Virtual Events with Garth Greenwell, Meredith Talusan, Michael Arceneaux, Samantha Irby & more!
June 2020
Dear Friends of Women & Children First,
BLACK LIVES MATTER. As an intersectional feminist bookstore, it is our responsibility to use our power to dismantle white supremacy in our politics, our community, and ourselves. We believe that books are tools for liberation--and in this moment we are grateful to so many of you who have turned to books to understand the systemic racism in the groundwater of America and imagine a world beyond state-sanctioned killings and incarceration.
Thank you to everyone who supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund this weekend by buying a book from us. Your overwhelming support meant that not only were we able to raise funds for this important cause, but we also ended up selling out of many of our most recommended books on racial justice. While we are waiting for these books to come back in stock, please check out the Antiracist playlist from our audiobook partner Libro.fm. If you missed our fundraiser, we recommend donating directly to the Chicago Community Bond Fund and connecting with organizations like your local chapter of
Showing Up for Racial Justice.
Despite the Mayor's Phase III announcement, allowing our "nonessential" retail business to reopen on June 3rd, for the safety of our staff and greater community, we have no plans to open our physical doors quite that soon. As our stalwart co-owner Lynn recently told Forbes:
"Regarding re-opening, we are not pushing for opening to be expedited, because that would be irresponsible. It is too soon. We need widespread testing so public health officials can evaluate our current situation. Yes, the immediate term has me scared for myself and my business, but I know the long term is more important. We have to be brave and focus on the long term. I want W&CF to survive to the post-pandemic world, because all the old ills of misogyny and ableism and homophobia and transphobia will still be there on the other side." - Read the full article
While still closed, all orders are being processed through womenandchildrenfirst.com. We now offer curbside pickup! Check our homepage to learn everything you need to know about placing and picking up orders for curbside.
Despite many traditional Pride festivities being cancelled this summer, Women & Children First will still be celebrating "Pride Inside!" Join us by checking out our Pride 2020 Reading List, highlighting recently released books from LGBTQ authors. Also, our annual Pride Open Mic hosted by Sappho's Salon has been moved to virtual space. Click HEREto learn how to participate! And don't dawdle--open mic submissions are due by June 12! We wish you a safe & happy Pride!
Novelist Porochista Khakpour's family moved to Los Angeles after fleeing the Iranian Revolution, giving up their successes only to be greeted by an alienating culture. Growing up as an immigrant in America means that one has to make one's way through a confusing tangle of conflicting cultures and expectations.
Celebrate
The Golden Girls (in the TV Milestones series) by Kate Browne, and since June is Pride month, we'll talk about Lebanese--sorry,
lesbians, how important it was for Clayton and Doug to get MARRIED, and the curious characterization of Phil Zbornak.
It’s 1993, and Rory Ramos works as a ranch hand at the stable her stepfather manages in Topanga Canyon, California--a dry, dusty place reliant on horses and hierarchies. There she rides for the rich clientele, including twins June and Wade Fisk.
Prison abolition and decarceration are increasingly debated, but rarely is the largest exodus of people from carceral facilities in the twentieth century taken into account: the closure of disability institutions and psychiatric hospitals.
Decarcerating Disability provides a much-needed corrective, combining a genealogy of deinstitutionalization with critiques of the current prison system.
In this extended lyric essay, a poet mines her lifelong experience with migraine to deliver a marvelously idiosyncratic cultural history of pain--how we experience, express, treat, and mistreat it. Her sources range from the trial of Joan of Arc to the essays of Virginia Woolf and Elaine Scarry to Hugh Laurie's portrayal of Gregory House on House M.D.
Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a "sun child" from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from their devoted grandmother, a grounding force as they were treated by others with special preference or public curiosity.
Join us for a virtual author reading featuring
Garth Greenwell and
Paul Lisicky. Each author will read from and then discuss his recently published book. When Paul Lisicky arrived in Provincetown in the early 1990s, he was leaving behind a history of family trauma to live in a place outside of time, known for its values of inclusion, acceptance, and art.
Ever since Oprah Winfrey told the 2007 graduating class of Howard University, “Don’t be afraid,” Michael Arceneaux has been scared to death. You should never do the opposite of what Oprah instructs you to do, but when you don’t have her pocket change, how can you not be terrified of the consequences of pursuing your dreams?
Raechel Anne Jolie's early life in a working-class Cleveland exurb was full of race cars, Budweiser-drinking men covered in car grease, and the women who loved them. After her father came home from his third-shift job, took the garbage out to the curb and was hit by a drunk driver, her life changed.
