HOMEBODY Hilarie Burton Morgan was an actor, producer and host of MTV’s “Total Request Live” before she became the co-owner of Mischief Farm in New York’s Hudson Valley and author of “The Rural Diaries,” which just spent TK weeks on the hardcover nonfiction list. Before that, she was a cheerleader and a tortured poet growing up in Sterling Park, Va., which she describes in her book as a “pastoral community” — that is, until “Amazon opened a huge headquarters in Northern Virginia, right in my little town, and suddenly an influx of 2,000 people completely erased the childhood that I had grown up with.”
As a result, Morgan is fiercely protective of the small-town vibe of her adopted community, Rhinebeck, N.Y., where she lives with her husband, the actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, their two children and a menagerie that includes chickens, ducks, donkeys, cows, alpaca and an emu. In this spirit of neighborhood preservation, Morgan asked followers on social media to order copies of “The Rural Diaries” from her local independent bookseller, Oblong Books.
She explains, “I had agreed to sign 1,000 books for Oblong and they sold out quickly in pre-orders. I said, I’ll do another 1,000 and those sold out quickly too. And then I said, ‘Look, as long as you keep selling books, I’ll sign every single one of them because it’s keeping your lights on at a time when no one can come in and shop.’ Oblong became the epicenter of ‘The Rural Diaries.’ They’ve been shipping books all over the world.”
Suzanna Hermans, who co-owns the 47-year-old store with her father, Dick, says, “We’re very proud of this campaign and immensely grateful to Hilarie for her support and generosity.” By the end of May, Oblong had sold 7,355 copies of “The Rural Diaries” — an impressive number even in ordinary times.
Still, as enthusiastic as Morgan has been about signing books at home, she can’t wait to visit the bookstore. She says, “When you walk into Oblong Books, there are two entrances. The one at the front is where they put all the books that have been written by local authors. I still haven’t seen my book there.”
In the meantime, whether it’s curbside delivery or assembling custom birthday packages, Morgan is grateful for the creative ways businesses have found to stay afloat and bring normalcy to customers’ lives: “I hope people will remember this when things start to go back to normal. The small stores provide a level of care we should reward.”
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June 04, 2020 at 04:55PM
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Hilarie Burton Morgan Asked Fans to Shop Local. They Listened. - The New York Times
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