Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country (and beyond!)

After a little break in July for Zine Month, we are BACK with a new store for the Project!

Meet Spoke & Word Books, one of our local indies right nearby in Milwaukie (Oregon, not Wisconsin.) We got to chat with store owner Cierra on the podcast recently about all things bookselling and community, and here’s our other interview with them about the store itself!

Your name and pronouns?
Cierra Cook (they/them)

Tell us a little bit about the store and your community.
Spoke & Word Books is a new and used community bookshop in Milwaukie, just on the outskirts of Portland, OR.

We’re in historic downtown Milwaukie, which has been a pretty quiet area for a few years. There are some exciting new businesses that’ve opened in the last year or so, including a waste free shop and a new local cafe and grocery. We’re so excited to be a part of a resurgence of activity in downtown Milwaukie. Every community deserves a local bookshop that can curate a selection that serves them specifically.

While we have a broad scope as a community bookshop, including new, used, and children’s, we have a particular focus on genre fiction and queer interest, especially romance. When I was growing up I didn’t see myself in any of the books that were available to me, and now our mission is to make sure everyone has access to books where they can see themselves represented joyfully.

What got you into bookselling?
I started Spoke & Word Books as a pop-up shop, and it operated without a permanent location for about a year and a half before we transitioned to a brick and mortar. The idea for a bookstore came when I was doom scrolling towards the end of the pandemic. I remember feeling so lonely and discouraged, and scrolling endlessly online to try and find something good. One night I realized that I could DO SOMETHING good, since it seemed so hard for me to find a lot of positive things happening in my community at the time. I started Spoke & Word Books from my basement, selling new and used books at pop-up events and community festivals once COVID restrictions began to ease up.

It was honestly the perfect time to start a community based business like this. We had all gone through the collective trauma of COVID and the social justice awakening of 2020, and so many of us were looking for community.

A large part of what we do at the bookstore now is intentional community building. We host 2-3 events a week, including standard bookclubs and storytimes, but also oddball events like a release party for Taylor Swift’s new album, craft nights, and a 90’s Sleepover Party just for fun.

People can buy a book literally anywhere, but our goal is to create authentic connection and community that can’t be replaced by a tech company.

How did you choose your store’s name?
My husband actually came up with the name Spoke & Word Books. He refurbishes old mountain bikes into gravel bikes, and so Spoke & Word is a combination of each of our passions- biking and reading! It has another meaning as well- one of our earliest ways of explaining what kinds of books we wanted to carry was “books people talk about”. We are drawn to books that help drive discussion and community, whether that’s a book about how to get engaged in your local government (Democracy in Retrograde), or the latest spicy romance (The Pairing).

What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
In addition to running our bookshop, I’m also a City Councilor in my small city. I think a lot of us came out of 2020 realizing that our time is limited, and that there’s no better time than now to do the work that is important to you. In both my work at the bookshop and as City Councilor, the most important part of the job is making connections and supporting our community.

What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
We have an incredible community of readers who have made our store what it is. Our customer support us by sharing reviews and recommending us to their friends, as well as donating books for our used inventory. We just launched a membership program in July that has already had a HUGE impact on our ability to stay solvent. The Milwaukie community has been so wonderfully supportive of the shop, and I’m grateful literally every day I get to come to work.

What are two books you can’t wait for people to read, or your current favorite handsells?
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston literally came out the day that I’m writing this, and it’s my favorite book of 2024, hands down. McQuiston is the absolute GOAT of romance, and The Pairing is their best work. It’s about two chaotic bisexuals rampaging through Europe on a food and wine tour, and would be my first recommendation for someone who thinks they don’t like romance (and anyone else too!). In addition to being just categorically one of the best written romances of all time (fight me), one of the main characters of The Pairing is non-binary, and their relationship to their gender and sexuality made me feel so seen. Beautifully written, deliciously queer, and just plain lovely.

I’m also really loving talking to folks about Democracy in Retrograde by Sami Sage and Emily Amick. So many of my customers have been anxious, frustrated, and scared about the presidential election this year. Democracy in Retrograde is part civic engagement primer, part self-help book, and helps people get past the anxiety of the national political landscape and learn how to engage where they can actually make a profound difference- in their local communities. We’re hosting a book club for this book, and my hope is that folks leave with a new inspiration and practical tools for getting involved in their local school board, city, or county leadership.

How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves and support you?
You can support Spoke & Word Books by shopping online at www.spokeandwordbooks.com! We can ship books straight to your home through our partnership with bookshop.org!

Anything else you’d like to share?
Thank you so much for the opportunity to share! <3<3<3

Be sure to follow Spoke & Word on their Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok, and listen to their podcast episode here!

You can read our other Bookstore Solidarity Project posts here!
And click here to get a copy of How to Protect Bookstores and Why.

Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country. This month, we’re featuring Alibi Bookshop in Vallejo, California, owned by Karen Finlay.

Your name and pronouns?
Karen Finlay, she/her

Tell us a little bit about the store and your community!
We moved to Vallejo from Oakland in 2017, and there was a tiny used bookstore with a small selection; I was disappointed that we didn’t have something *more.* Some people can’t live away from water, and I can’t live far away from a bookstore. One day I said, “I wish I could open a bookstore in Vallejo!” Well, be careful what you wish for — we wound up buying the store and opened in 2019. Not the greatest timing because a pandemic was looming, but our community has kept us here and we are so, so grateful.

Vallejo, the most diverse city in the US, is an interesting and historical town with its share of issues, but the best community anywhere. It was a navy town , but the navy left in the late ’90s and the city declared bankruptcy in 2008, and our downtown still reflects that. But we are working hard to bring back some vitality, and it’s been fantastic! The pandemic derailed our initial efforts, but we’ve been ramping up again. We’ve had sold out events at the local movie theater, two active book clubs, author events, a writing group, partnerships with local businesses… And anchoring downtown to bring in more businesses. We love it here so much. We try very hard to explain that shopping locally is one of the best things you can do for your city, and the message is starting to take hold. We have a ways to go, but the baby steps are getting bigger.

We don’t have a shop cat — we have two enormous “kittens” who are useless at shelving, so they have to stay home.

What got you into bookselling?
In high school I got a job at Upstart Crow, was an English/Creative Writing major in college and grad school, worked in publishing for nearly 20 years (a year of that with THE GREAT ANNA-LISA), and voila, now I own a bookstore!

What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
There are continual surprises and delights in this store — sometimes I think it MUST be haunted. For years this space was a legendary cigar shop, but it was also a jeweler, an egg store in the 1930s, the Democratic Headquarters for Vallejo for Robert Kennedy’s campaign so Teddy Kennedy was here, but my favorite incarnation was that it was “Foxy Lady Boutique” that specialized in hot pants. And I just discovered that the movie star Raymond Burr lived in this building as a child!

I think the thing people are surprised about that there’s a bookstore here at all! People think that bookstores are a thing of the past, and we gladly prove them wrong. Just now a woman was in here — she drove here from a different town because she had heard about us and wanted to see what the “fuss was about,” and said that I proved them all right! Take THAT, Amazon.

What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
Vallejo SHOWS UP for us. We have a dedicated core group of customers, and they try to support by buying books/gifts, sharing on social media, spreading the word or even bringing us strawberries or flowers from the farmer’s market, and today a lady brought me a donut because she was thinking of me. But my favorite are the people who stop by to make sure I’ve gotten something to eat! I love our community so, so much.

What are two books you can’t wait for people to read, or your current favorite handsells?
My favorite handsells are “Tell the Wolves I’m Home” and right now, “The Great Believers” and “Just Kids.”

How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves?
On our Bookshop.org page!

Be sure to follow Alibi on Facebook and Instagram, and check here for Karen’s podcast episode!

You can read our other Bookstore Solidarity Project posts here!
And click here to get a copy of How to Protect Bookstores and Why.

Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country.

For January, we managed to wrangle Josh Christie of Print: A Bookstore, in Portland, Maine. Fun fact about Print— it’s where Abby the Marketing Manager was first really introduced to Microcosm, thanks to Print’s awesome selection of zines and books!

Your name and pronouns?
Josh Christie, he/him

Tell us a little bit about the store and your community!
We love being the most progressive, most queer-friendly bookstore in our already lefty little city. We’ve been a store for 7 years in November (!). No store cat, through four of us have dogs and one of us has pet bunnies.

What got you into bookselling?
I couldn’t figure out what else to do with a degree in political science. This is my 20th year as a bookseller, so now it’s hard to imagine doing anything else.

What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
Our store has been many things prior to our tenancy, including a furniture designer’s workshop, hardware store / scuba shop, and girls school. Plus, the store is haunted.

What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
The community is super-supportive of all our social media antics, which is loads of fun. They’ve also really latched on to our book clubs – we’ve got four now, and each pulls at least a dozen attendees for every meeting.

What are two books you can’t wait for people to read, or your current favorite handsells?
How to Be Multiple: The Philosophy of Twins by Helena de Bres and Black Punk Now, edited by Chris L. Terry and James Spooner

How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves?
Our website! Printbookstore.com.

@printbookstore

Print has a full house 🥰#booktok #indiebookstore #fullhouse

♬ Full House – The Hollywood Prime Time Orchestra

Be sure to follow Print: A Bookstore on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok (you definitely want to check out their Tiktok). Check out his podcast interview here!

You can read our other Bookstore Solidarity Project posts here!
And click here to get a copy of How to Protect Bookstores and Why.

Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country.

This month, we’re featuring The Shop at MATTER in Denver! It’s a Black- and woman-owned store that also triples as a design consultancy and letterpress workshop.

Your name and pronouns?
Rick Griffith (He/Him/Them)

Tell us a little bit about the store and your community!
Since 2014 our bookstore has been the only Black- and woman-owned independent, full service (internet and brick) cultural justice bookstore in the United States Mountain Time Zone. We are a haven for fem, queer, non-binary, trans, LatinX, Indigenous, AAPI, and Black persons. We have always respected and invested in the intellectual and creative products of the people who represent our community. We have a print shop with five letterpress printing presses and thousands of pieces of wood type that we employ to print community projects that are pro-democracy, pro-liberation, and pro-freedom. We are political—and we are activists. A bookstore to integrate Art, Design and Cultural Justice for all generations.

What got you into bookselling?
The desire to positively affect the lives of the people we know and love with books and products that acknowledge those of us in the margins.

What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
We are working on a lending library for our community so everyone can have access. We have five 19th and early 20th century printing presses. We letterpress print for our community and ask people to pay what they can afford for most of our prints.

What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
Besides buying books, buying our prints and posters. Ordering for personal and business book clubs. Having us bring our pop-up to conferences and large gatherings. Getting the word out. Shopping in pairs.

What are two books you can’t wait for people to read, or your current favorite handsells?
Can’t Pay Won’t Pay and There are Places in the World Where Rules are Less Important than Kindness

How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves?
on the internet: shopatmatter.com

Anything else you would like us to know?
We are love, revolution, and abolition.

Be sure to follow The Shop at MATTER on Instagram and Facebook, and check out their interview on our podcast here!

Check out our other Bookstore Solidarity Project posts here!
And click here to check out How to Protect Bookstores and Why.

Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country.

For October, we got to chat with Meg Wasmer, one of the co-owners of Copper Dog Books in Beverly, Massachusetts. It’s a great little store, with a strong focus on genre fiction. Horror and sci-fi fans would love their selection! (Plus, they have a slew of MIcrocosm titles.)

Your Name and Pronouns
Meg Wasmer, she/they

Tell us a little bit about the store and your community!
Beverly is the best. It’s right by Salem, but doesn’t suffer under the crush of spooky tourism in October. Our customers let me hurl tons of SFF and horror and witchy books at them but also, there are three colleges within five miles of us, so also lots of neat nonfiction.

What got you into bookselling?
The video store I worked at was closing and Borders was hiring and I knew I was good at alphabetically shelving rectangular entertainment media

What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
There is both a secret plushie collection and a very nice whiskey selection in the back office.

What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?
My favorite way that our customers support us is when they bring their friends who are visiting from out of town to see the store like they’re showing off the Crown Jewels.

What’s your current favorite book to sell customers?
The Navigating Fox by Christopher Rowe is stupidly good!

How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves?
At Copperdogbooks.com!

Be sure to follow Copper Dog Books on Instagram and Facebook! (And check out their Bonfire store for sweet merch, including this shirt with the “best” review they got last year)

Check out Meg’s podcast interview with Joe and Elly here!

Welcome to the next installment of the Bookstore Solidarity Project! Every month, we’ll be highlighting indie bookstore owners and booksellers across the country.

This month we’re pleased to continue chatting with Danny Caine, who you may know as the author of such awesome books and zines as How to Protect Bookstores and Why, and How to Resist Amazon and Why. We also recently had Danny as a guest on the podcast, which you can check out here.

Your Name and Pronouns:
Danny Caine, he/him

Your title at the store:
Part Owner / Buyer

Tell us a little bit about the store and your community:
The Raven Book Store has been serving Lawrence, Kansas since 1987. It opened as an all-mystery store but has since expanded into a general interest indie with a strong focus on local books to serve the needs of this midwestern college town. We have one store cat, Dashiell, whose personality is as big as his belly. We love being in Lawrence, a community that knows the value of independently-owned small businesses.

What got you into bookselling?

I got a part-time job as a Raven bookseller when I was at the University of Kansas working on my MFA. I fell in love with bookselling and the rest was history!

What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people?
20-30% of our sales are online, and much of that support comes from people who aren’t in Kansas. We’re honored and grateful to have found so many supporters across the country and around the world.

What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store?

There’s the usual and essential stuff like attending events, preordering books, posting pictures of the store online, and stopping into the store. But we love just as much the surprises, like people bringing us newspaper clippings or customers telling us jokes.

What are some books you can’t wait for people to read?
There are too many to count! Our monthly staff picks are on our website, and they’re a great way to take the temperature of what the staff is reading.

How can customers who aren’t local shop your shelves?
We’re open 24/7 at ravenbookstore.com!

Be sure to follow The Raven Book Store online on Instagram and Twitter @ravenbookstore.

Danny also has a slew of events coming up to promote How to Protect Bookstores and Why, so be sure to take a look at our events page to see if he’s coming to your town!

Check back next month for our next feature store.

We got to chat with Aida Lilly, the Program Coordinator of The Word, a Storytelling Sanctuary, which organizes the annual Margins Bookselling Month.

What is The Word, a Storytelling Sanctuary?

We are a literary arts non-profit whose mission is storytelling for collective abundance. We believe in the power of storytelling, representation, and expanding models in the literary and publishing communities. Our mission is to promote voices from underserved communities and diverse backgrounds, to honor the stories of those who have faced adversity and injustice, and to provide a sanctuary space where these groups can see themselves in literature.

We host community programming and generally try to demystify the ins and outs of publishing, which is overall an opaque industry that tends towards insularity. Our major programs include: the Editor-Writer Mentorship, [margins.] Literary Conference + Book Festival, #MarginsBookselling (of course), and a host of publishing workshops and community events. 

Overall, we love books and reading and the folks who dedicate their lives to the written word, and we believe that access to books and knowledge about careers in publishing (and publishing as a whole) are important.

What is #MarginsBookselling Month?

#MarginsBookselling Month is a celebration of bookstores owned and managed by and for BIPOC, LGBTQIAP2S+, disabled, and neurodiverse communities and of booksellers who identify from these communities as well. This is a community collaboration coordinated by The Word. Booksellers are on the frontline of the industry, and we want to celebrate and uplift them!

It’s a month of spreading joy and awareness of these wonderful stores and booksellers and a way of thanking them for doing the important work they do. There’s more to being a community bookstore than just selling books, and these stores exemplify the extraordinary efforts of bookstores and booksellers actively trying to improve the lives of those in their communities. 

You can check out all the bookstores in The Word’s #MarginsBookselling network by checking out the interactive map here.

What inspired it?

Inequity is clearly visible in our industry, from the books being published to the demographics of employees in publishing itself. We recognize that books and bookstores are more than just sales and retail, and we see the power of indie bookstores. Diversely-owned bookstores are especially important to marginalized communities, and also to publishing at large. They can provide a third space and safe space to hold and share stories from BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, disabled and neurodiverse communities. Bookstores that center marginalized communities provide both shelter and education. 

Likewise booksellers are part of the foundation of this industry. They know what books their community members need and are looking for. Indie bookstore sales matter to their community, and to publishing as a whole. It is booksellers who know what recommendations are relevant to their area and specific customers, and those recommendations can have massive impact, especially for authors that aren’t established, “big” names. Passionate booksellers and bookstores change lives for their customers and for the authors that fill their shelves. 

There are not enough spaces where we celebrate this work and take time to learn from it. #MarginsBookselling Month is a chance to shine that spotlight and to give our cohort of bookstores and booksellers a chance to do what each does best, while also getting to know each other in community.

What’s so great about indie bookstores? Why focus on them?

We love bookstore stops on every road trip we take! We cherish open mic nights at our local stores. We can’t resist stopping in for a coffee even if our TBR piles are never-ending and we swore we wouldn’t buy another book today. 

Reading is its own sort of magic. Books can be gates, windows, mirrors, doors, escape, comfort. Indie bookstores and booksellers can have a few minutes of conversation with someone and help them find entire new worlds to learn about, to love, or to live in.

Real people will always understand us better than algorithms. And indie bookstores are plugged into the communities they serve in ways that are unmatched by other industry retailers. 

What has surprised you the most in the last few years of #MarginsBookselling Month?

It is beautiful to see the members of this community lift each other up and create an atmosphere of abundance where there is room for everyone. In many spaces, retail especially, there is often an enmity toward anything perceived as “competition” –and that has not been present at all in this environment. Everyone is always excited to celebrate each other! It’s definitely become a team of its own, and we love all the love!

How can people get involved and support The Word and #MarginsBookselling Month? 

There are numerous ways to be involved:

Support #MarginsBookselling bookstores every month. Learn who they are. Spend some time with them, and see how happy they’ll be to fill your shelves with books you’d never find on your own, and are support systems that can help you find connection and community. 

If you don’t have a #MarginsBookselling store near you that you can visit in-person, check out the interactive #MarginsBookselling Map, and support these stores by shopping online, either through their own website or on Bookshop.org. If you’re an audiobook listener, you can support your local or favorite #MarginsBookselling store by choosing them as your supported store on Libro.fm. 

Additionally, here are a few great ways to get involved with The Word’s #MarginsBookselling Month:

• Make a one time or recurring donation to The Word help support programming like #MarginsBookselling Month
• Donate to the Duende-Word BIPOC Bookseller Award
• Purchase a copy of the beautiful #MarginsBookstores Month journal on Bookshop
• Buy this amazing T-shirt with a special quote from Pulitzer and National Book Award Finalist and The Word’s Writers’ Circle Member, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
• Amplify The Word’s programs and events on your social media channels, and feel free to tag us!
• Reach out to us at info@thewordfordiversity.com to learn more about all the sponsorship and partnership opportunities that are available!

What are two books you think everyone should read right now?

We love Mariame Kaba–everyone should check out her titles! And, of course, National Book Award and Pulitzer Finalist The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. Ingrid is a wonderful human who we were thrilled to collaborate with last year’s #MarginsBookselling Month, celebration and said:

“The Word is doing the labor that matters most — uplifting BIPOC booksellers and giving the floor to authors and writers who are writing from the margins. What happens when the margin takes centerstage? I feel a new literature and culture emerges, one that can define and tell of what has gone ignored or untold before. I am so thrilled to be joining The Word’s Writers’ Circle and look forward to supporting their mission.”

We’re grateful to Aida to take the time to answer our questions! If you want to learn more about The Word, their social media handles are:

• Facebook @wordfordiversity 
• Twitter @wordisdiversity 
• Instagram @wordisdiversity
• Youtube: @wordisdiversity

This is the first installment of the year-long Bookstore Solidarity Project, where we’re featuring indie bookstores and the people that love them. Want to learn more about supporting bookstores in your community? Check out How to Protect Bookstores and Why by Danny Caine!