WHERE STORIES GATHER: MEG OLSON and the SOUL OF COUPEVILLE

Feb 18, 2026

Meg Olson, owner of Kingfisher Bookstore and longtime community connector on Whidbey Island, brings warmth, wit, and bookstore savvy. She talks about restoring a historic shop, running an indie bookstore with heart, inclusion and censorship issues, surprising customer tastes, analog letter-writing rituals, community events, and why independent bookstores thrive as neighborhood living rooms.

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ANECDOTE

A Holiday Moment Became A Bookstore

Meg and her husband found Kingfisher on a whimsical visit during Coupeville's greening and immediately pursued buying the long-for-sale building.
The former owner vetted Meg's bookseller knowledge and wanted the space to remain a bookstore called Kingfisher.

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ANECDOTE

The Store Is A Living History Lesson

Meg preserves the building's history and uses its features to teach kids about local past uses like the confectionery and outhouse.
She leads third graders on tours pointing out artifacts and marks that tell the store's story.

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ADVICE

Budget For Seasonality And Pay Staff Well

Plan cash flow and staffing around seasonality and community patterns to pay staff living wages year-round.
Offer full-time, stable roles and budget for slow months like February to retain quality booksellers.

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How Kingfisher Found Its Owners

02:08 • 3min

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Restoring a Historic Building

05:19 • 2min

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Why They Chose Small-Town Life

07:10 • 3min

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Running an Independent Bookstore's Challenges

10:29 • 2min

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Inclusion, Censorship, and Store Values

12:10 • 2min

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Surprises from Customer Tastes

14:06 • 4min

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Supporting Audiobook Alternatives

18:10 • 1min

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Bestsellers, Regional Lists, and Discoveries

19:39 • 1min

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The Correspondent and Letter Writing Revival

20:56 • 4min

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Analog Practices and Handwriting

24:50 • 57sec

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Bookstore as Community Connector

25:47 • 3min

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Curation Philosophy and Team Input

29:05 • 5min

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Supporting Local Authors and Events

34:30 • 3min

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A Memorable Author Event: Saffron Mussels Night

37:27 • 3min

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The Book Spa and Intimate Events

40:40 • 50sec

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Day-to-Day Physical Work of Bookselling

41:30 • 2min

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Changes on Front Street Since 2018

43:26 • 4min

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Evolving Reading Trends: Romance and Witchcraft

47:00 • 6min

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Indie Bookstores' Strength: Community over Convenience

53:25 • 3min

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Plans: More Community Connections, Not Just Expansion

56:53 • 4min

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Rapid-Fire Favorites and Reading Habits

01:01:03 • 5min

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Books Everyone Should Own: Joy of Cooking

01:05:59 • 20sec

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Favorite Island Places and Secret Beach

01:06:19 • 2min

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Hardback vs Paperback and ARC Love

01:08:26 • 1min

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Unexpected Gems That Surprised Her

01:09:31 • 1min

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Kingfisher Summed Up in One Word

Kim Fay's 'Love and Saffron' is a novel centered on the ties of friendship, food, and family, often delivered through epistolary or intimately narrated scenes. The book explores relationships and culinary traditions, using food as a connective and revelatory device among characters. Its warm, sensory prose has made it a popular choice for community readings and paired events. The novel's themes lend themselves to collaborations with local restaurants and literary gatherings. Readers appreciate its intimate tone and its capacity to inspire communal conversations about memory and connection.

Warm Hands of Ghosts

Katherine Arden

Katherine Arden's work often fuses folklore, history, and lyrical prose; this title mixes elements of magical realism with historical wartime settings and intimate human relationships. The narrative traverses blurred lines between reality and the supernatural while focusing on character-driven emotional arcs. Arden's evocative language and atmospheric worldbuilding draw readers into a haunting yet tender story that defies strict genre labels. Her novels commonly explore mythic elements grounded in human experience, making them appealing to readers across fantasy and literary fiction. The book's surprising depth and hybrid nature make it a standout recommendation for diverse reading tastes.

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Kate & Frida

Kim Fay

Kim Fay's 'Kate & Frida' is presented in an epistolary format, using letters to explore the evolving relationship between its principal characters. The format highlights intimacy, miscommunication, and emotional development across time. Readers encounter themes of identity, memory, and the small rituals that sustain relationships, framed through personal correspondence. The novel appeals to those who appreciate character-driven storytelling and the old-fashioned pleasures of letter-writing. Its structure makes it especially suitable for book clubs and author events centered on analog communication.

#6893

• Mentioned in 7 episodes

The Joy of Cooking

A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat

Marion Rombauer Becker

Irma S. Rombauer

The Joy of Cooking, initially self-published by Irma S. Rombauer in 1931, has become a cornerstone of American cooking. The book was compiled from recipes Rombauer perfected as a homemaker, cooking class teacher, and hostess. It features a conversational style, making it accessible to middle-class home cooks. The cookbook includes a wide range of recipes, from basic dishes to more complex preparations, along with practical advice on cooking techniques and etiquette. Over the years, it has been revised and expanded, with the latest edition in 2019 including modern cooking techniques and new recipes developed by John Becker and Megan Scott, Irma's great-grandson and his wife.

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• Mentioned in 31 episodes

The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov

The novel intertwines several narratives, including the story of Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ, and the adventures of the devil Woland and his entourage in Moscow. The Master, a writer who has been driven to insanity by the rejection of his novel about Pontius Pilate, and his mistress Margarita, who remains loyal and determined to save him, are central characters. Margarita's journey involves becoming a witch and hosting Woland's midnight ball, where she uses her newfound powers for altruistic ends. The book is a critique of Soviet society, exposing corruption, moral decay, and the repression of artists and dissidents. It blends elements of satire, fantasy, and philosophical inquiry, reflecting Bulgakov's personal experiences with censorship and societal pressures.

Meg Olson is one of those people who make a town feel like home.

If you’ve ever walked into Kingfisher Bookstore and felt immediately welcomed, challenged, entertained, or gently told what you should be reading—there’s a good chance you’ve met Meg Olson.

Meg is the owner of Kingfisher Bookstore in Coupeville, and she is funny, outspoken, wildly knowledgeable, and absolutely unafraid to jump in and help—whether that means finding the perfect book, rallying behind a cause, or showing up for her community when it counts.

Kingfisher isn’t just a bookstore—it’s a place for ideas, conversations, author events, and the occasional opinion, and Meg has been at the center of all of it. She’s helped shape the literary life of Whidbey Island while proving that an independent bookstore can be smart, bold, welcoming, and deeply human all at the same time.

Today, we’re talking about books, business, community, and what it really takes to run an independent bookstore with heart, humor, and a very strong point of view.

If you have been listening to me for a while, you know I adored Meg! She is my kind of human.

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