Independent bookstores have long served as community hubs, a position that’s become even more crucial as public resources dwindle and third places disappear. Some booksellers take this role a step or three further, with mutual aid initiatives, literacy programs, and other models that go beyond traditional retail.
Spreading the word
Collectively owned Firestorm Books in Asheville, N.C., opened in 2008 as primarily a café and has evolved into a feminist, queer, and anarchist political project and community space that sustains itself through book sales. After the devastation Hurricane Helene brought to the region in 2024, neighbors flocked to Firestorm as a gathering place.
“People literally put a sign on the door saying, ‘This is the spot to meet,’ ” says worker-owner Libertie Valance, an events coordinator for the store. “People knew we weren’t just going to leave the doors locked. As soon as we were able to navigate through the wreckage, we were here doing whatever we could to be a place where people could share information and organize.”
Worker-owner Beck Nippes, a buyer for the store, says that when there’s a major crisis, Firestorm goes into what staffers call “cockroach mode”: “We put the business aspect on ice and focus instead on doing what needs to be done for each other and our community,” they say. “Getting to decide how to survive together works a lot better than a traditional business model.”
Both Firestorm and Red Emma’s in Baltimore have roots in infoshops—DIY anarchist spaces that provide access to radical materials and community-focused, often community-sourced, information.
“We’re the living room of the left,” says Megan Berkobien, a worker-owner at Red Emma’s. “People come here when they want to get engaged, or when they’re already engaged but need a deeper sense of community or structure. Folks dipping their toes into leftist movements come to us for guidance, book recommendations, workshops, book clubs, everything.”
Since joining three years ago, worker-owner Taylor Morgan has built on the store’s pay-it-forward program, which allows customers to pick up someone else’s tab in the on-site café. Expanded mutual aid services include a community fridge, a “pink pantry” with period and birth control supplies, a free-clothing rack, and a shelf of free books.
Red Emma’s also has a robust zine library, which Morgan says has grown exponentially. “I’ve had many interactions with people who use our free fridge and mutual aid resources. When we talk, I’ll say, ‘Here’s a zine on this topic. Read this, come back, and we’ll talk more about it.’ That’s a powerful way to get information out to people who might not buy something or who’ve never heard about some of the things that we have zines on. This is the first time we’ve had such a comprehensive library of free information on radical and sometimes life-saving topics.”
Giving stuff away may seem counterintuitive to the survival of a business, but it’s a model that builds community trust. At Semicolon Books in Chicago, it allowed the business to pivot after the threat of closure earlier this year. Founded in 2019 by art curator DL Moore, Semicolon is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides free books to schools and donates books and funds to more than two dozen local organizations. Once each quarter, the store hosts a “clear the shelves” day, allowing students to select whichever books they want at no cost.
“Books should be attainable for everyone,” Moore says. “We’re interested in closing the literacy gap in communities of color, and we recognize that the gap typically exists because of the lack of financial accessibility to books. When people don’t have to think about cost, they get interested a lot more quickly.” In the past six years, Semicolon has partnered with Google, Meta, Nike, and other high-profile brands to increase its visibility and provide free books to more than 13,000 Chicagoans.
In January, when Moore announced that the store would be closing, the community rallied, raising almost $50,000 to keep it around. Moving forward, Semicolon is shifting to a model that Moore thinks might be more sustainable long-term.
“Retail is in a horrible position right now, so we’ve moved to more of a reading room concept,” she says. “So many people have lost their jobs; it feels like a silly time to say, ‘Buy this book.’ We’re partnering with the city of Chicago and the Chicago Public Library to create community programming, because we believe that reading can heal. That’s going to put us in a position to show up at events that align with our values but not have to fund things through retail.”
Support Structures
Brooklyn’s Mil Mundos Books, founded in 2019 by codirector Maria Herron, is a multilingual co-op bookstore and community center that celebrates Black, Latinx, and Indigenous heritage, Herron says, “with a mindset toward continuing education for volunteers and customers. This is a larger anti-gentrification project for our community.”
In 2021, the collective launched Mil Mundos en Común, a 501(c)(3) that provides essential goods, free books, free English lessons for Spanish speakers, and accessible community internet. The bookstore and nonprofit work to promote resources and fill gaps where they exist, while also helping city newcomers learn to understand subway maps and figure out municipal hurdles.
“Equity comes in more shapes than capital,” Herron says. As Mil Mundos has grown, it’s been a boon for the community, but growth also presents ongoing challenges. “The need for collective self-care is never-ending. There’s also an ever-increasing need for fluency in an advocate role. No matter how much you learn, you need to learn more.”
Mil Mundos is a multi-stakeholder cooperative with worker-owners and consumer-owners, whose responsibilities vary. Each worker is asked to be at the store only a few hours each week, which helps stave off burnout. Profit isn’t the point—most of the staff pay their bills through other work. The retail side of the project exists to fund the community aspects.
In Austin, Black Pearl Books also operates retail and nonprofit arms. Katrina and Eric Brooks opened Black Pearl in 2019 as a pop-up bookstore with an e-commerce platform; the store saw a huge increase in business during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and moved into a shared space with a local nonprofit later that year, then moved into its own, larger storefront in February 2022.
With a goal of promoting diversity, inclusion, and representation through literature, the couple formed a 501(c)(3) , Put It in a Book, in 2021. One of its main programs partners with Title 1 schools, which receive federal funds because a large portion of their student bodies come from low-income families.
“Title 1 schools often don’t get author visits because their community of parents and supporters don’t have disposable income to meet book-buy minimums, nor do the schools have the budget to pay thousands to bring in an author,” Katrina explains. “Here in Austin, Title 1 schools usually have a large percentage of BIPOC children, who need to see representation with BIPOC authors.” Put It in a Book brings authors into schools and buys books so that every child can take home a signed copy to share with family.
“There’s value for the authors as well,” Eric says. “We took an author to an all-girls middle school last week. Twice during her presentation, she had to pause because she was looking at the kids and got choked up. She said, ‘These are the children that I write for.’ ”
Creating opportunities for young people to engage with books is also at the heart of More Than Words, a Massachusetts nonprofit that helps system-involved youths ages 16–24 get and hold jobs, learn financial literacy, and develop self-sufficiency skills. CEO Jodi Rosenbaum created More Than Words in 2005 after working in the juvenile court system in Georgia, where she says young people weren’t given a fair shot. Rosenbaum returned to her home state of Massachusetts determined to create a new social enterprise model. More Than Words trains youths to work at its bookstores, warehouse, or thrift store; if they make a fireable mistake, they’re allowed to return and try again.
“Community for us is so much more than just where our bookstore presence is,” says More Than Words chief of social enterprise Shaun Newell. “We want to have a presence in the communities where our young people live. We meet our young people in court, at school, and at home, and take them to events around the state where they should have the opportunity to go.”
Creating opportunities, sharing resources, building community—it’s all in a day’s work for the booksellers PW interviewed, even if, to some outside observers, things don’t quite add up. “I think some of the ‘smart’ business decisions you make might not always align with your social mission,” Newell says. “To try to stay relevant in community spaces and continue to move forward in spite of roadblocks can be challenging, but it’s all about persistence.”
Samantha Puc writes about LGBTQ+ and fat representation in pop culture. They coordinate the Nonbinarian Bookstore’s virtual book club and newsletter.
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