Storied Charlotte

Back in March 2020 I wrote a Storied Charlotte blog post about Charlotte-area publishers, and I focused much of this post on the Main Street Rag Publishing Company.  This business got its start as the publisher of The Main Street Rag, a quarterly literary magazine that began in 1996 under the editorship of M. Scott Douglass.  Since then, the Main Street Rag Publishing Company has evolved into a well-regarded independent press known especially for poetry.  

I recently visited the Main Street Rag’s website, and I was surprised to see the announcement that the business’s long-standing Mint Hill address would “change no later than January 1, 2025.” I did a bit more research, and I discovered that Scott and his business had just moved to Pennsylvania. Curious, I contacted Scott and asked him about this move.  Here is what he sent to me:

For years my wife and I were looking for a second home in Western Pennsylvania to use as a place to stay while visiting family. She’s from Albion, I’m from Pittsburgh, but we both have strong ties to Erie. Her nephews live there. My son and granddaughter live there. My grandson lives not far away in Meadville. Edinboro is a small college town that put us closer to where we could play a bigger part with our families. We had lost both parents while living 500+ miles away. There is still a bitter scar among some members of my family because I hadn’t been there enough for my parents. 

The problem with second home shopping was: We couldn’t find anything acceptable in our price range. So, we stopped shopping for a second home.

As owner of Main Street Rag, I can never fully retire, but Jill was nearing her time. We vacationed in Oregon in the spring of 2024. On the morning of June 25, we left Boise on our way to Salt Lake City. It was her birthday and she had finally conceded that she was ready to retire. I asked her what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go—thinking mostly of travel. She said she wanted to “move back home.” 

It was a bit of a surprise, but not too much. I had other places in mind if we moved, but she’d always said she didn’t want to live where it was cold. Home was in the Pennsylvania snow belt, where it definitely gets cold. With that, the decision had been made. The following week we started house shopping. Three weeks later we bid on a house. September 6^th we closed on it.

It was time to prep our house and empty 25 years of nesting. This was right around the time Helene came through. An 80-year-old oak fell and crushed my barn and almost everything in it, The storm caused roof and internal damage which delayed getting our house on the market. 

When the FOR SALE sign went up in our yard, our friends and neighbors did not take it well. One next door neighbor said he was mad at me for leaving, said I lied to him when I said this was our “forever home.” The neighbor on the other side put his house up for sale and moved before we managed to close on ours. Our closest friends acted as if we had abandoned them. 

Some folks took it personally, but that’s not what it was about. It was about getting back, closer to our families. 

From the business standpoint, Main Street Rag had cut a place in North Carolina history. We likely published more North Carolina poets and writers than any publisher previously. But the winds had shifted and, frankly, it was portable. I could put it on my back and take it with me. 

When we started, it was because there was a limited number of publishing options for regional authors. For a while, we were at the top of many peoples’ list for book publication and for appearance in our literary journal. At one point, the subscription base for my magazine was about 30% North Carolina authors, but with the most recent issues, even those prior to announcing our move, the strength of my subscription base had shifted from the Carolinas to the northeast, specifically Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Moving back to Pennsylvania put Main Street Rag closer to what has become the center of our financial support. 

We still have strong ties to the Charlotte area. Our books and magazine are still produced there, and most of our editors live in North Carolina. But our new location has several benefits that weren’t available there. 

Since I work out of my house, our new house is benefit number one. Our money went further in Edinboro than it could have in the Charlotte market. Our new house has room to host as many as six overnight guests comfortably. It also has an addition I call my shop that has more than a thousand square feet. It’s large enough to fit my small office space, all of my “hobbies” and when I’m done unpacking and building it out, it’s large enough to fit a lending library of about 5000 small press books that are hard to find anywhere else along with seating space for about 50 people when it’s ready to host reading events. 

We will always cherish our time in Charlotte and will return frequently. But family is our first obligation and in reconnecting to that, we’ve also discovered a whole new world of possibilities for Main Street Rag.

I thank Scott for sharing his reasons for moving to Pennsylvania. I bid him farewell, and I wish him all the best as he and his wife settle into their new home. Scott has played a major role in Storied Charlotte’s literary scene for many years, and he will be missed.