting in addition to bookselling at Eagle Harbor, where he purchased his first book with his own money in 1973 as a third-grader: The Three Investigators and The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon. That sparked a lifelong love of crime fiction, both as a reader and a writer, and Jim’s hardboiled short stories can be found in ‘zines with titles like Shotgun Honey, Pulp Modern and Switchblade. He also is a regular performer at the bimonthly Noir At The Bar Seattle reading series at the Hotel Sorrento and can often be found skulking around sinister shadowy corners of the island, adding to his noir-photography portfolio on Instagram.

John

An Island Treasure and award-winning poet, John also runs our Poetry Section. He takes our various staff recommendations and polishes them till they shine. Ever since he was hired in 1991, he’s been championing the works of his favorite poets (Sharon Olds, Wislawa Szymborska, Ted Kooser, Theodore Roethke, Gary Snyder) and assorted authors (Cormac McCarthy, Kate Atkinson, Ian McEwan, Ruth Ozeki, etc.). He also has led a poetry workshop on the island since 1992. Otherwise, he cooks, hikes and makes sure all of us newcomers don’t unduly mess with the bookstore’s storied traditions and its culture.z

Kiyo

That Kiyo was born in Okinawa and raised in New Jersey are not likely the reason he’s a mythology, science fiction, fantasy, classic manga and comics aficionado. Painting, drawing, behavioral economics, gaming, philosophy, pop culture, psychology, science, and technology equally light him up, suggesting he’s either a polymath--or just confused. It may be interesting to know he’s been a graphic designer, PC support manager, software consultant, and software product manager. Yet if you seek to plumb the inner Kiyo, you need to know his two favorite D&D classes are Bards and Monks.

Rodie

Rodie landed on the island long before nearly all of us. She earned her bookseller chops at the wonderful Madison Park Books before she joined us. Our maven of high end literature, she spends an equal amount of time combing the racks for odd titles. You might be wise to resist her efforts to sell you “How to Sit,” but not so wise if you otherwise spurn her recommendations.

Rose

Rose is a recent graduate from the California Institute of the Arts with a BFA in Costume Design. She cares a lot about poetry, political theory, and fiction. She has a faulty photographic memory but is very eager to help. She can usually be found in the Children’s section or behind the counter talking to dogs.

Susan

Not every bookstore employs a graduate of the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving. Her retired librarian chops, though, may be more what you’re looking for as you seek refuge from Winslow Way. She’s also the pit crew boss of our Mystery Book and Readers’ Circle Book groups, coordinates our consignment program and will send you towards a pulse-pounding thriller if you let her.

Tim

Since he’s our Manager, Tim is fond of trying to herd cats. He denies that’s why he left Omaha, spent years wandering around the west, first studying astrophysics and then more squarely focusing on history, gender theory and writing. He’s been in the book business for years, first at Borders and now at Eagle Harbor Books. Tim is also our head adult book buyer. In his non-existent spare time, he walks the land, cooks, fusses too much with music, and designs new cities. Yes, designs new cities. In addition to history, he focuses on current affairs and politics, although he’s keen to get carried away in discussions about all things science and tech.

Victoria

Her patch of turf at the bookstore is directly off the front desk so Victoria can hover, hover, hover over everything that’s happening; liaising with authors in her capacity as our Events Manager, engaging in every in and off-site store activity, and discharging her informal bookstore hostess duties.   She survived Columbia Journalism graduate school and living on the east coast for 30 years nicely, and returned home 8 years ago.  She’s also our e-book and audiobook expert, and is passionate about non-fiction and social justice issues.  Just don’t even try to keep her attention with any of that, however, if she hears anyone in the store mention the word “bird” in a sentence.