The Nonbinarian, the literary mutual aid collective in Brooklyn, N.Y., is beginning a month-long Kickstarter campaign today, October 1, with the goal of raising $100,000 to establish a bricks-and-mortar bookstore and community space stocking exclusively queer books and goods that would open in 2025.

The Nonbinarian was founded in October 2022 by K. Kerimian, who was the recipient of tthe 2022 Carla Gray Memorial Scholarship for Emerging Bookseller-Activists. After a successful crowdfunding effort, the Nonbinarian Book Bike launched in July 2023, bringing LGBTQIA2S+ books via cargo bike to various neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

Now, after two years of operation, the Nonbinarian wants to establish a permanent home for queer and trans Brooklyn residents. Expanding on the Book Bike's motto "everyone deserves to see themselves on the shelf," all inventory will be exclusively queer, making the Nonbinarian Bookstore the first of its kind in Brooklyn.

The Kickstarter campaign will run through October 31; supporters can donate at various tiers, starting at $10, to receive exclusive rewards. The Nonbinarian will open a holiday pop-up at the end of October or early November at 617 Flatbush Ave in the Prospect Lefferts Garden neighborhood. Updates about the Kickstarter campaign and bookstore pop-up can be found on Instagram at @nonbinarianbike and the Nonbinarian's e-newsletter.

Pages & Parchment Book Store, located at 4010 W. Skippack Pike in Skippack, Pa., recently hosted a grand opening celebration. The Times Herald reported that a ribbon-cutting ceremony, hosted by the Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce, drew local officials who expressed excitement over the town's new addition.

"I can't remember when we had a bookstore," said township supervisor Karen Lynch. "It's been a while so we're excited about it."

Owner Becky Fuhry has long dreamed of opening a bookstore, and the opportunity arose when she learned the Old Village Barn bookstore was for sale. Fuhry purchased the inventory and moved the store to a larger, more welcoming space in Green Wolf's Village Barn Shoppes.

"It's a little bigger and designed to have a homey feel for people to browse and hang out in," she said. "I love it."

The store offers a wide selection of book genres, and hosts regular events, including a bi-monthly book club and children's storytime, the Times Herald noted.

On its website, Pages & Parchment's owner shares that her vision for the store is "to share our love of reading and knowledge of books and authors in order to encourage others to discover new worlds, new possibilities, different ways of thinking, and to experience the deep emotions that are brought on by someone else's story. We will shine a positive light on the community by encouraging connections, hosting bookish events, and supporting local businesses."

Bestselling author Brandon Sanderson's Dragonsteel Entertainment has purchased land next to the former Evermore Park in Pleasant Grove, Utah, with plans to eventually open a bookstore there. The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that Sanderson announced his plan Saturday during a FanX appearance at the Salt Palace Convention Center.

Brandon Sanderson

"We're going to theoretically build a bookstore," he said on Saturday. 

The area will be called Dragonsteel Plaza. Sanderson also revealed that Dragonsteel's headquarters is now located in a warehouse in Pleasant Grove, which fans cannot visit, but he did show a few photos of the property at the panel.

Dragonsteel had a pop-up store on the vendor floor all three days of the convention. Sanderson's wide-ranging panel featured slides that shared his art process for books, upcoming book bundles fans can buy, plans for Dragonsteel Plaza, a q&a session, and a reading from the fifth Stormlight book, Wind and Truth.

PNBA opened its second morning of the 2024 conference, held in Portland, Ore., with the Authors on the Map breakfast, a session that featured nine authors from the PNBA member region. Olufunke Grace Bankole, Stephanie Booth, Leyla Brittan, Faith Conlon, Zaynab Mohammed, Emma Pattee, Holly Searcy, Megan Williams, and Kelsea Yu talked about their books, the impact of independent bookstores on their lives, and their prospective journeys. Samantha Allen was also scheduled, but was ill and unable to attend. PNBA education committee member Angela Pursel (co-owner of Next Chapter Books, Hermiston, Ore.) gave a spirited welcome to the gathered booksellers for the early-morning presentation, and talked about Allen's book, Roland Rogers Isn't Dead Yet (Zando, December 12) before introducing the first author.

Olufunke Grace Bankole

Olufunke Grace Bankole, author of The Edge of Water (Tin House, February 4), announced to the room that "my legs are shaking," then went on to thank the booksellers and fellow authors before talking about her first experience with an independent bookstore, at Community Book Center on Bayou Road in New Orleans, and Mama Jennifer, the Black woman bookseller who had worked there since its opening. A few months after they met, Bankole wrote a short story and shared it with Mama Jennifer, who "kindly told me that it was good and that I ought to keep writing." That encouragement, Bankole said, led her "deeper into the works of African writers, starting with foundational voices, like Yvonne Vera, whose novel Butterfly Burning stretches the parameters of language in ways I have not encountered since." She said whenever she moves, "the very first thing I do is I seek out the local indie bookstore where I know I will find the most thoughtfully curated collections of books and the warm welcome of unforgettable booksellers like Mama Jennifer."

Bankole was not the only author who extolled the joy and support found in independent bookstores. Seattle writer Faith Conlon, author of Timelight (Flashpoint, October 29), who also directed the publishing program at Seal Press, talked about the "power of booksellers and librarians getting books into the hands of readers" and called the "connecting [of] readers and writers as a kind of magic." In turn, Kelsea Yu noted that her family did many Seattle Independent Bookstore Days together, and twice won the challenge, which involves visiting every single bookstore in the Seattle area in a one day. She too talked of the bookstore's "vital role in fostering our local reading communities."

Stephanie Booth

Several of the authors recalled how their love of reading and stories provided the impetus for their books, including Megan Williams, who said that the story of her memoir One Bad Mother (Sibylline Press, September 3) started in the third grade, when "I was told I would never learn to read well." Despite that, she said, "Since then, I have a love of books. I spent a whole lifetime loving books." Stephanie Booth talked of how, ever since she was young, she could check a book out of the library and "be transported into the pages in a way that felt just as real and a lot safer than my everyday life." Trying to recapture that joy of reading was what led her to completely rework and structure her manuscript into her debut novel, Libby Lost and Found (Sourcebooks Landmark, May 21). Likewise, Holly Searcy channeled another sort of transportation from the real world through her days of creating worlds and characters for Dungeons and Dragons games with friends. Initially lured into the game with the promise of storytelling and the ability to have a pet fox, Searcy wrote The Shiver Tree (Blackstone, November 12) as "an homage to our game. I wanted to tell a fun fantasy: friends, heroes saving the day."

Emma Pattee signing her book for Chasina Klein (Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle)

Another common theme throughout was how authors brought in their own experiences, many of which involved settings and inspirations from the Pacific Northwest. Conlon's middle-grade novel casts the Space Needle as a time travel portal (and also has a character inspired by an older bookseller in Seattle whom Conlon knew). Portland writer Emma Pattee, whose debut novel, Tilt (Marysue Rucci Books/Simon & Schuster, March 25), is about a nine-months-pregnant woman who's shopping at a Portland-area IKEA for a crib when a massive earthquake hits, based her book on the landscape she was very familiar with. She said, "it was really important to me that this book be as factually accurate as possible" and that "every landmark in the book is real--every building, every street; I walked every single mile that's shown in this book." Yu's YA thriller, It's Only a Game (Bloomsbury YA, July 9) also draws from her own experience in Seattle, with nods to the University of Washington, the Seattle Public Library, and the University Bookstores on the Ave (specifically the "Sci-fi and Fantasy section"). She called it her "love letter to the PNW." She expressed how much she "wanted to write specifically a Chinese American young girl. The kind of book that I never got to read when I was young."

Leyla Brittan

Zaynab Mohammed

Leyla Brittan had similar desires for her "not quite rom-com" contemporary YA debut, Ros Demir Is Not the One (Holiday House, October 1), which is a Turkish-American Romeo & Juliet remix. Like much of Brittan's earlier writing for her MFA program at University of Wyoming, it deals with themes of "multicultural identity and cultural discomfort" as well as "the tension between ways that people think you should feel about your identity" and the way that the protagonist actually does.

When speaking on her own identity, Zaynab Mohammed said, "I am a writer, a poet, a performer, a creative. I did what I know how to do best: I wrote my story." Mohammed read an excerpt from her book, Are You Listening? (Pownal Street Press, September 10), based on her one-woman play. She said she has "la[id] my heart bare... The pushback for standing up for what I know to be right over the years almost broke me, just like being an Arab woman in Canada almost broke me for decades. Now, I am thrilled and forever thankful to be an Arab woman. I love who I am."

Pursel rounded out the breakfast by thanking the authors for sharing their stories. She said to the audience, "I know it's a dream for all of you as well that we get to share these stories and put them in the hands of readers." The morning concluded with author signings. --Elaine Cho

Barnes & Noble is opening a store in Allen, Texas, near Dallas and Fort Worth, tomorrow, October 2. The B&N, which includes a café, is located in Watters Creek Village next to the village green. The opening will be celebrated with a ribbon cutting by Julia Heaberlin, who will also sign copies of her books.

B&N CEO James Daunt commented: "We are delighted to be opening a bookstore in Allen, a community that hasn't seen a new Barnes & Noble for over 10 years. The team here brings a collective 47 years of bookselling experience and is eager to get new books in the hands of our readers."

A group of booksellers, Bookstagrammers, BookTokers, podcasters, influencers, and deep horror fiction fans have declared today, October 1, to be Stephen Graham Jones Day (#SGJday), coinciding with the publication date for six out-of-print titles by horror lit icon Stephen Graham Jones that are being brought back to life by Open Road Integrated Media.

Stephen Graham Jones

Calling themselves the "Beautiful Sinners" after Jones's book All the Beautiful Sinners, the organizers of SGJ Day have created marketing materials, manufactured buttons, scheduled events and coordinated sweepstakes. Some of the events leading up to and in celebration of SGJ Day include a Blair Witch Project anniversary screening, a sweepstakes for signed copies of SGJ books and SGJ Day merch, a virtual SGJ Day party, and the release of a short video from Jones himself today.

"I mostly just hope that people find something there to laugh about, to cringe away from, something to let them feel less alone for a few pages," Jones said. "That's all I ever want, really."

The six books are Zombie Bake-Off, The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti, Three Miles Past, After the People Lights Have Gone Off, It Came from Del Rio, and Sterling City. They're being published as part of Open Road's Re-Discovery Lit (Re-Lit) initiative to make deserving oop books available again.

"Our mission is to use technology to enable books to be discovered--and rediscovered--by readers," David Steinberger, CEO of Open Road, said. "Republishing out-of-print works by Stephen Graham Jones is a great example of delivering on that mission."

"We recently had the honor of hosting our third wedding at the bookstore. Congratulations, Darlene and Jack!" A Novel Idea, Philadelphia, Pa., posted on Instagram. "From intimate ceremonies to fully catered all-day affairs, A Novel Idea is a special place for book lovers to tie the knot. Interested in getting married at our bookstore? Reach out today! We're currently booking for 2025."

Mary Beth Jarrad, previously marketing and sales director at NYU Press, has joined The New Press as publisher.

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Kayla Janas has been promoted to publicity manager at the St. Martin's Publishing Group/Minotaur Books.

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Nicki Walker has joined Candlewick Press, Holiday House Publishing, and Peachtree Publishing as associate national accounts manager. She was previously a sales assistant for the trade and mass market at the Quarto Group.

Will End in Fire by Nicole Bokat (She Writes Press).

Tomorrow:
CBS Mornings: Colin Kaepernick and Nessa Diab, authors of We Are Free, You and Me (Scholastic, $18.99, 9781339042947).

Today Show: Ann Patchett, author of The Verts: A Story of Introverts and Extroverts (HarperCollins, $19.99, 9780063064553).

Kelly Clarkson Show: Kate McKinnon, author of The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, $17.99, 9780316554732).

Sherri Shepherd Show: Don Lemon, author of I Once Was Lost: My Search for God in America (Little, Brown, $30, 9780316567695).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Ina Garten, author of Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir (Crown, $34, 9780593799895).

Jimmy Kimmel Live: Jennifer Aniston, author of Clydeo Takes a Bite Out of Life (HarperCollins, $21.99, 9780063372368).

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a musical based on John Berendt's 1994 nonfiction bestseller, will make a Broadway bow in 2025, with cast, dates, and theatre to be announced, Playbill reported. The work had its world premiere at Chicago's Goodman Theatre earlier this year. 

The production is written by Taylor Mac, with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. The creative team from the Chicago run will reprise their work, led by director Rob Ashford. The team also includes choreographer Tanya Birl-Torres, scenic designer Christopher Oram, costume designer Toni-Leslie James, lighting designers Neil Austin and Jamie Platt, and sound designer Jon Weston. 

Berendt said, "When I took my seat at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago last July to watch, for the first time, a full production of the Midnight musical, I had pen and notebook in hand, poised to jot down comments in the dark. After 20 minutes I realized I hadn't written a word. I'd been captivated by Jason Robert Brown's imaginative score, Taylor Mac's ingenious rendering of the (admittedly) complicated 388-page book, Tanya Birl-Torres' supple choreography, and Rob Ashford's resourceful and energetic shaping of it all in Christopher Oram's enchanting and right-on-target sets. So, I just sat back and enjoyed the show."

The shortlist has been released for the C$60,000 (about US$44,390) Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, which recognizes the best novel or short story collection of the year by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. 

The award is named in honor of Writers' Trust of Canada co-founders Margaret Atwood and the late Graeme Gibson, who started the organization in 1976 "with the help of a few fellow writers and an aim to encourage a Canadian literary culture at home." The winner will be announced November 19. This year's finalists, who each receive C$5,000 (US$3,700), are:

What I Know About You by Éric Chacour, translated by Pablo Strauss
Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr
Batshit Seven by Sheung-King
Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin
Hi, It's Me by Fawn Parker

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The shortlist has been selected for the £25,000 (about $33,300) 2024 T.S. Eliot Prize, honoring "the best new poetry collection written in English and published in the U.K. or Ireland" and sponsored by the T.S. Eliot Foundation. The winner will be announced January 13.

Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus
Lapwing by Hannah Copley
The Penny Dropping by Helen Farish
Fierce Elegy by Peter Gizzi
High Jump as Icarus Story by Gustav Parker Hibbett
Eleanor Among the Saints by Rachel Mann
Adam by Gboyega Odubanjo
Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips
Rhizodont by Katrina Porteous
Top Doll by Karen McCarthy Woolf

Amanda Lee Koe's sophomore novel, Sister Snake, is a deliciously provocative examination of female agency, with startling, serpentine bite. Once upon a time in Hangzhou, China, a white krait and a green viper became "sworn sisters" after the latter nursed the former back to health from "unspeakable violence." Disillusioned by her own kind, the white snake found herself observing humans, convinced they "carried themselves with logic and noblesse." She longed to be human, and although her sister was satisfied with their way of life, the green snake "would try anything once." In the year 815, the green snake procured "lotus seeds... capable of bestowing human form and ageless immortality." After 800 years in self-cultivation, the sisters finally transitioned in 1615. The white snake named herself Bai (for white) Suzhen (because it sounded like an honorable scholar poet's virtuous wife). The green snake eventually chose Emerald.

Fast forward to now. Wealthy Su lives in Singapore--"just like her, Singapore has a meticulous and cautious character." She's married to a parliamentary minister and "settled into the rosy modesty of the traditional-wife life" because she's long realized that "conformity makes for excellent camouflage." Restless Emerald, who "moved cities every two or three years," is currently living off sugar daddies in New York City. When an encounter with her latest makes news headlines--Central Park, NYPD, gunshots--Google Alerts pings Su's phone and she's on the next flight to JFK. As fraught as their sororal reunion is, Emerald nevertheless agrees to go back to Singapore with Su. The pair haven't lived together since 1868, and sharing the same space--as luxurious and entitled as that may be--is not going to have a happy ending... although it might inspire much-needed new beginnings.

Koe (Delayed Rays of a Star) is a fabulously subversive, snarkily insightful writer with an extraordinarily keen eye for contemporary human observations: forever youthful Su gets regular treatments to look age-appropriately older so her publicly important husband won't be seen as a skirt-chaser; Emerald's Greenpoint roommate quips, "How Goop of you," when she reveals her transformative self-cultivation to attain the ability to dance "between both skins." In her acknowledgements, Koe cites China's ancient folktale "Legend of the White Snake" and the 1993 film Green Snake as setting her "imagination on fire." She also admits to having "had so much fun writing Sister Snake it might be criminal." Her readers will undoubtedly feel the same. --Terry Hong

Shelf Talker: Amanda Lee Koe's sophomore novel, Sister Snake, is a serpentine tale--with delicious bite--of two strikingly different shapeshifting, immortal sisters.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. The Reset Mindset by Penny Zenker
2. Grimstone by Sophie Lark
3. Billion Dollar Bullseye by Jonathan Cronstedt
4. Twisted Love by Ana Huang
5. Wrecked by Lauren Asher
6. Nifty Thrifty Dentists by Glenn Vo
7. The Ritual by Shantel Tessier
8. Between Desire and Denial by Shain Rose
9. Selling in a Post-Trust World by Larry Levine
10. Truly Madly Deeply by L.J. Shen

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]