Debra Alfano grew up with a love for stationery and all things crafty.
“Getting a gift like a 64 box of Crayola Crayons was like the epicenter, I just loved everything about it,” she said.
With an outgoing personality, she dreamed of opening a shop that would invite customers to share her interest in stationery and to indulge in her brand of humor. She began creating notebooks as a hobby, selling them at small local holiday markets, but her law career, family obligations and a fear of failure held up her plans.
When she became an empty nester, she decided it was time to act on her ambition to open a shop.
“If not now, when? I’ve always wanted to do this and if I make mistakes — and I have — it’ll be alright,” she rememered telling herself.
She opened The Prickly Porcupine in Capital Plaza in April of 2026.
Big windows peer into the shop from the outside, covered in string decorations made out of paper.
Alfano visited stationery stores in other cities to evaluate their displays and layouts and to take take inspiration from their decorations. These ideas influenced her approach to setting up her own store, bearing in mind every customer’s convenience.
She placed tables strategically away from walls, leaving the opportunity for multiple people to look at her products at once.
The process of building a new business was uncharted territory for Alfano. “This was all brand new to me,” she said. She taught herself how to source products, set up the space and manage operations.
Her shop sells stationery, cards, pens, stickers and notebooks, many featuring witty sayings to make customers smile.
One of her regular customers, Skylar Carr, has found gifts and decor for her apartment at The Prickly Porcupine.
“I think it’s literally a store that all ages can find something at, and there’s a little something for everyone,” she said.
Some of Alfano’s products are homemade. Others she buys from a wholesale market called Fair, making a lot of her products limited and unique.
All kinds of stickers are available for purchase along the store’s back wall, under paintings of the store’s logo.
The wall also holds her Lego collection of famous paintings as decoration. Alfano said she originally was not going to hang them up, but was just making them as a way to calm her mind and unwind.
While she hopes all her customers enjoy her products, all of them are there because she personally loves them.
“A lot of stuff in here reflects my family and my friends,” she said, “There are little things in here, it might be a sticker that makes me think of one of my sons, it may be a notebook that makes me think of one of my friends.”
Carr appreciates the unique twist Alfano has on a regular stationery store.
“I know there’s other stationery stores in Concord, but with The Prickly Porcupine, it has this edge to it, that’s like her thing,” Carr said.
Alfano hopes to expand one day to host classes and workshops, like journaling, as a way to encourage community creativity.
“I’m just learning the ropes myself, but I’m always thinking of ways to involve the community,” she said.
The Prickly Porcupine is located at 57 North Main Street in Concord.
