Editing The Pen Addict 718/transcript (section)

== Supporting local pen shops and pen shows ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So always support your local shops, everyone. And you know what? Also support your local pen shows. How's that for a segue? This episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by the St. Louis Pen Show. That's coming up this summer. And if you love the feel of cursive writing, even with a fountain pen or documenting your thoughts and ideas through journaling or even just doodling, the 2026 St. Louis Pen Show is the place for you. It's on Thursday, June 25th through Sunday, June 28th and features special appearances by our very own Brad Dowdy and Scott Jones and emphasizing our central location of meeting in the middle. It never gets tired to read my own name like that. It's like, hey, I'm going to be there, which is cool. I'm looking forward to it. There will be 102 vendors across 25 states and Canada that include Artisan Pens and Pencils, Vintage Pen Dealers, Nib Meisters, Pen Repairmen, Ink Journals, Paper Stationery, Clothing Vendors and much more. Thursday is Trader Day. Friday is open to the public with an evening event of Vintage Pen Panel and Pen Tasting followed by a free dessert party. Those are two separate events. You taste the pens and try them out in one area then you eat the desserts in another area. So two separate events. Make sure you're aware. Saturday and Sunday open to the public again with an evening pen show after dark on Saturday night. There are 26 classes, one of my favorite things to do. I need to look at the classes for while I'm going to be there. Over the three days including calligraphy, bookbinding, stamp making, and card design. There are also a lot of additional activities this year including a silent auction, scavenger hunt for kids and adults, journal meetup corner, limited edition stamp and sticker collection booklets, and much more. There's so much to see and do at this year's St. Louis Pen Show. So how do you get there? St. Louis Pen Show is at the Sheraton Westport Lakeside Chalet on the beautiful Westport Plaza. There's plenty of free parking there, loads of restaurants, and it's just 10 minutes from the airport. You can also get a pen show special room rate of $155 with breakfast included. So go check out the St. Louis Pen Show website at stlpenshow.com. You can buy your tickets as $10 per day or $20 for a weekend pass or $30 for a trader pass for all show access. Again, you can find the vendor information, sign up for classes, and get your tickets now on their website at stlpenshow.com. Our thanks to St. Louis Pen Show for supporting this show and all of Relay. All right, you've been traveling this year so far in 2026. What has been your favorite pen show stop or pen store stop? You know, we're only in May of this month so you've made it out a couple times more than me. So what have you been up to so far? And then we'll talk about what you got planned.

'''Derek DeWeese:''' Well, I kind of consider March to be the pen show month because back-to-back show weekends of Arkansas and Atlanta, they ran together where Arkansas, I was presenting at one of the round tables in the after dark or, you know, the after thing that Arkansas does on Saturday and then I did a live stream which was actually really fun. And that was my first time taking my podcast type setup on the road and set up on Friday as kind of a preview for, and the show was great. They organized all the guests. They had them show up at the right time. I just sat there and talked and had the stream going just so people could kind of see a preview of what they could see on Saturday or Sunday and it was really nice for someone to just be able to walk in and take, you know, it was like 10 minute, something like that, a couple of questions. Oh, I'm Brad. I do have this, you know, come see me, here's my website, just basic information. And then I did on typewriters because that's one of my latest forays in the stationery world in the round table where I brought five of my typewriters, set up a table and just let people play on them. I was kind of saying, here's how I'm doing my typewriters in my station. I'm doing typewriter journaling or typing out my swatch cards because my handwriting is terrible. So that way they are, you know, legible on the color decks and things like that. And then followed up the following weekend with Atlanta where I was just there to do the community aspect, hang out because I didn't get to do that unfortunately as much in Arkansas because helping, which I love doing, you don't get as much time, you know, while you're setting up and taking down all this stuff, that's when people are getting a chance to have the conversation. So I made up for that in Atlanta, you know, staying out, hanging at the big table or in the bar area and just playing with pins, you know, and talking to people. That was a lot of fun. And then, not pin show, but typewriter or other kind of show. I recently went to Cincinnati to Richard Polt. He's the, one of the authors I had interviewed on the podcast. He wrote the book The Typewriter Revolution and he was selling off a lot of his collection. So I drove to Cincinnati to pick, bring home three typewriters, stopped at a stationery store because when I chose my hotel, of course I chose the one that was a block away from the pin store in downtown Cincinnati, you know, convenience, and was able to duck in there. So, it's been a busy time. I've got a little bit of a break now. DC is the next thing on the docket where I will be in the Vaness Pin Lounge as an extra person to kind of help out in there. I don't really know what I'm doing or if I'm going to be doing anything specific, but I'm looking forward to that because that's kind of, once again, the community aspect, the shopping part, and it also helped rein in the shopping. If I'm in there, it's less time I can be roaming around and finding things I didn't know I needed and can't leave without.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Have you done the DC pin show before?

'''Derek DeWeese:''' I have not. This will be my first time at one of the big shows. I've really only done Arkansas three times now, Atlanta twice. Those are the only shows. Okay. But I want to try and add more in. You will enjoy DC.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm not trying to freak, I don't like to try to freak people out about DC because you shouldn't be, but you will actually like DC. And I was accidentally part of the Vaness Lounge last year at the DC pin show. I wasn't planned on it, but Lisa knows I'm always available to help her out whenever she needs it. And she had a couple times where she needed me and that was like maybe the highlight of my show. And I was, I would finish, you know, whatever she needed me to do, either host a beginner pin show for an hour or do like a notebook Q&A, you know, for an hour. I'd go back and ask her, like, do you need me again? Because number one, I enjoy doing that stuff, which you do too. And number two, to your second point, it keeps me from spending money. So that's a good thing at DC. I still manage. Don't worry. You'll still manage too. I saw you manage well in Atlanta, so don't pretend that you're not. But it's a great break and I love going to those types of events, especially for beginners. Like, that's like one of my favorite things is getting to talk to beginners because they ask just like, like the most basic questions. And it's like, man, y'all, I'm really glad y'all came here to be able to ask these questions. They don't necessarily get that. That's, it's, there's plenty of resources online, but still getting to hear that, to ask your very highly specific questions, very beginnerish question and get a direct answer from someone and go, oh yeah, that, that makes sense. Like that is, it's, it's super good that people have this opportunity. So I think you're going to enjoy that a lot.

'''Derek DeWeese:''' No. And even if it's something like, if I'm in there, cause I know Olive Octopus, Inc. Lisa is also going to be in there. So it's going to be Lisa and Lisa. If someone has a question about ink swatching, oh, I do a little bit of swatching, but let, let me introduce you to Lisa here, who is like the expert in ink swatching. And then it's the same thing. Oh, you like writing with tiny nibs. See, this is Derek over here. Look at his pen case here. And then, you know, they can play because we each have our own kind of niche specialty or subset that we know more about. And it's nice to just nothing else. Make the introductions. Oh yeah, here. I can show you the basics of this. If you want to know more, go look at the pen addict post or this. Here's some resources online. So you can follow up now that you've had hands on, you can, you know, learn more at home in the leisure of how you choose to consume your knowledge versus, you know, do, is this person trustworthy? Is this good information? Is this bad information? That's always the risk of online, but talking to someone and getting to put hands on, that's really important in stationery. You're feeling paper, seeing how ink shows in light. Because as we know, the camera does not do favors for some of these colors and inks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And the, the show and tell aspect. So anyone considering any pen show, not just DC, the, the hands-on aspect of any pen show is the best thing I think for beginners to do. Pen shows can be intimidating, especially DC can be intimidating. But if you, if you're just starting to get into this stuff and you have availability, you know, like in Atlanta or a Chicago or wherever, there's a pen show or a pen show stop to go and handle like a fountain pen and ask questions.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like it's, it's an invaluable experience. You don't have to spend a dime, but you come away with a wealth of information. Any other pen show stuff later in the year, DC kind of the, the go out with a bang and then maybe see what happens rest of the year.

'''Derek DeWeese:''' Well, not a pen show, but a community event. The on the paper trail, um, with the, which is the podcast that, uh, Joe Crace and Lisa Vanessa have started, which is an interesting tape because both of them being store owners, it's a different point of view, but they're going to be hosting an event here in Nashville, October 16th through 18th. And I don't know if they've decided on what the official stops, if it's going to be like on the paper trail trail stop or something like that, but they're going to be hosting more of a community event where it's the, the hangout version of a pen show and not, there will be some shopping, but that's not the main focus like pen shows. Uh, they've gone to some of the planner events, which are more classes and community with a little bit of shopping. And I think that really struck a chord, which I'm excited for because, you know, like you're saying someone who's new, that's a great chance for them to come and see if, you know, get the hangout aspect and ask the questions in a, in a, somewhere where they're not going to be hesitant to ask questions. You know, it's, it's going to be a great event. Anna from well-appointed desk is going to be there. Olive octopus is going to be doing some swatching classes. I'm doing a typewriter thing. I think I really don't know what I'm doing. I'm just going to be there. And what's closer to the time. Okay. And we need to do this and this. Okay. Let's do it. You know, but just being there, our pen club, you know, is excited because it's having something in town is always, you know, I think Nashville has been on the list of eventually I'd love to see a show here, but it takes, you know, groundwork and time to get it happening because we are central. A lot of people want to come to Nashville for the tours aspect and they can go do that and then come back to the show. Cause I don't want to go downtown unless I'm forced just about.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' True. True. But no, I love that. I love that. They're doing that. I wish I could make it. It is smack in between my St. Jude and Japan events. So I won't have any time off in between. But yeah, I'll be anxious to see how that goes and we'll definitely be checking in and checking it out. We both mentioned, mentioned questions that, you know, beginners get to ask when they come to pen shows. And I have maybe the most important question I'm going to ask you in this entire podcast today, Derek, but not before we get to our next sponsor, our good friends over at Enigma stationery. So Enigma stationery offers up unique items made from in-house designs, along with top brands and hard to find imports. I'm a huge fan of Enigma stationery. I've been shopping them with them for years, either online on their online website. I've gotten to purchase from them at the San Francisco pen show and a couple of times. So they're just wonderful, wonderful retailer would bring in just a wonderful amount of fun stationery items, which I love. So I've been checking it out their shop recently. One of the, one of the things I bought and I was looking at their, their newest arrivals. And they're now carrying a company called the Wolf shop. Okay. So the Wolf shop, they make a lot of stickers and they make these coasters. And a couple of weeks ago when I was ordering from them, I just randomly, not randomly, like I pick up, I picked up a coaster and I'm a coaster person. I'm at my desk all day long. I have coffee. I have soda. I have water. I always, I always have a coaster going and they had this pride heart coaster and it's a hand tufted punch needle mug rug. It's not a coaster, Derek, it's a mug rug. And it's basically like a carpet cut out of a coaster, but you know, with a pattern, this one has a pride flag. They have a strawberry one. They have a trans pride flag. They have a bunch of cats. Like I've shown this on my stream and everyone goes, what is that coaster? It is one of the coolest things I've added to my desk. I'm a big fan of just having like the desk accessory type stuff to make my desk at home. Like very comfortable, very fun, make it a happy place for me to work. And you know, the, the, the company called the wolf shop, they have a bunch of these cat prints with like these, it's like a Victorian, they're like dressed up in like Victorian dress. And like, if you need this stuff, like for your desk, like, look, we all need some sanity around our desk. You know, whether you work from home or in an office and having some stuff from the wolf shop, which is now being carried over at Enigma stationery, that is the way to go. And don't think I'm forgetting our good friend, business frog. Business frog is very much in stock and very much on his way to my house. And I believe Derek may have even partaken in business frog himself with some business washy. So yeah, they carry some just really, really fun stuff. And so go check them out. If you have an order of $50 over $50 or more at Enigma stationery, you can get $10 off at checkout using the code TPA26. You can go to the link Enigma stationery.com slash pen addict and use that code TPA26 for $10 off your order of $50 or more. And, you know, check out all the pens, all the stationery, like literally all the fun I did. I did just see today. I did, I did just see today as I was getting ready for the show. They have some of the Lamy M17 jet stream refills in, which is a very, very sneaky addition there. I see them working because those still have not hit the wider market. It look, it's an expensive refill. I'm going to tell you it's an expensive refill, but if you like the Lamy ballpoint system, this is the way to go. It's one of my favorite products, uh, that has been released in quite some time. So go check out on Enigma stationery. That's, uh, enigma stationery.com slash pen addict and use the code TPA26 at checkout for $10 off your order of $50 or more. Our thanks to Enigma stationery for their support of this show and all of relay. All right. Are you ready for that question? Well,

'''Derek DeWeese:''' one thing first, because it ties in. Yeah. Looking at the Enigma site while you were doing the ad, you can tell the people who shop there, listen to your content. The most popular products, if you sort by all business frog, washing a little detail tweezers, and then a Zento gel pen and then the M17. So yeah, definitely the, uh, the tie-ins are there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was thinking like, so, you know, Dan and Michelle and pen over at Enigma station. You know, they don't, they don't, they give us the ad read. Right. And they say, you riff, you riff on your thing. And I went off on business frog when I found them. Right. So, and like, they didn't say anything to me, which was good. I was like, I'm going to get in trouble. I'm going to get in trouble. I went in on this washi tape frog.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And, and then I did it again, the next read. And I was like, they didn't say anything that time. I didn't get in trouble. So I was like, this time I'm not going to do it. There's a lot of other cool stuff I'm going to talk about, but I had to sneak in a little business frog. I mean, are you even businessing? If you don't business frog, that's what, that's what I think. So, all right. Most important question. I am going to ask you, maybe not just in this podcast, but in your life in general, have you seen my Uniball Zento, Derek?

'''Derek DeWeese:''' I have, but have you seen both of mine? Oh no. Oh no.