New Adventures

PALMER — After 17 years of running the iconic Fireside Books in downtown Palmer, David Cheezem is ready to pass the keys over to Mary Ann Cockle, a long-time employee.

“Time for a new adventure,” Cockle said.

Cockle said that Cheezem is ready to retire and get on his bike and go on long backpacking trips, and she is ready to turn a daydream into a reality. She’s spent the past few months working with Cheezem to transition into the next chapter and said the whole thing evolved organically.

“It happened at the right place and the right time.”

The transition should be complete within a month or so. She said it was stressful at first, but now she’s getting in a groove. She thanked her past self for taking several accounting classes at the Mat-Su College a few years ago. To many, the book store holds a lasting impression of the downtown strip. Using the 17 year legacy as a guide, she intends to sustain the same store everyone has grown attached to.

“It’s going to be business as usual,” she said. “Hopefully no one notices.”

She’s accumulated a total eight years as an employee. This is her ideal workplace — being surrounded by books. She recently retired from a much faster pace workplace as software engineer in Silicon Valley, California. In 2001, she moved to Palmer. She found herself stitched in the tight-knit community. She called it a “human-sized town,” meaning it was walkable and wasn’t gigantic. She said book stores in small towns like Palmer are “anchors for certain population.” From toddlers getting their first books, to teenagers getting another novel in their favorite series- she’s seen them all come through the Fireside doors.

“The bookstore has way of grounding people when visiting a town,” she said.

This particular store has a history of cozy community events and the persistent promotion of its local literary talent. Cheezem is a poet and lover of words. Fireside became a platform for showcasing literature and hub for connectivity and the love of words. Over the years, the store hosted a plethora of activities like poetry readings and author events.

“We want to encourage and embrace that,” Cockle said.

They’ve participated in many of the town’s thematic endeavors like the year the town turned into Alice in Wonderland. The store had nonsense poetry readings. Successful writers like Eowyn Ivey have promoted their books at the store. Ivey was a longtime employee at Fireside books before she was nominated for a Pulitzer.

“We have a lot of talent in the Valley,” Cockle said.

Cockle also has an affinity for words. She said she’d rather edit than write, however. When she was at her previous career in California, she tested software and often translated English and Japanese. With Japanese as her first language, she’s taken a fancy to study of words. She doesn’t seem to like clichés though.

“I know plenty of readers that aren’t leaders, and vice versa,” Cockle said.