CC’ing Julie Schaper

September 4, 2025 | jordan bascom | consortium corner

Welcome to Consortium Corner, a Q&A series with staff and reps to celebrate Consortium’s 40 years of independent book distribution. To kick off the series, we’re CC’ing Julie Schaper, VP and president of Consortium, who just announced she’s retiring next year.

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

I’ve worked at Consortium for over 30 years where my responsibilities have included sales, marketing, publisher acquisitions, finance and leadership. I love discovering and working with independent publishers and contributing to their success through distribution. It’s not sexy, but it’s an important and rewarding part of the ecosystem of publishing.

In my spare time I read, travel, and enjoy seeing live performances of music and theatre. My husband and I are both involved with the Minnesota Prison Writers Project and We Are All Criminals.

What are 5 Consortium titles you love and why?

The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje (New Vessel Press)
In the aftermath of WWI a woman reclaims her amnesiac husband from a psychiatric asylum launching an epic and unforgettable love story.

Maleficium by Martine Desjardins (Talonbooks)
A heretic priest divulges the secrets of the confession booth in seven transgressive stories that evoke a sinful Scheherazade.

Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis (Coach House Books)
This is what happens when a two Greek Gods give a group of dogs human consciousness and language.

What About This: The Collected Poems of Frank Stanford (Copper Canyon Press)
His poems remind me of vernacular architecture or folk art steeped in their sense of place that is wild, romantic and reckless.

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit (Haymarket Books)
The title says it all.

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

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong and Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor. Both address the current tragedy of today’s world where communities are both chosen and destroyed by a lack of compassion and empathy.

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

We didn’t buy many books in my family, so my earliest memories were going to the library in our small town. My lifelong love of reading started there and included everything from James A. Michener fiction to Robert B. Parker mysteries.

I went to college in Lexington, KY and discovered SQecial Media, a combination book store, head shop and weird gift emporium located in an old house near campus. It was my first introduction to Charles Bukowski, Richard Brautigan, Greil Marcus and Gertrude Stein among many others. Today I think of it as the genesis of my independent press education that ultimately led me to Consortium. I haven’t been there in more than thirty years, but I looked it up online and remarkably they are still in business.

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

Honestly, there are so many memorable moments at Consortium, it’s hard to choose, but here are a couple.

In 1996 Stu Abraham, the founder of Abraham Associates, Consortium’s Midwest rep group invited me to lunch to meet Steve Horwitz, a new sales rep who had just arrived from South Carolina to the Twin Cities. Lively conversations ensued and three years later we were married at our favorite bar, the Loring Café in Minneapolis.

In 2010 Paul Harding won the Pulitzer for Fiction for Tinkers from Bellevue. An independent press hadn’t won that prize since 1981 (Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole was the last one). It was a perfect illustration of how the community of bookselling from the author to the publisher, from the distributor to the rep to the bookseller brought about an award-winning book. For a great piece on the whole story check out How on Earth Did Tinkers Win Paul Harding a Pulitzer Prize.

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