independent bookstores

Bitch in Salt Lake City

Debbie Rasmussen — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:35:51 -0400

Back to the most recent Bitch fundraising trip...

I'd never been to Salt Lake City before, so I was excited to check it out. After a long drive in from Denver, I was even more excited to be greeted by a plate of vegan cookies, freshly-baked by our host, Courtney Maguire (thanks, Courtney!). Courtney is one of the folks involved with the Female Empwerment Movement (FEM), a new(ish) feminist group created in response to the high rates of sexual violence in Salt Lake. FEM also helped organize and get the word out of the evening's events, and I'm grateful.

I'm also grateful to Angela Brown, Meghann Griggs, and the rest of the folks at SLUG magazine,who responded almost immediately to our call for assistance in helping
put together the discussion and fundraiser in Salt Lake. SLUG was founded in 1989 and remains Utah's oldest alternative paper.

Portlanders: Support your local nonprofit feminist bookstore!

Debbie Rasmussen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:50:15 -0400

Here in Portland, just a couple miles away from the Bitch office, lies a fantastic nonprofit bookstore called In Other Words Women's Books and Resources. In my humble opinion, it's one of the greatest places in town.

Sad news in the (ever-shrinking) world of feminist bookstores

Debbie Rasmussen — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:01:05 -0400

Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis has announced that they'll be closing their doors at the end of June. Founded in 1970 on the front porch of a women's housing cooperative, Amazon is one of the oldest feminist bookstores in this country. It's a different verse of the same sad song of the difficulty in sustaining projects committed to independent/social justice work, thought,
and culture.

According to the announcement:

Bitch in the Brew City

Debbie Rasmussen — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:26:21 -0400

I am in love with Milwaukee (and the poetry chapbook collection at Woodland Pattern, part of which is shown above).

Hope/politics of place

Debbie Rasmussen — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:57:45 -0400

Here in Northeast Portland is a place called In Other Words Women's Books and Resources, a nonprofit bookstore founded in 1993. I've only lived in Portland for a year, so most of what I know I've learned from talking to people and reading news articles, like this.

A few nights ago I went to a screening of a short documentary called Moving In: A nonprofit feminist bookstore and the politics of place. The documentary, created by Dawn Jones (who's on the board of Bitch; photographed below), examines the bookstore's 2006 move, which resulted from being economically displaced from their original neighborhood, to a historically African-American neighborhood. The film is fantastic; you should see it if you have the opportunity.