Me in Gay's the Word (Photo by Jim MacSweeney)
Hello again! Since your eyeballs last rested on one of my newsletters we made a brief visit to London, which was fabulous. I must confess that quite a bit of time was devoted to book and stationery shopping (Edinburgh isn’t a Japanese stationery wasteland, but nor is it a haven), but we also saw some friends (including three people we almost literally ran into while exiting the London Review Bookshop—since none of us lives in London, that felt like a freaky coincidence) and wondered at the marvels of Lebanese ka’ak bread at Ta’mini next door but one to Gay’s the Word.
Speaking of Gay’s the Word … what a joy to visit a thriving queer bookstore. I had seen a story in The Bookseller about Jim MacSweeney, the manager of 27 years, stepping down and longtime deputy Uli Lenart moving into his shoes. In that story, MacSweeney said of the store, “Sales have doubled then increased again. … It’s dementedly busy.” Being a cynical person, before I visited, I figured there was a pinch of PR dreamcasting in that statement, but … NOT AT ALL. Every time we popped in (we were staying nearby, so that was more than once) or walked by (even more times because of Ta’mini) it was PACKED. Like, so packed that at times it was hard to see entire sections because of the crowds.
I shouldn’t be shocked that queer and radical bookstores are doing well in Britain. Lighthouse, my local in Edinburgh, always has shoppers, and Manchester’s Queer Lit also plays a community center function—but I guess I’ve lived through enough cycles of boom and bust to be pleasantly surprised. They’re doing it by providing services people want. Lighthouse hosts a TON of events (and they pay people for speaking/MCing!); Queer Lit provides a supercool place to co-work, complete with coffee bar and comfy chairs. Gay’s the Word is famous—when I was in the store a young woman asked if it was the place featured in the movie Pride (it is)—and friendly, and really well-stocked. (I loved seeing some very familiar oldies in their used-book section.)
As at Lighthouse, everyone is INCREDIBLY friendly. I had a lovely chat with Jim (who hand-sold me a book–the sign of a great bookseller) and great interactions with the other store workers. Of course people want to shop there when it’s such a supportive, well-stocked place where the workers really know their stock! (One note: It’s not that these U.K. stores sell nothing but books—they all have some totebag/tchotchke-type products, but far less that you see in U.S. stores. They really are thriving by selling books, which means people are actively choosing to shop there rather than online.)
That provides a very awkward segueway to my noting that in the U.K. at least, Amazon has the Kindle version of my book available for a mere £3.99. Do I recommend you shop there? I do not. But if money is tight, I’d rather you get a copy for four quid than not get one at all!
UPCOMING EVENTS: I'm very excited for an event at Edinburgh's Lighthouse Bookshop on Wednesday, June 4, when I'll be appearing with Jane Cholmeley, one of the owners of London's Silver Moon Bookshop (1984-2001) and author of A Bookshop of One's Own. I'm also going to be visiting the Pacific Northwest in October. I'll definitely be in Eugene, Oregon, and I very much hope to add stops in Portland and Seattle, but more on that once we figure it all out!
RECOMMENDATIONS: Over the years, a ton of people recommended Bertha Harris’ novel Lover to me, but I never did pick it up. Then I came across the 1993 reissue from NYU Press, and while I still haven’t read the novel—not to sound like a complete philistine, but it’s a bit experimental for me—the introduction is absolute and total fire. She talks about the early days of women’s and lesbian liberation, the New York scene, her childhood and her difficult relationship with her mother, and then she launches into a very dishy memoir of working at the early lesbian-feminist publishing house Daughters, Inc., with owners June Arnold and Parke Bowman. As I say, there is gossip, which I can’t pretend I didn’t enjoy, but there is also a very honest account of doing really important work with really weird people. (There’s an amazing coda when Harris visits Arnold and Bowman in Houston after they’d closed Daughters—Arnold was a genuine heiress.) Anyhoo, it’s hard to summarize, but it’s one of the most eye-opening pieces of writing I’ve ever read and definitely worth the cost of the book.
MORE ME: Sinister Wisdom published an interview Edinburgh resident Cassidy Hunt did with me about A Place of Our Own (I mention Cassidy’s place of residence because it felt different to chat in person and then just walk home!); the great Judith Barrington also reviewed APOOO for SW.
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