As a child, Riley Schwarzkopf would never go to bed after her parents tucked her in and turned out the light. She’d nestle under the covers with a flashlight and a picture book for long hours. Her imagination was just beginning to stir in the stillness of nightfall.
Waking up the next morning, her bedroom floor would be covered in books that had fallen from her top bunk — much to the dismay of her parents.
“I genuinely can't remember a time when [reading’s] not been important in my life. I've gotten in trouble a lot of times for reading when I wasn't supposed to,” Schwarzkopf, a second-year English student at Ball State University, said.
Ink Drinkers Anonymous (IDA) is a place for people like her.
The locally owned bookstore in downtown Muncie has been operational for two years and is “a lifelong dream” of owner and self-proclaimed book lover Keeley Malone.
In May 2022, Malone sat at the kitchen table with her mom while the business was still in its idea phase.
At one time, Malone said, “Oh, if I open a bookstore one day, this is what I would do.” Her mom replied, “If it’s something you want to do, do it. Otherwise, figure out what you want to do.”
Malone began researching how to start a business that same month.
Ink Drinkers Anonymous was not the original name of the business.
“We had initially decided on ‘One More Chapter,’” Malone said.
But during those same kitchen table conversations, she talked with her mom about how she imagined hosting book clubs for circles of customers amid warm, ambient lighting.
‘“Ink drinker’ is the French term for ‘bookworm,’” Malone said. “Anonymous” then came to the title because “I wanted [the bookstore] to feel like a safe space for readers, to not feel judged by what they read [or] how much they read.”
Judgment for the love of books is a feeling Schwarzkopf knows all too well.
“I spent pretty much all of my high school career in the library,” she said. “Librarians knew me by name. It was pretty embarrassing looking back, [but] I loved going there.”
Malone also spent afternoons as a student in her school library, working as a middle schooler — an entrepreneurial start that propelled her business venture and fueled her passion for reading. This passion was steadfast enough to keep her afloat while she started the business with a mere $20 in her bank account.
She started IDA to highlight authors who are Black, Indigenous and people of color. She wanted to see more representation in the bookstores she visited, as written in her business profile.
“It's nice to feel represented in the characters and books that you read,” Malone said, noting the representative experience through literary characters is not something she had growing up as a Black woman.
Jill Christman, an English professor at Ball State University, has dedicated her life to making sure her students and children of the surrounding Muncie area feel represented in the literature they are exposed to.
“I fundamentally believe storytelling can save our lives, and each of us deserves to see ourselves in the books we read … [because] if you can’t see it, you can’t be it,” she said. “This is the reason I became a writer.”
Christman leads the “Writer-in-Residence” program at Ball State, which she founded in 2021. The program connects published authors, some of whom are Ball State alumni, including 2021’s featured writer, Ashley C. Ford, and this year's Hena Khan — with kids in the community, sending them home with copies of the author’s work.
“The idea is that if we put books in kids’ hands and then bring them the author to inspire them to read those books, we can change relationships to reading,” Christman said.
When it comes time to purchase an author’s work to give away as part of the program, Christman works closely with IDA to fulfill her orders.
“Those moments where [kids] line up and [are given] the first book they've ever had signed by an author or kids who have never seen themselves as authors realize that's a possibility for them, that's what I'm in it for,” she said.
Amid finals season — when every essay she writes for class feels like it’s being tossed into the void — Schwarzkopf said she reads as a form of escapism to combat nihilism and finds the experience to be cathartic every time.
“When I read a story of any genre, there’s always going to be some sort of forward momentum. Every action means something … which is not always a guarantee in real life,” she said.
Schwarzkopf also said the experiences she gains from reading continue to make her a more empathetic person.
“Finding joy or fulfillment in reading through the lives of people has a lot more merit than [what] escapism lends itself to because what you're doing by escaping into the life of another person is sharing [their] struggles.”
Empathy is a key component of her unrelenting love of literature.
“The fact that you can insert yourself into the mind of an author means, regardless of where you are or who you are, you can understand a life you've never even lived,” Schwarzkopf said.
IDA is moving locations over the holiday season from High Street to Patterson Block. The move is something Malone never imagined when first starting the business in her bedroom.
“I started with nothing and have just kind of pieced everything together bit by bit,” she said.
Book lovers, like Malone who are in search of their next read to curl up with for the holidays, can visit IDA at its current location through Dec. 20, according to the company’s website. The business is open Tuesday 3-6 p.m., Wednesday through Friday 3-7:30 p.m. and Saturday 12-6 p.m. Readers may still purchase books while the business is in transition and pick them up at the Patterson Block location, opening Jan. 4.
Contact Katherine Hill via email at katherine.hill@bsu.edu.
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