Mr. Otto’s Bookstore is Stockton is one of the last independent children’s bookstores in San Joaquin County. Its new owner, Alex Long, wants the store to be a resource to children, parents and writers throughout the region. 

David Oorbeck and Tsutomu Kanaya, owners of Dru & Tsutomu Designs, say that some artist friends of theirs told them about Sacramento — that it was affordable and contained consumers “as attracted to creativity as in the Bay Area.”

Despite turning 78 this year, Pleau still heads to the office every day to rally the troops, monitor customer satisfaction, and follow his North Star: “My real focus is on expansion,” says Pleau. “I’m not done.”

The number of craft sellers on Etsy.com tripled after 2020. We checked in with the veterans and the newbies in the Capital Region’s crafting scene.

Vanessa Van Vleck keeps a wall of shame at Superbum Plant Company, identifying people suspected of stealing from her East Sacramento store. It’s one of the few things Van Vleck and her husband, Dylan Van Vleck, who opened their business in 2021, can do to deal with a burgeoning problem in California.

Dan Dillon had been retired about two weeks from the Elk Grove Unified School District when he realized he needed something to do. “Everybody’s different,” says Dillon, 70. “Like my brother, he’s retired. And he goes kayaking, fly fishing and windsurfing. And he’s always going to Hawaii, Tahoe, Baja California. He keeps so busy. I was never that person.”

Feeling good lately? Does the country, the world, seem good? With a divided electorate, a multiply indicted candidate, the dregs of a pandemic swirling through our psyches, and the hottest summer on record, sometimes it’s hard to find the good.

Oto oversees marketing and communications for both the CalAsian Chamber of Commerce, an organization representing Asian American and Pacific Islander-owned businesses around the state, and the Sacramento Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce, which centers its efforts on the Capital Region.