Margins Bookselling

#MARGINSBOOKSELLING celebrates bookstores owned and managed by and for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Disabled, and Neurodiverse communities.

A celebration of bookstores owned and managed by and for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Disabled, and Neurodiverse communities.

#MarginsBookselling holds programming throughout the year, with a culmination of festivities during #MarginsBookselling Month every August.

Throughout the month of August, The Word and its partners (Bookshop.org, Libro.fm, I Am Immigrant, and more) curate content to boost store profiles, increase consumer awareness, and celebrate the work bookstores and booksellers do all year long. You can learn more about the program at thewordfordiversity.org/marginsbookstores.

Additionally, CBC member Chronicle Books published a journal in support of this annual event.

Published to coincide with the first annual #MarginsBookstores Month in 2021, this journal is the ultimate guide to independent bookstores around the United States that are owned by members of marginalized groups. Featuring a beautiful map created by illustrator and muralist Kah Yangni for the project, this journal is perfect for jotting down musings, reading lists, notes, and more. The map in the journal’s interior is broken up into six different regional illustrations that appear alongside detailed information about the featured shops from that part of the country.

“For the Margins Bookstore Journal, we were hoping to find an artist who could turn a map of the U.S. into something expressive and unexpected. Kah did just that, collaging textures, shapes and handwriting into a unique piece of art. Working with them was truly a joy.” – Allison Weiner, Design Manager

“I’d been wanting to partner with The Word for some time, and the Margins Bookstore Journal turned out to be the perfect opportunity to do that. Chronicle Books was able to publish this fantastic guide to some of the most exciting bookstores in the country, benefiting independent bookselling, diverse business-owners and viewpoints, and an organization we’re proud to support. And, as an added bonus, I got the personal pleasure of working as an editor on an exciting project that let me travel in my imagination to all these amazing spots during the pandemic when I wasn’t in fact traveling anywhere beyond my own neighborhood.” – Bridget Watson Payne, Editorial Director

About #MarginsBookselling and The Word

#MarginsBookselling is a community collaboration coordinated by The Word | A Storytelling Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization fighting for cultural equity through the literary arts. Authentic cultural representation leads us to understand what the world is and can be; stories lead us to imagine the tomorrow we need.

Over the past two years of #MarginsBookselling, The Word has:

Created the #MarginsBookselling Map an ever-growing national database of bookstores serving our communities.
Provided free Libro.fm audiobook subscription giveaways.
Launched The Word’s pre-publication bookseller series and hosted bookseller-only events with Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Camonghne Felix, and Nicole Cuffy.
Hosted virtual events with authors such as Michelle Zauner, Mariame Kaba, R.O. Kwon, and Rubén Degollado.
Celebrated three BIPOC Bookseller Award winners each year.
Featured participating stores and booksellers in Bookshop.org newsletters.
Launched the inaugural Joy Ambassador Program in collaboration with New York Times bestselling authors Jasmine Guillory, Laura Taylor Namey, and Angeline Boulley that highlighted and celebrated the amazing impact of booksellers and bookselling.

Bookstores, booksellers, and partners looking for information about participating should email info@thewordfordiversity.org. All of their programming is fully funded by their community partners. If you are able, please consider donating at www.thewordfordiversity.org/donate.

PUBLISHERS: if you wish to share your diverse or other socially inclusive books and resources, please email Sommer at sommer.wissner@cbcbooks.org.