In 2021 I took a trip to the Netherlands with my family, with a brief excursion to Paris for my birthday. Many of our destinations were planned, primarily the Louvre, but after walking down the Champs-Elysees Joe led me to a small bookstore tucked in an alley.

I walked into the bookstore, which I assumed at the time was a spontaneous stop, and would later find out was a destination just for me. I found the kids book section with ronin and picked a book to read to him. I remember thinking that we got lucky and I had found the english section. Joe found me, and asked me if I had been upstairs yet. We looked at each other. “Oh.” he said, “You don’t know what this place is.”

He was right. We were in Shakespeare and Co. I had never heard of it.

“Everything is in english. I didn’t notice it as unusual”

I went upstairs. There were nooks with typewriters and a cat lounging on a pillow with a sign that said “don’t pet the cat.” The cat pushed it’s head into my hand. The building was a bookworm’s dream. A place to curl up in and get lost writing and reading. It felt magical. I wished we could stay, but with kids the clock is always ticking; outings are always limited to a few hours, and so we left and made the walk back to the bnb.

The next year I started playing a DnD campaign with my friends, with Joe as the DM. It was a time traveling premise which took our characters throughout history in the real world. My character was a bard named Margaret Drew, from 2022 Texas.

In DnD, at third level characters get what’s called a subclass, this essentially determines specifics about how players will be able to use their abilities and magic, and usually these subclasses have themes. For example, a nature loving druid could choose a subclass that focuses on animals, but also choose one that focuses on spirits, or even the stars.

For my bard, I chose the school of eloquence, and decided that my bard, rather than play music, was an aspiring writer. She specifically wrote romance novels, which I thought would be funny, and I often have her referencing her favorite erotic fiction when we play. It’s common to have a story or a brief explanation for how you get your subclass, and Joe customized ours for each player, which we played out through slack messages rather than in person. This was mine:

You are hanging out in your room when you decide to lie down and go to sleep. After some time you fall asleep and pass into the dark sleep you've started to grow familiar with here. In the darkness of this sleep you see Islay approach, eyes shining, with Hel's hands on her shoulders. She touches you and when she does you find yourself in at a small table in a bookstore. Steam drifts up from a cup of coffee on the table. Your hands, not your hands they look unfamiliar, hold a newspaper and you notice immediately the date is 1923.

Marge looks around to try to get her bearings and takes a sip of the coffee (for thread)

maybe i could make a general perception check or look at the people to confirm that I've travelled in space and time

There are a couple of other tables tucked away in corners with other people sitting at them. More tables and people are outside. The people at the other tables dress in a manner you would expect for the time period, however, those walking by seem to be slightly more sophisticated in their fashion than those in the shop. The coffee is, by Marge's standards, not great.

"ok so I know the year I'm in, but where am i? Clearly hel sent me here through Islay, I'll have to figure that part out later..." she thinks and Marge gets up and starts exploring the bookstore, making her way to the front to try to speak to someone and just say "Hi, do you have a new releases section?" as a way of just getting dialogue going.

A 40ish-year-old woman bent at the front desk reading a book looks up at you and chuckles. "What are you talking about Tommy? You've been here for months now. Every day it's a coffee, a paper, and then you 'write'. You actually want to read something?"

"oh... uh no that was a joke, haha just keeping you on your toes" and Marge winks and then tries to hide the fact that she's panicking slightly and leaves to stand outside so she can look around and see the outside of the bookstore. Does she know she's speaking french at this point?

She's speaking English and so was the woman at the desk.

The woman shrugs and goes back to her book.

ok what do I see when I step outside and look at the bookstore and at other people, do I hear them talk, get a sense of where I am?

The other guests are mostly quiet and/or writing. When you peak at what they're writing or reading it's all in English. When you step outside you see a small sign that says Shakespeare and Company - Cafe and Bookstore.

Passersby are definitely speaking French. As you look up and down the street Marge would think any street in Europe is Paris but this is unquestionably Paris.

ok, I think like most american white women marge gets VERY excited that she's in paris in the 20s which is like, peak paris. and seeing the bookstore I think she would know it vaguely but wouldn't know everything about it (fictional knowledge, not much history knowledge)

I think she's still in investigation mode being sort of dropped in here so she'd want to go back to her table if it's still available and start perusing the paper for anything interesting, drink he subpar coffee, and see if she's got a bag on her for this "writing" she's doing and see if she can start looking at the writing so far.

Most of the paper talks about reconstruction efforts and politics after the Great War. When you pull out the small writing book in your bag there's next to nothing written in there. It seems like it's been mostly used for grocery lists.

I will write the following in the notebook:

Jane suddenly found herself in a strange bookstore in what could only be 1920's paris [description added of surroundings of marge as she writes to add flavor] "oh! that mysterious fortune teller in new orleans was right! Her gift of the enchanted rosary took me straight here, but why?" she thought as she looked around. She began exploring the quaint and charming bookshop when she tripped on one of the steps, and was caught suddenly by a man with dark wavy hair and piercing eyes. He says,

"Oh attention mademoiselle, ces vieilles étapes sont délicates. Laissez-moi vous aider."

Oh I should have paid attention in french class! she curses her high school apathy as he helps her up, and she blushes...

She keeps writing, she's getting into it

Time passes in the odd way it does in dreams. Hours, weeks, months, it isn't clear. But when you look back down you've filled up far more pages. When you look around, you recognize

some of the other guests you've gotten to know recently; Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Elliot, and Djuna Barnes.

marge feels a deep warmth in that way where the friendships are real but she as marge knows these people by their reputation so there's a feeling of status elevation or of feeling a deep connection, and maybe some imposter syndrome as well (she literally is an imposter) but when recognizable people are around she's just delighted by their conversation. I think she and fitzgerald would get along, but I think she and hemingway would find each other's company a lot, and drink together.

I think Marge knows this is a dream, but it's such a good dream she's fully content to exist in the space of good conversation and writing and being around other writers, that it's sort of her own little paradise, and she falls into a contented daily cycle.

her book plot follows the story of Jane and theo, Jane a modern woman suddenly finding herself in paris, and Theo a young man in paris working in the bookshop. They don't get along at first, of course and jane is focused on getting back to her time for the first part of the story, until she succeeds and accidentally drags theo with her to 2022 new orleans where he is suddenly out of his element and shows a vulnerability she finds endearing. They connect and fall in love and find a way to get theo back to his timeline in france, and eventually decide to settle there together for a while, until theo gets drafted in the second war, and Jane loses him, and decides to take her childrens to the present day to give them a better life. The book ends with jane finding theo's name carved at a war memorial and telling her children the truth.

They both give you advice that simultaneously makes sense and conflicts with one another. Fitzgerald is young and tells you how you must focus on your prose to turn it into poetry. He tells you that your story is pleasant but it needs something more. A theme. Wealth inequality, the clash between older generations and the younger who are more carefree without the mark of war on their souls, or maybe something else.

Hemingway likes your story as well but thinks it needs work. He finds Theo too effeminate and recommends that you give him interests like hunting and fishing. He is older than Fitzgerald and finds your lack of mention of the war in your story bizarre. He finds your prose too complex and explains that the simplest way to say something is often the best.

As you this goes the last author you are familiar with, the only unpublished one of the bunch, Joyce, comes down the steps from his private table upstairs. He and the other two offer need breaks from what they're working on and offer to help edit your book.

Marge sees joyce and is like "oh yeah if you wanted to take a look at it, it's just a silly romance, you know, a beach read" but in her head she's like "is that god damn james joyce? what the fuck is going on right now"

Marge offers to look at their work in return, to try to contribute to the group, although it's painful to do so knowing she isn't as talented as them. And advice wise, I think she likes hemmingway as a person but definitely differs in style to him, but she does let theo stoically fish from time to time, and takes fitzegerald's advice more to heart.

Give me... some sort of check. Performance or history.

14 performance

pfff you could've lied

lol never

You read over all three of their novels. The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, and Ulysses. You've read the first two enough that when you read through their drafts you can make suggestions that you know are already in their final draft. Ulysses completely outdoes you though.

They help edit your novel and more time passes until one day you find yourself closing your writing book and setting down your pen. Thoughts about sending it to a publisher don't enter your mind, all Marge feels is the satisfaction and pride of having written a novel. She knows it isn't something perfect but she knows that the work and the haphazard and conflict advice helped her truly find her own voice.

The dream begins to fade and Marge has a sudden urge to grab something in front of her. Joyce's glasses, Fitzgerald's pen, and a blank sheet from Hemmingway's notebook all sit before her.

she grabs the glasses

Cool.

You wake up in your bed back in Hel clutching his glasses.

Joyce's Glasses - While wearing these glasses, you can use an action to perfectly recall anything you have seen during a 5-minute period within the past month. Once you have used this property, it can’t be used again until you finish a long rest.

dope

For days after this I felt an ache I couldn’t explain. I thanked joe for creating a little mini story just for me personally. He knew this little fantasy would be right up my alley, and I got caught up in it.

In one way this little pretend game made me feel connected and understood by Joe which felt romantic and adorable. In another, I was once again faced with a problem I’ve had a lot recently, which is that I feel uncomfortable calling myself a writer. I’ve labeled myself as a “narrative illustrator” since I graduated college in 2011 and it’s how I’ve been useful to the storytelling world. I help writers visualize their stories. But I’ve always written my own stories, I’ve just never made them public. My reasons for this require a longer explanation and one I’ve been slowly unraveling for my therapist, but the short version is: I would very much like to be seen, maybe famous, talked about in the same circles as authors I like, while at the same time, wanting none of those things, and enjoying the anonymity and the play that comes with it. So I stall. The moment where Marge sets down her pen, content simply with her accomplishment is Joe directly nodding to what I’m currently going through: letting go of most of my monetization. It’s a respectful gesture to my values as he understands them, and I found it very touching.

I started working on a story that felt important to me and meaningful in 2019. I put it aside, picked it up, put it away again, procrastinated, talked about it but didn’t write it, then abandoned it completely in january in an attempt to set aside all of my professional goals while I worked on some health challenges I was going through.

Now, four months later, I sat down for the first time and began working on a comic book currently titled “scales and spoons.” I think I may be finally ready to write and illustrate a story, and enjoy doing it. Perhaps not in a cafe in paris in the 20s, but in my small studio in oregon, maybe sometimes at the playground, on my phone, or in a sketchbook, but I feel ready to enjoy the process, rather than fret over the finished product. I finally feel like I am not just an artist now, but a writer, and I’m writing.

Margarete Drew visits Shakespeare and Co.

Lauren Newburg’s online blog