March! Madness! Returns! 📚🧺🏆
Welcome to the second annual Nonbinarian March Madness! Are you ready for a little friendly competition?! Are you ready to campaign for your favorite book to be the last title standing?! Are you ready to vote in fiction and nonfiction brackets until just one book remains?!
If you missed our March Madness bracket last year, good news! We're bringing it back! This year's brackets feature books by non-binary, gender-nonconforming, and women writers, many of whom we've previously spotlighted either as Book Club picks or on social media (or both)!
As a thank you for subscribing to the newsletter, here's a sneak peek at this year's competition:
Do you see your favorite on the list? Do you want to read the titles we've selected? Grab a copy from our "March Madness 2024" book list on Bookshop.org and follow us on Instagram to participate in this year's voting!
Book Bike founder K. Kerimian attended the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute last month and met a host of booksellers, sales reps, and authors! We want to say thank you to everyone at the event for their support of the Book Bike, with a special shout out to Casey McQuiston for signing an ARC of their new novel, The Pairing, for the bike!
Regarding titles for the Book Bike, we'd also like to highlight our partners at Bluestockings Cooperative! You can now purchase books through this wishlist and they will be sent directly to the Book Bike!
Buying through Bluestockings both bolsters the Book Bike's inventory going into our first full distribution season and supports Bluestockings's mission as a worker-owner-run activist center, bookstore, and community space that offers mutual aid, harm reduction support, resource research, and a temperature-regulated safe place.
If you'd like to support the Book Bike on a monthly basis, we encourage you to subscribe to our Ko-Fi! With a monthly membership, you contribute to housing not only the bike itself, but the inventory too. AND if you subscribe at the $3 tier or higher, you'll get a super cute new sticker to show off your love for the Book Bike!
Events are back! 2024 is the first full distribution season for the Book Bike and we are so excited to connect with community members in Brooklyn. For now, we are soft launching until the weather warms, at which point we will add more events to the calendar.
Here's where we'll be in March, weather permitting:
🚲 Bed-Stuy Pop-Up: Saturday, March 23 from 1 p.m.—3 p.m., Herbert von King Park
🚲 Grand Army Plaza Pop-Up: Sunday, March 24 from 12 p.m.—2 p.m., Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch
🚲 The Nonbinarian Book Club: Friday, March 29 at 8 p.m., virtual
🚲 Crown Heights Pop-Up: Saturday, March 30 from 1 p.m.—3 p.m., Bower Park
Where have all the lesbian bars gone? This month, we're reading Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton!
The Nonbinarian Book Club is partnered with Bluestockings Cooperative. You can purchase this month's Nonbinarian Book Club book at Bluestockings to support their mission and ours! Click here to order online and use code BOOKBIKE for 15% off at checkout.
The Nonbinarian Book Bike is partnered with the following independent bookstores! Books purchased from our wishlists will be donated directly to the bike for free distribution.
The Nonbinarian Book Bike is also proud to partner with the following organizations for our community reading events! Please check out their mission statements and support them however possible.
🌠 Reading 4 Black Lives Project
Finally, The Nonbinarian Book Bike is partnered with Trans formative Schools, "a progressive education community centering trans joy and social justice." The organization aims to uplift trans children and educators, as well as families "touched by transness," through the implementation of a free afterschool program for ages 9-15. Trans formative Schools' dream is to create a liberal middle school that employs rigorous academics, identity exploration, and more.
All books purchased from this Bookshop wishlist will go directly to Trans formative Schools. The Nonbinarian Book Bike receives a portion of each purchase, which helps us pay for storage, bike maintenance and upkeep, and more. By purchasing from this list, you directly support two trans-led organizations and support indie bookstores through Bookshop.org.
If you'd like to partner with us for an event or sponsorship, please reach out via e-mail! In addition to subscribing to our newsletter, following us on social media, and participating in events, you can also support the Book Bike in the following ways:
📚 Donate a book (or books) to the Book Bike!
📚 Donate funds to help upkeep costs like storage and bike maintenance! You can make a one-time donation or set up a monthly one on Ko-Fi, or you can donate via Venmo.
📚 Buy a book from our wishlist!
📚 Buy a book through our Bookshop storefront!
📚 Support us with a Libro.fm subscription!
📚 Buy Nonbinarian merch!
To get involved in our virtual or physical programming, please DM @nonbinarianbike on IG or email kay@thenonbinarian.gay!
Thank you to the Nonbinarian community for making our first season so successful! It has been such a joy to meet you at pop-ups, interact with you on social media, and further get to know the Brooklyn community and its various neighborhoods.
In 2024, our distribution will begin earlier, allowing us to bring even more books to even further reaches of the city. Stay tuned! 📚🚲✨
Want to contribute to the Nonbinarian Newsletter?
If you have something you'd like to submit to the newsletter including events, mutual aid needs, book recs, or ideas you'd like to see us include, please email us at newsletter@thenonbinarian.gay.
Thank you for supporting the Nonbinarian Book Bike! Look for our next newsletter on the 1st of the month. In the meantime, follow us on social media for daily updates.