We are so excited to help spread the word about the excellent Woolly Bear Books and Gifts in Carnegie, PA – which opened on Halloween in 2024… and is already expanding into a new location. This store is such a gem and it’s already a Littsburgh favorite, so we hope you’ll stop by and support this great new store, follow @woollybearbooks on Instagram, and tell all your book-loving friends!
Woolly Bear Books and Gifts Below is our interview with Woolly Bear’s Mike Ploetz, who’s doing something really special in Carnegie, PA…
A new bookstore is the best possible news! Can you tell us a little bit about the story behind Woolly Bear Books?
Sure! The shop is a result of my lifelong love of books. I wish I had a more original answer, but I think that’s precisely what gets most of us started in the bookstore business. My mission is to meet readers where they’re at, and to bring them the books they really want to read — not just the ones that will sit on their shelves and look pretty. (Although, of course, those are of equal importance to book lovers!) To that end, I’ve been shifting my inventory based on feedback from customers, and trying to offer them more of what they’re looking for. In addition to classics and banned books, a lot of what I’m selling now is romance and romantasy, two genres I knew absolutely nothing about when I started the shop last fall. How quickly you learn!
You must get this question a lot, but why a woolly bear?
The short answer is I just wanted a mascot I could stick a smiley face on. The long answer is I wanted a symbol that communicates the playful, curious, cozy spirit I try to carry throughout the shop. When I was a kid, I used to spend a lot of time playing in the woods and looking at bugs. I think a lot of people probably have that experience if they grew up around here, but eventually the demands of adulthood make it difficult to spend hours roaming around forests. So what is it about nature that we find inherently fascinating? Whatever it is, I don’t think it ever truly goes away. I hope that customers will spend however long they’re here browsing our shelves and tables and discovering something that piques their curiosity and convinces them to spend a little more time outside this year.
I think I heard that you used to work in-house in publishing . . . have you always wanted to open a bookstore, and what brought you to Carnegie, PA?
You heard right! I worked in NYC for about six years: two years at a small children’s book publisher (Little Bee Books) and three years at one of the Big Five publishers (Penguin Random House). I continued working for PRH remotely after moving back to Pittsburgh in 2021, but kept finding myself thinking about what’s next. I’m a Pitt grad, and when I was in college, I worked at a gift shop in Shadyside called Kards Unlimited. They have a large selection of books for all ages, and it was the first time I really thought of myself as wanting to work with books for a living. It wasn’t until I moved back to Pittsburgh that the pieces really started fitting together.
I started dating my current boyfriend (soon-to-be fiancé…I don’t think he’ll read this, but don’t go telling him…) shortly after my move back here in 2021. He purchased a house in Carnegie in 2022 and I moved in with him shortly after that. We both like living in the South Hills because of how much there is to do here. It’s a whole world that I never took time to explore when I was an undergrad. Despite the food and shopping that can be found in the South Hills, I felt like there was an opportunity to open a bookstore on Main Street in Carnegie. The borough truly values the arts—we have a stunning library and numerous art galleries—so it felt like a natural fit.
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What’s been the best / most surprising thing about opening your own bookstore?
The best thing about opening a bookstore (though in no way the most surprising) is how much support I’ve gotten from Carnegie, both the locals and the businesses around me. I used to work with indies during my time in publishing, and I’ve become so aware of how the unique role these spaces fill in their communities. People here seem to really understand that and want that, too. They get that if you want a bookstore you have to shop at that bookstore, even though there are very appealing alternatives placed in front of us 24/7.
I’ve had so much support, in fact, that I was able to secure a lease to open up a larger storefront this spring. (Not to bury the lede or anything…) I knew very early on after opening my first shop last October that I was going to outgrow it sooner rather than later. There’s so much I want this shop to become—and to offer—that to stay small would only be serving to delay its inevitable metamorphosis. It is definitely scary to be scaling up during a period of economic and political uncertainty, but if anybody’s going to weather the next couple of years, it’s going to be the community that sticks together and builds dedicated spaces for discussion, reflection, and learning.
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I’m also curious to hear the answer to “the most challenging thing about opening up your own bookstore” (but no pressure if you want to keep this breezy)…
I’m lucky enough to be able to offload many of the things I find challenging. One of the reasons it’s taken me so long to start my own store is because taxes terrify me. So when I opened, that was one of the first things I knew I’d take to an expert. That definitely helps clear up some mental room, but the one challenging thing that will always sit squarely with me is just managing my business’s growth trajectory. It’s so tough to know when it’s the right time to launch a new venture, whether it’s a social media platform or a digital newsletter or a new product offering in the shop, but that’s the stuff that is going to both bring new folks in and keep your current customer base engaged—so you have to keep doing it despite the inherent risk-taking it involves.
And, if anything, I think I enjoy taking risks a little too much—or, at least, more than the average person. I mean, I’m moving stores after being open for only four months, so I’ll definitely own that fact. I also have about a hundred companies that I’m interested in bringing into the shop, but then you have to stop and ask yourself: Do I have room? Do I have money? Does it fit the mission of the store? That’s the point where I pause and think and pump the brakes, but it gets harder and harder, especially when customers come in with niche interests that I want to provide for. I hate having to tell people I don’t have a certain book or item in stock, but at the end of the day, resources are limited. My customers understand that, but it’s still a difficult fact for me to accept!
Do you have any hopes and dreams for the store in the coming years that you don’t mind sharing?
When I migrate to my new storefront down the street, I plan on hosting weekly events, from craft and gardening classes to author talks to guest speakers on a variety of topics (local history, financial literacy, environmental science, etc.) so my ultimate dream is that the shop truly becomes a third space for the community with lots of voices adding to the conversation. I’ve had a lot of customers with different specialities (bird photography and foraging come to mind) say they’d be willing to come in for events, so the challenge right now is sorting and prioritizing those offers—but I haven’t said no to anyone yet. There’s room for everything eventually! Hopefully!
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Any book recommendations you’d like to share, what are you reading now?
If I could recommend one book, it would be The Nature of Oaks by Douglas Tallamy. I’ve been reading up on native plants and sustainable gardening for a couple years now, and this is the book that made everything click for me. Lots of people understand the importance of planting natives and reducing the abundance of invasive plants in the garden, but when you drill down even deeper, you discover that some native plants are far more crucial to an ecosystem’s overall health than other varieties of natives. Oaks host a huge swath of insects across their lifestages, so they are a keystone species that in turn supports our local bird populations. Everything works in tandem (when it’s working properly) and when you finally see the full picture, it’s a beautiful thing.
You can find Woolly Bear Books in Carnegie, PA – and online at woollybearbooks.com and @woollybearbooks on Instagram. If you stop by and give them a follow, tell ’em Littsburgh sent ya!
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