CC’ing John Baynes

December 17, 2025 | Jordan Bascom | Consortium Corner

John Baynes, Consortium’s business operations manager and longest-serving employee, discusses some memorable books and beloved colleagues in his four-decade tenure, which began while working with Charlie Kaufman in the Consortium warehouse.

Welcome to Consortium Corner, a Q&A series with staff and reps to celebrate Consortium’s 40 years of independent book distribution.

Tell us a little about yourself and what you do at Consortium.

I have been with Consortium for 35 years. I started in the warehouse (when we still had one) and eventually worked my way into Customer Service. I helped run both of those departments until May 2007 when our warehouse moved to Tennessee. I then transitioned to Client Statements and Operations and have been doing that for the last 18 years. Outside of work I spend most of my time going to record stores, hanging out with my wife and kitties, and watching episodes of either House Hunters or The Rockford Files. Oh, and buying books but not necessarily reading them.

What are 5 Consortium titles you love and why?

The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova edited by Roberta Reeder (Zephyr Press)
What a joy to have such a momentous title on our list.

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton edited by Kevin Young and Michael S. Glaser (BOA Editions)
How lucky are we to say that we distribute both the Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton and Anna Akhmatova.

As Serious as Your Life: Black Music and the Free Jazz Revolution, 1957–1977 by Val Wilmer (Serpent’s Tail)
This is a great book about New Music and some of the more obscure artists in the 60s and 70s.

Angels in America by Tony Kushner (Theatre Communications Group)
Angels in America is such an important play and I am so proud that I can say that I have had a hand in getting that book out to the public.

Memories That Smell Like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz (Nightboat Books)
I feel that I have almost gone full circle: back in the early 90s we distributed Memories That Smell Like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz from Serpent’s Tail/High Risk, and now Nightboat has brought it out again in 2025. Very special.

Outside of Consortium titles, what books have you enjoyed recently?

I buy a lot of books about music. Some recent buys are Down River: In Search of David Ackles, Blank Forms 10: Alien Roots: Éliane Radigue, and It Girl, a book about singer/actress Jane Birkin. I love to read books about history and the one that I am probably anticipating the most is the final volume of the Lyndon Baines Johnson biography by Robert Caro.

Can you share any special or formative experiences you’ve had with bookstores and libraries?

The Hungry Mind in St. Paul was a special place. I went to school in St. Paul in the mid-1980s and I had never encountered anything like it. I came from a small town that didn’t have a bookstore. We just had a small town library and the high school library.

In your time at Consortium, what memorable or meaningful moments stand out?

When I started at Consortium, I was lucky to work with a lot of great people. I started in the warehouse in November 1988 and got to work with Charlie Kaufman and Greg Mulcahy. It was always fun to be part of those conversations. Charlie went on to direct movies in Hollywood and Greg got published by Knopf and others. I wasn’t the most adept with the warehouse equipment that we had at the time and luckily didn’t break Charlie’s foot when I dropped a pallet on said foot.

I also got to work with Andrew Tunick. He was a big influence on how I went about my job. He was also very funny and let me ramble on about random things as inconsequential as the latest Brady Bunch TV movie.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Tom Oaks. I worked with Tom for a long time, and he was great fun to be around. I would say my high point at Consortium was teaching Tom how to do a Vlookup in Excel. We were also likely the only two people at Consortium who looked forward to our yearly Inventory.

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