Post-Death of the Bookstore and such
Jul. 3rd, 2011 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfWent to CONvergence yesterday and got to chat with some friends and meet some new folks, which was all good. I also did the only panel I was originally scheduled for that I could actually make it to. The "Death of the Bookstore?" panel was quite well attended and a lively discussion ensued. I don't know that anything very conclusive came out of it, apart from the hope that bookstores would persist for years to come. And whether or not that translated to anyone going down to the dealer's room and actually buying books from the 2 dealers present is unclear. It's one of those "if you want them to be there, you have to actually give them money for their products with enough regularity that they can continue to be there" sorts of things. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of folks sitting about making pretty noises at each other.
Speaking of which, author C.M. Harris and I will be doing a reading at True Colors Bookstore on Saturday, July 16th at 2PM. True Colors is the linear descendent of the original Amazon Bookstore (known as the Amazon Bookstore Feminist Collective, post-Amazon online lawsuit) and as such is the oldest feminist bookstore in the U.S. Back in the early 1990s when I was being a bookseller (with a LOT of help from my friends) and owned a tiny bookstore called Grassroots Books in Iowa City, there were 140 or so feminist bookstores in North America, plus a couple in Europe and in other parts of the world. Now there are less than 25, I believe at last count. When we moved to Minneapolis, there were 2 LGBTQ-centered bookstores: A Brother's Touch and Amazon. A Brother's Touch closed a few years after we got here and was replaced by Query Booksellers, which closed, so now we're down to True Colors. And it's underwater, sometimes literally as well as financially due to basement flooding.So here's the thing: if you want to have an independent feminist and queer bookstore in the Twin Cities, you actually need to buy some books and other products.
This is made more difficult by the fact that the new owners made a choice between keeping the doors open and having a functioning website and picked the former awhile back. While I don't agree with that notion, that's not really the point. It wasn't a choice I needed to make. There have been two robberies, one at gunpoint, the aforementioned basement flooding, a computer system meltdown, an A/C meltdown and one of the worst recessions in recent history. That's all in 2 years. I don't know many businesses that would survive all of that, but they're still there, down on Chicago and 47th, hanging on by the skin of their teeth. They can take orders over the phone (see the link above for contact info) or stop by if you're in the area. Hell, you could come in on the 16th and buy books and hear us read too, which would be lovely. All I'm saying is that if we want it, we have to invest in it. Now, before it's too late.
Speaking of which, author C.M. Harris and I will be doing a reading at True Colors Bookstore on Saturday, July 16th at 2PM. True Colors is the linear descendent of the original Amazon Bookstore (known as the Amazon Bookstore Feminist Collective, post-Amazon online lawsuit) and as such is the oldest feminist bookstore in the U.S. Back in the early 1990s when I was being a bookseller (with a LOT of help from my friends) and owned a tiny bookstore called Grassroots Books in Iowa City, there were 140 or so feminist bookstores in North America, plus a couple in Europe and in other parts of the world. Now there are less than 25, I believe at last count. When we moved to Minneapolis, there were 2 LGBTQ-centered bookstores: A Brother's Touch and Amazon. A Brother's Touch closed a few years after we got here and was replaced by Query Booksellers, which closed, so now we're down to True Colors. And it's underwater, sometimes literally as well as financially due to basement flooding.So here's the thing: if you want to have an independent feminist and queer bookstore in the Twin Cities, you actually need to buy some books and other products.
This is made more difficult by the fact that the new owners made a choice between keeping the doors open and having a functioning website and picked the former awhile back. While I don't agree with that notion, that's not really the point. It wasn't a choice I needed to make. There have been two robberies, one at gunpoint, the aforementioned basement flooding, a computer system meltdown, an A/C meltdown and one of the worst recessions in recent history. That's all in 2 years. I don't know many businesses that would survive all of that, but they're still there, down on Chicago and 47th, hanging on by the skin of their teeth. They can take orders over the phone (see the link above for contact info) or stop by if you're in the area. Hell, you could come in on the 16th and buy books and hear us read too, which would be lovely. All I'm saying is that if we want it, we have to invest in it. Now, before it's too late.