Description
Quail Hawkins was a bookseller for the Sather Gate Book Shop in Berkeley from 1926 until 1970 as well as a respected author of children’s books. Born in 1905 in Spokane, Washington, she attended UC Berkeley and started working for the Sather Gate Book Shop in 1926, where she spent more than three decades. Hawkins also worked for Publishers Weekly and the University of California Press. As an author, she published nine children’s books including “A Puppy for Keeps” and “Mark, Mark, Shut the Door.” In this interview, she discusses her early years at the Sather Gate Book Shop, the San Francisco Chronicle Book Page, lessons learned as a bookseller, and Berkeley throughout the decades. Hawkins was interviewed for the Regional Oral History Office as part of the project, Books and Printing in the San Francisco Bay Area.