This Saturday a new bookstore is opening in Hyde Park! Call & Response is a Black woman owned bookstore that will prioritize selling books by authors of color. I was able to speak with Courtney Bledsoe, the owner of Call & Response via email as she makes final preparations for the grand opening.
Ariana Valderrama
One of the things I noticed immediately is the intentionality behind every aspect of the store. Not only are you prioritizing books by authors of color but you’re committed to paying your staff a living wage and providing health insurance. While many bookstore owners would love to do that, some of them wait a few years until after they open to offer those kinds of benefits. Can you talk a bit about the values that drove that business decision (and any others you want to highlight!) while explaining why it was so important for you to incorporate them now as opposed to waiting?
Courtney Bledsoe
Times are tough for all businesses right now given the rising costs of rent, inventory, and other key aspects of operation, so paying a living wage can be difficult for a lot of businesses. Even though it means having a very lean staff at the beginning, I wanted to at the very least make sure I am paying staff a wage that is considered to be sustainable in this city; I think we all deserve that. And an unfortunate reality of the United States healthcare system is that healthcare continues to be tied to employment, which means that if someone is not getting their benefits through their employer, they might face quite substantial hurdles to gaining coverage. The upshot of this is that the shop will likely not have a very large staff, at least not at the outset but that’s okay—I don’t mind having a smaller staff here that knows the shop well and knows our customers well. And, at the end of the day, I don’t want this store to become a massive enterprise; I’m content with it being a relatively small, contained neighborhood spot where you know the folks working here and we all know a good number of our regular patrons.
Ariana Valderrama
What makes Call & Response unique? Or what do you hope folks notice when they walk in that sets your store apart?
Courtney Bledsoe
I hope that people walking in this store notice the intentionality of the space—not just in the curation of the titles on the shelves, but also in the environment I’m hoping to foster for people who enter the shop. I was a library kid, and a kid who hung out in Borders (may it rest in peace) after school until it closed for the evening, so I want this space to feel inviting for people just stopping in after work or school, or looking for somewhere to linger on a lazy Saturday. We’ll also encourage patrons to create their own “shelf talkers” (small tags on shelves that share pieces of information and recommendations for certain titles)—it’s a fun way to see what people in the community are reading and enjoying!
I’m hoping people feel encouraged to stay awhile—which is why I am also hoping to provide some light (nonalcoholic) beverages to those stopping in. At the end of the day, I want this to be a place where everyone feels welcome, encouraged, and at home.
Ariana Valderrama
You were selected to participate in BinkTanc‘s business incubator pilot program whose goal is to support “BIPOC-owned retail bookselling businesses.” This is incredibly impressive! How has the program impacted you thus far?
Courtney Bledsoe
BincTank has been such an incredible opportunity, and it’s been fantastic to meet a cohort of similarly-minded independent bookstore owners across the country! It’s also been a deeply humbling experience seeing the ways that other booksellers of color have fostered community in their respective spaces and leaned into their own missions. At the end of the day, much of the cohort is united in our desire to amplify stories by people of color, and it’s incredibly encouraging to have a support system like this. BincTank has also enabled the cohort to attend weekly bookselling classes, and each member of the cohort will be paired with a mentor to help navigate more store-specific dynamics. It’s an amazing group, and I’m so deeply grateful for the opportunity and resources provided.
Ariana Valderrama
Ahead of Call & Response’s grand opening you did a number of fun pop up activities ranging from a booth at a holiday market to an adult book fair. Are there any lessons or observations you’ve had from these events that will influence the brick and mortar? Feel free to take this question in whatever direction you’d like.
Courtney Bledsoe
One fun quirk of pop-ups is that you end up talking to a lot of different types of people about books. Particularly when running events at coffee shops and cafes, I enjoy being able to talk to folks who haven’t read in a while and provide some thoughts on where to start. I think in a brick-and-mortar bookstore setting, you are typically more likely to get people who are veteran readers or who are buying gifts for loved ones, but at a pop-up, you get to chat about books with people who might want to get back into reading but just haven’t connected with the right book yet. And, pop-ups are great for building relationships with community members, since every book you sell will essentially be handsold (sold through one-on-one conversation)!
The other thing about pop-ups is that they can be quite unpredictable. Sometimes a handful of people will show up, and others (like the Grown Up Book Fair at First Sip Cafe), a couple hundred people will show up and you’ll barely know what to do with yourself. Pop-ups teach you very quickly how to roll with the punches as a small business owner.
Ariana Valderrama
Can you give us a sneak peek or hint about any special opening day plans?
Courtney Bledsoe
While I’ve enjoyed providing updates about how store progress is going, I’ve largely not been sharing photographs of the interior because I almost like the idea of a big reveal on opening day! But, I will say that a couple of community members were really excited about providing some murals inside the shop, so I cannot wait for people to see the beautiful artwork that these kind neighbors have created! I’m also working with a local Black-owned small business to provide some fresh baked sweets on Saturday, and we will be doing some bookish giveaways as well!
Ariana Valderrama
What 2-4 books are you most excited to handsell? Bonus points for including a backlist (a book published last year or later) title or author you want more people to discover. You can also include an upcoming title you hope folks pre-order.
Courtney Bledsoe
I am really excited to handsell a couple of books in particular:
1) This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley—as someone who grew up in the Black church and still identifies as Christian, I absolutely loved the way that Arthur Riley thinks about the beauty of Blackness within the context of spirituality. She acknowledges the many ways that Blackness has been othered, and meditates on all the things that make us who we are. This book truly felt like a warm hug and I want other people to feel that embrace!
2) The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez, which is a space opera-adjacent book that can appeal both to fans of more “literary” fiction and those who enjoy typical science fiction reads. It takes place in a world filled with time travel and intergalactic corporations, and considers the many ways in which humans can love and harm each other across time and space. This book turned me into an emotional mess by the end.
3) Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, who is one of my auto-buy authors. Hammad actually draws upon Shakespeare’s Hamlet to explore identity across time and place—Enter Ghost focuses on a Palestinian British woman who goes back to the West Bank to put on a performance of Hamlet but encountering the realities of occupation along the way. Throughout, there’s consideration of Western positionality, changes in place over time, and so much more.
Ariana Valderrama
Are there any non bookish items you’re excited to sell and can you share a bit about the choices to sell these items?
Courtney Bledsoe
We’ve got several sideline items that I’m really excited about! We’ll be stocking Hyde & Park Co., a local Black-owned candle company, here at the shop, as well as stationery from PardePress, and some other stationery made by BIPOC creatives. I really wanted to showcase local creatives in particular, especially because there is a really vibrant scene here in Chicago of amazing small businesses that are not necessarily location-based but provide their items for sale in different brick-and-mortar businesses. Candles and stationery in particular, I think, pair quite well with books, and I’m so excited for people to peruse these entrepreneurs’ creations!
Ariana Valderrama
Because this is the Chicago Review of Books, I must ask what are your favorite books by Chicago authors? And the definition of a Chicago author can be broad, they may not have been born in Chicago but perhaps they went to school here, maybe they only spent a few years outside of school, etc.
Courtney Bledsoe
Most recently, a book that’s stayed with me is Phillip B. Williiams’s Ours, which follows a group of recently emancipated Black folks who are looking to carve out a place for themselves in the world. Williams uses magical realism to explore the meanings and contours of freedom for Black folks in the United States, and you can absolutely tell that he is a poet by trade because the prose is absolutely stunning.
Mariame Kaba’s We Do This ‘Til We Free Us is a fantastic envisioning of a world that leans further into restorative justice and shifts away from our expansive carceral system here in the U.S. It’s a great book for people who are just starting to explore concepts of prison abolition; it doesn’t necessarily give concrete policy recommendations, but instead it encourages readers to imagine something better for all of us.
Lastly, I of course have to shout out Gwendolyn Brooks (Selected Poems), whose poetry I feel is quite accessible but also provides an amazing lens on Blackness in the city and across the United States. I think that poetry for a lot of people can be really daunting, but Brooks’ writing never feels too unapproachable despite Brooks being a literary giant; her writing packs a punch but I feel refreshed after reading it.
Ariana Valderrama
Now let’s imagine Hyde Park’s most famous present-day couple (the Obamas) walk into your store. What books are you pressing into their hands?
Courtney Bledsoe
I would absolutely recommend Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. I loved that this fast-paced dystopian novel draws and expands upon real-world discussions of the harms of the prison industrial complex. Not only that, but it explores the spectacle of violence, and specifically state-sanctioned violence. It’s a read that not only provides a form of entertainment, but it also encourages readers to think a bit about what “justice” looks like, and the racialized components of any carceral system.
Ariana Valderrama
Finally, how can people support Call & Response besides buying books from the store?
Courtney Bledsoe
At this point, it’s mostly just spreading the word about the shop! A big hurdle for new businesses is making sure that people know what’s available to them—even word of mouth helps! Beyond this, though, I think that it’s important that people understand how shopping locally impacts the ability of small businesses to stay open and serve their communities. There’s a lot of talk about the impact of big box ecommerce on the small business landscape, and I don’t think that can be emphasized enough. Small businesses, not just indie bookstores, need support now more than ever, and so many of them are doing tremendous work in their respective communities that can’t be mimicked or replaced by larger national companies.
Call & Response Books opens this Saturday, May 4th from 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM and is located at 1390 E Hyde Park Blvd, Chicago, IL 60615.
Call & Response Books owner Courtney Bledsoe
