The Official History of Books & Booze©

The history of Books & Booze© goes back to meetings between Christine Carlswell of Chronicle Books and John Owen of Weldon Owen. They would meet regularly in Frankfurt.

While they didn't do any business with one another, they did a lot of talking about books, publishing and book selling; often over a drink at the end of a long day on a trade show floor.

At Frankfurt in 2002 it struck them as funny that while their offices were blocks away from one another in San Francisco, their casual get-togethers usually occurred thousands of miles away. This led to an agreement that the San Francisco publishing community sorely needed a forum where those in the publishing community, both young and old could meet and share their problems over a glass of wine or two.

Unlike many ideas that start in Frankfurt this one bore fruit and both John and Christine came back to San Francisco determined to get the concept off the ground. They quickly recruited Ani Chamician a stalwart of the local publishing scene. Christine was voted B&B's first Chairperson and Sarah Mattern who worked with John was recruited as Secretary (which meant she did all the work).

The idea for the name Books & Booze came from Roger Shaw who also worked at Weldon Owen. Roger uncovered the 2003 Bureau of Labor statistics revealing that households in the Bay Area spent significantly more than the national average on both high quality wines/spirits and books. Thus the name, was a natural!

The first event was planned for June 24, 2003.

After considerable research to find the right location Christine found 111 Minna Gallery (located right off 2nd Street down the block from the former Chronicle Books office) which has hosted the event ever since.

John and Christine contacted a number of visionary local publishers and others in the community who sponsored the event.

Ani did yeomen's work as 'catering manager' shopping for and laying out cheese, crackers, noshes, plates, napkins etc; Christine recruited volunteers from Chronicle Books, and Sarah kept everyone on the same sheet of music.

The event was a huge success. While 50 or so were expected; when 250+ turned up, Books & Booze was on the map!

In 2004, the committee sent out a call to the community for someone to help monitor the finances and to solicit contributions for future events. Chris Kahn, at the time West Coast Ad Director for Publishers Weekly/Library Journal, stepped forward. Chris also had an accounting and finance background as and had previously served on the boards of not-for-profit organizations.

Christine, John and Ani were impressed that Chris knew something about accounting and finance and quickly appointed him as Treasurer and Fund Raiser. About the same time the committee asked Peter Wiley to join them.

In March 2005 B&B held a special event to raise money to help alleviate the suffering in the Ache province in Indonesia caused by December 2004 tsunami.

A silent auction and donations from the community were a great success and Books & Booze presented over $18,000 to Save the Children.

In 2005, Books & Booze; with the gracious assistance of Martha Daetwyler, with Leland, Parachini, Steinberg, Matzger & Melnick LLP, in San Francisco, incorporated in the State of California and was granted tax exempt status as a not-for profit organization by the IRS.

In 2008, Chris succeeded John as the Chairman.

Since 2006, Books & Booze has underwritten an annual Scholarship to the Stanford Professional Publishing Course.

Books & Booze continues to hold semi-annual gatherings in the Spring and Fall.

Please contact Info@booksandbooze.org for any other information

Books and Booze Board of Directors

JOHN OWEN
John Owen co-founded Weldon Owen Publishing one of the world's leading packagers and co-edition publishers, with offices in San Francisco, Sydney and London. John began his career in publishing as a management trainee at Pitman, one of Britain's oldest publishing houses. He left his native England in the early 1970s to go to Hong Kong as marketing director for Reader's Digest Far East. In the late 70's he started his first company on his own which he sold four years later. In 1984 he moved to Sydney and co-founded Weldon Owen with Kevin Weldon a leading Australian publisher and after five years relocated the company to San Francisco. In 2006 Weldon Owen was acquired by Bonnier AB a media group with a 200-year history in book publishing with annual sales of over $4 billion and publishing operations in 20 countries. In 2009 Mr Owen was appointed Group Publisher for Bonnier Publishing.

PETER WILEY
Peter Booth Wiley is a San Francisco writer and publisher. He is chairman of the board of John Wiley & Sons and is the author of five books including National Trust Guide San Francisco: America’s Guide for Architecture and History Travelers, which is currently being revised by Peter and his daughter, Celia Wiley.

TYRRELL MAHONEY
Tyrrell Mahoney currently holds the position of Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development at Chronicle Books. Mahoney joined the San Francisco based publisher of award-winning, innovative books on design, art, architecture, photography, food, lifestyle and pop culture, as well as books for children, in 1996 as its International Sales Manager. Since then she has held a variety of positions in sales at the company. Prior to joining Chronicle Books, Mahoney was the Circulation Manager of the San Francisco-based Mother Jones Magazine. Mahoney holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Boston University and was raised in New York.

CHRIS KAHN
Chris Kahn directs marketing and sales for the library website EarlyWord.com. After 10+ years, Chris was recently laid off from his job as the Western Advertising Director for the print and online properties of Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and School Library Journal. Prior to that he helped launch the Rocket eBook, a predecessor to the Kindle. He is a San Francisco native currently living in Lafayette.

ANI CHAMICHIAN
Ani Chamichian began her publishing career at Campbell & Hall (a book wholesaler) in Boston, MA, where, surrounded by books all day, every day, she thought she had died and gone to heaven. From wholesaling she went to becoming a road warrior for No California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska at T.Y Crowell until Crowell was acquired by Harper & Row. She continued to sell book for Harper until 1989 at which time she went in-house at Harper San Francisco as VP Associate Publisher. She has been an independent publishing consultant since 1995. She has been associated with Frances Lincoln LLC since 2007 as North American Sales & Marketing Director.

JULIE BURTON
Julie Burton is the Associate Director of Publicity at HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. Julie joined HarperOne in September 2008 after nearly five years at the independent publishing house MacAdam/Cage, and she has also worked for West Coast literary agents Sandra Dijkstra and Amy Rennert. She holds a BA in literature & writing from UC San Diego and currently lives in San Francisco.