About Me

I’ve spent most of my life building things I wished existed.

Sometimes that meant a bookstore that felt like a sanctuary.
Sometimes it meant a community event where every stranger felt like a neighbor.
Sometimes it meant a reptile store, a 3D-printing lab, or a resurrected idea I wasn’t ready to let die.

My name is Pablo Guzman and I'm a bookseller, entrepreneur, and someone who has followed curiosity into more businesses than any spreadsheet would recommend. I run The Midnight Oil Bookstore in Greeley, Colorado, a place built on used books, good conversations, and the belief that reading changes people. I’m also building a sister store at The Armory, co-running a plant store, scaling a 3D-printing shop, and writing a novel set in a world where memory gives stories their power.

My work has always lived in that overlap between community and creativity. Where a store becomes more than inventory, and a city becomes more than the space around it. I like turning ideas into places people can walk into. I like building things that outgrow me. I like exploring and finding the interesting things that others seem to overlook.

But underneath all of it is the same through-line:
I’m a first-generation Mexican American who learned early that storytelling is survival, creativity is resourcefulness, and community is something you build with your own hands. The stores I run are an extension of that, places to gather, to learn, to feel seen, and to pursue our own curiosities.

I’ve created this blog as a place to think out loud, about books, business, travel, creativity, and the strange intersections where they tend to meet. Some days I’m writing about running a bookstore. Some days I’m writing about the businesses I’m building, the cities I wander through, or the ideas that hit me somewhere between pulling weeds and pulling first editions.

If you’re here, it’s probably because you love stories, or small businesses, or the messy beautiful process of creating something from nothing.
Welcome. Truly.

I don’t have everything figured out, but I’m having a fun time trying. Thank you for coming to browse my blip of space.