“You inspire my daughter.”
From the first sales of the day (Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun, P. Djèlí Clark ‘s The Black God’s Drums, and The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton and Lara Love Hardin) to the last (A Lesson in Deceit by Allie Shante and my very own anthology, Dominion, co-edited with @penprince) Crowne Books’ first pop-up was more than a success. It felt like a revolution and a love letter from Utah’s literary community to me personally.
From the moment the Instagram video blew up, you all have been in my comments and DMs rooting for this bookstores success. Yet I was still nervous. What if no one showed up to my booth at Salt Lake City’s Juneteenth Festival? What if? What if? Well, I’ll never know because we sold to over 100 customers and doubled our initial GoFundMe goal overnight!
Special thanks to Corinne at @cookieswithacause for making free cookies for our first event; please support her!!! Also thank you @kismet.productionsllc, @undertheumbrellabookstore, @thebookloversera, the @utahblackchamber, @laynajameswrites (a local Black romance author) as well as other local authors and poets, @semahadithifoundation, and so many more stopped by to lend their support, advice, and share opportunities to make this dream a reality.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you! This summer, Crowne Books will continue to pop up all over Utah, but this market will remain special. From the people who shared that “TikTok,” “Instagram,” or “The Trib” made them do it and come out to support, to the man who said he had to support because women like me inspire his daughter to dream big, thank you isn’t enough.
Today, we will be doing some awesome things with the funds already raised, including formerly joining the @americanbooksellers, as well as donating to their children’s program and their efforts to stop book banning, the @nab2blk, ordering a HUGE restock (because you all cleared us out), launching the first iteration our our online bookstore (coming later today), getting a food handlers certificate, and much more.
GoFundMe has reached out to feature our campaign (https://gofund.me/fa60070e7).
