There can be a lot of different ways into the scene, and maybe an endless number of avenues toward discovering your own cultural calling or your own best contribution among the creative and intellectual communities.
But even though it’s remarkably common for one to begin their journey at one end of the creative spectrum only to eventually wind up discovering themselves on a very different end, it’s safe to say that it’s not exactly common to go from filmmaker to philosophy major to record label manager to playwright to adjunct professor to kindergarten teacher.
But all of that is just a sampling of the circuitous route that the man known simply as Echo traveled on his way to eventually opening The Floating Bookshop in Oklahoma City.
Named not for the nautical theme of the shop’s current home within Sailor and the Dock on Film Row, but for the understanding that the store may over time have many homes across the city, The Floating Bookshop is already preparing to float through its first big move into the 9th Street District of OKC at the beginning of 2025.
Of course, moving and shifting is nothing new for Echo, and that lifetime’s worth of accumulating such a diverse range of knowledge and interests is what’s led him to develop the unique and cross-cultural selection that allows his bookstore to reflect his passions while also reflecting the larger community around it.
Echo: A thing that I strive for in my store is I try to have books that almost everyone can come in and see themselves in a book.
Brett Fieldcamp: For Echo, it’s not hard to see himself in any number of different roles and identities, having explored and experimented with such a wide variety of them.
Born in Hawaii, and schooled in filmmaking and philosophy in California, he always had a home base in his parents’ home state of Oklahoma, and after briefly running a record label in Tulsa and eventually studying literature and history in Indiana, he began to carve out a place for himself in the community of OKC as an adjunct professor of writing and literature at Oklahoma City University.
By the time that he opened his own bookstore, he knew that he could set it apart by focusing in more deeply on his own areas of study and interest alongside the more popular and expected offerings.
Echo: So I wanted to have some differentiation there. So it was like kind of finding different things of myself, you know.
It’s a lot of a lot of my interests, so a lot of weird, quirky picture books for kids, a lot of Latin American literature. I really like music, you know. I love science fiction. I love fantasy.
Owning a bookstore and running a bookstore, you know, it allows you to go down those little rabbit holes.
Brett Fieldcamp: But even after all of that, it was the surprising affinity for early childhood education that Echo developed as a father and a kindergarten teacher that engaged a deep love of the simplicity and creativity of children’s literature, and that helped him understand one of the most important audiences for any bookshop.
Echo: It's the gateway for a lot of people that come into the store, it's like their kids will sort of drag them in.
I think adults are much more willing to buy their kids a book than they are to buy themselves a book, which, you know, because adults are busy and have other things going on and don't know when they'll sit down and read it. But a lot of parents will come in to look at books with their kids, and then, like, pick up a book for themselves, too.
And then also, like, I love reading picture books. I mean, it sounds ludicrous as a forty-something year old to say, but I love reading picture books. They're great. I think more adults should read picture books. The world would be a much better place.
Brett Fieldcamp: Echo could still explore any of those various, often wildly disparate avenues, but it’s clear that this one carries a particular joy for him, and that it offers him a role and a way into the community that maybe he was always searching for down all of those other paths.
Ultimately, it’s about the importance that he sees in providing access to – and appreciation for – books themselves, especially at a time when it may be more important than ever to provide readers with a way to see themselves, a way to understand others, and a way to reflect the true diversity of the community in which we live.
Echo: Hopefully, what books do is they help us develop empathy with other people that maybe aren't like us. You know, they help us imagine what it might be like to be another person, and hopefully, through that, they give us empathy towards other people in the world, and that ability to imagine what it might be like to be someone not like you.
And then, at the same time, that ability to find yourself in a book when you may not see yourself in the dominant culture around you is really, really important.
Brett Fieldcamp: The Floating Bookshop currently resides within Sailor and the Dock on Film Row before moving to OKC’s 9th Street District at 9th and Broadway at the beginning of next year.
You can keep up with their move, their selection, and Echo’s own insights and musings by following @thefloatingbookshop on Instagram.
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