The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop Podcast
Queer Haven Books: How Two Women Built a Queer Literary Sanctuary
In this episode, I chat with Baker Rogers and Mattilyn Kortney, co-owners of Queer Have Books in Colombia, South Carolina.
Nestled in Columbia's historic Arcade Mall, this cozy 680-square-foot sanctuary defines queer not just as gender and sexual identity but as active resistance against all forms of discrimination. The shelves hold carefully curated collections addressing LGBTQ+ experiences alongside works on anti-racism, feminism, and social justice, creating a space where intersectionality isn't just acknowledged but celebrated.
What makes Queer Haven remarkable is how it thrives despite challenging political circumstances. While South Carolina faces potential legislation that could lead to widespread book bans, the shop has leaned into controversy by prominently featuring banned titles. "We have people come in here every day saying 'I've got to get this before it's sold out,'" Baker shares, noting the irony that censorship attempts have actually boosted interest in these books.
Beyond retail, Queer Haven functions as a vibrant community center. In its first year as a brick-and-mortar location, it hosted an impressive 160 events, ranging from book clubs and writing workshops to drag story hours and queer comedy nights.
In a world increasingly dominated by algorithm-driven recommendations and instant delivery, Queer Haven Books represents something profoundly different: human connection, thoughtful curation, and a physical space where marginalized voices are centered rather than silenced. It's not just about selling books—it's about creating community one page at a time.
This episode is brought to you by Saturn Press. Indie Bookshop owners, click here to receive 10% off your first order: www.saturnpress.us
Farrel Covington and the Limits of Style, Paul Rudnick
TJ Klune episode on The Bookshop Podcast
TJ Klune episode on The Bookshop Podcast
Paul Rudnick episode on The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, Evan Friss
The Life Impossible, Matt Haig
The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with authors, independent bookshop owners and booksellers from around the globe and publishing professionals. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to episode 296. This episode is brought to you by Saturn Press.
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Speaker 1:Now let's get on with this week's interview. Queer Haven Books is South Carolina's only independent queer bookstore and is co-owned by Baker Rogers and Matalyn Courtney. The name of the bookstore, queer Haven Books, is based on their mission to provide a place of safety and refuge for the queer community in the southern United States. Their hope is to be a safe haven from the many worries of the world. They define queer broadly to include all genders and sexualities that go against established norms, but also politically as pushback against all phobias and isms, discrimination and violence in our society. Hi, baker and Madeline, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you here, and how are you both?
Speaker 3:Great, thank you Doing as good as we can in these political times, but we're happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, these are strange times and scary times for so many people. I'm excited to learn about Queer Haven Books. What was the impetus behind an associate professor of sociology and a registered nurse to open a queer indie bookshop in South Carolina?
Speaker 3:Okay, well, it was kind of my brainchild, so I'll start there. Also, I'll be full professor in the fall. I just had to throw that in because I just found out.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. That's wonderful. It's a lot of hard work, and does that mean you'll receive tenure?
Speaker 3:I already have tenure as an associate, but I'll pull, which is the yeah, basically the end of the career ladder.
Speaker 1:That's great news. I hope you're celebrated Well done, thank you, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I've been struggling with academia for a while. It's in a chaos, as you know, related to the politics, but especially in the Southeast all the way back it's going in the wrong direction. So I wanted to kind of figure out a way to do what I love while also creating an exit strategy from academia. And I lived in Columbia, south Carolina, about 15 years ago and I wanted to open a queer bar for queer space. 15 years later, I'm 40. Now I did not want to open a bar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our dreams change as we get older, right?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, so I'm a sociologist and a social worker and I have my research is in gender and sexuality and I've written a few books and I just wanted a place where books like that written a few books and I just wanted a place where books like that, but also like all kinds of books, could be shared and education could be shared in a lot less controlled environment than academia these days. So I got the idea to open a bookstore and I just ran with it Probably, so so fast I didn't think to stop.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what? Sometimes you just have to run with an idea. Overthinking something can be a little debilitating. That's been my experience anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, definitely yeah, if I would have stopped and thought too much. I mean, I have a lot of friends who have been planning books or planning small businesses forever and, like you, can take forever to plan all the details. So that did not happen. We just we just went for it. At the time, maddie was still is, but was by. She likes me to call her my person, my partner, but we call each other person. So she was my person and she tagged along for the ride and now she a co-owner and does more work than me. So I'll let Maddie talk about that.
Speaker 1:Maddie, before you answer that, I just want to say thank you for being a nurse. My hat goes off to anybody in the medical profession, especially over the last six years. It's been extremely tough and I don't think medical professionals can ever be thanked enough. So thank you.
Speaker 2:It's my pleasure, thank you. And then getting to Baker starting the Burt's store. Yeah, it was her baby, like she said, we were dating at the time and so I just fell into it, and then in March she offered for me to be part owner. So here we are.
Speaker 1:So there's actually two of you and a silent partner. How many people do you have working for you in the store?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have three part-time employees.
Speaker 1:Now I'm looking at you both. Now, what am I seeing in the background? Is that an indoor mall or a little side street?
Speaker 3:Our store is located in the arcade mall on Main Street in downtown Columbia. It's the oldest mall in Columbia, South Carolina, so you can see kind of the beautiful like chandeliers and there's so much detail on the walls and stuff. Yeah, a lot of people don't even know it's here but it's the oldest indoor mall in Columbia.
Speaker 1:Well, it looks gorgeous. While I was researching you both and the bookshop, I read an article where you both describe how Queer Haven Books defines the word queer. Can you expand on that please?
Speaker 2:We describe it as more broad than most people do, and I will let Baker take it over from there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our focus is clearly on gender and sexuality, so in that way, queer is more traditional or what most people would think of, but then, yeah, we also describe it as like any kind of pushback against the norms. I think a lot of people now use queer as their identity as this like anti-establishment thing as well, so it's very political. On the website, we talk about pushing back against phobias and isms all of them, right Transphobia, homophobia, but also racism, ableism, ageism, sexism. So we have, in addition to queer, lgbtq plus IA books and authors. We also have a lot of books about anti-racism. We also have a lot of books about anti-racism. We have a lot of books about feminism, and so all of our books aren't just about, or written by, people who identify as queer, but what they're doing and fighting back against the violence and the horrible things that are happening to our society in our mind makes them queer politically, so where we also like to use this more like a radical, the word radical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've interviewed a few radical bookshops on the bookshop podcast and what I found is the idea of what is radical is constantly shifting. But one of the things in publishing that I found interesting is that people are now publishing zines at home and, my goodness, some of these zines are absolutely fantastic. Do you sell them in?
Speaker 3:the store we sell zines and chapbooks. Yeah, the zines and chapbooks are definitely, definitely, yeah, I think, a part of radical movements and I think that's really cool because I mean, we go all the way back, you know, to the communist manifesto. Right, this is what, what it is and to be valuable, I think, little handbooks, how we can do that or at least make some changes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, and I think radical bookshops have always been about community and activism. Now for now, indie bookshops in the United States are spaces where diverse communities can gather and have a conversation. How does this relate to Queer Haven Books?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it actually started that way. I mean it's grown more now because of all the things that are happening. But people, I think we're looking for somewhere to belong, and I mean we have people who come in just because they need to be here, not because they necessarily want to buy anything, but they want to be in a space where they feel safe, they're in a haven. And then definitely now, with, like I said, all the things, people are looking for those spots and definitely I think that we are one of them and it's our pleasure to be one of them.
Speaker 1:Baker. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3:We've been pop-up for a year and then a brick and mortar. This month is our year anniversary. Our year party comes up on the 26th and I like that. We did 160 events last year, either going out in the community and doing pop-ups or in our store. We have three official book clubs through the store, but we have other book clubs that meet here all the time.
Speaker 3:We have writing like just writing times, we have queer open mics, we have queer comedy, we have tarot classes and all these things. So I think while we've created this large community, we've also created safe places for a smaller, like more intimate community, and there's choices between do you want to come to this political event or do you want to go a terror class and build this community? So there's options for activism and options for radical politics, but there's also options for queer joy, escapism a little bit when we need to. And, like maddie said, we have people that sometimes just come here and sit and say there's nowhere else in columbia they feel safe to just sit. Yes, we've definitely built a huge community over the last two years and that's still growing much more since we have our brick and mortar now have a place to meet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would add I think we all need a safe place right. Our humanity isn't defined by the color of our skin or our sexuality. That's kind of a good segue into my next question, baker. On the Queer Haven Books website, under the Meet Our Staff menu, you wrote, quote Queer Haven Books is one of the many ways that I teach my daughter about love, diversity and equity. End quote have you had any opposition from Columbia residents about your bookshop and have you been able to cultivate a growing, accepting community?
Speaker 3:So where I wanted the bookshop to be located, we didn't find a place within our budget and we ended up in the mall here and I think it turned out really well. We're a 680 square foot business, so very small. A lot of people don't know about the mall. I think we're in some way. We're right on Main Street, three blocks from the Capitol building, but we're also like kind of off the beaten path. You need to know we're here and I think that has really saved us a lot in terms of we haven't gotten any pushback and we have friends all around Union, north Carolina, specifically where drag story hour and those things are being attacked. Next weekend we have a drag story hour and we've had three and no pushback. We just joined the drag story hour the national group so we can be a hub for that here in South Carolina because there's not an affiliate with the national group but we're able to do things like that.
Speaker 3:We go to Soda City, which is a market on Main Street, every Saturday and we set up our tent and we never have problems. I think and I say all the time one reason I think is because a lot of people were like don't name it queer, don't name it queer, and I was like, no, that's what I'm naming it because people know what it is. If they don't want it, then just walk away. We haven't had people who needed to tell us things really like about it. They just saw what it was and turned the other way because it's very clear. And then you ask about a broader community. For sure, we have a independent movie theater two blocks down Main Street called the Nickelodeon. They had a comedy tour Tuesday night is called here to Pee. It's a complete trans group doing a 50 state tour about politics. It's comedy but about politics. And yeah, it's called here to Pee.
Speaker 3:And we've worked with the NIC doing book to film things, where we do a book club and they'll do film. The Trustus Theater, the local independent theater, that does plays, some local and some traveling plays. We're on there, all of their bulletin, all their things. They advertise for us. The Richland County Library has us over multiple times a year to sell and they just had a huge event and they wanted to give out books at the event and they bought them directly from us. Yeah, the Harriet Hancock Center is the local LGBT center. We have a really great relationship with them. And then a couple of counseling centers that are all queer. So, yes, the community has expanded far outside of the community we have here. The larger community wants to support us, even in times where it could be dangerous for places like the library to support us. Support us Even in times where it could be dangerous for places like the library to support us.
Speaker 1:They're supporting us fully. That's good to hear. You know there's many queer authors have been on the show, but there's one in particular who I adore and that's TJ Klune, and I'll put the link to a couple of interviews I've done with him in the show notes. He shared a great story about the importance of his hometown library to him and he talks about the librarian quite a bit. Has TJ been into the store?
Speaker 3:No, but I would love that. If you know him, yeah, tell him to come.
Speaker 1:Well, I can definitely put you in touch with his publicist.
Speaker 3:You can tell him. I don't know if you can see this. That's Chauncey from his book. Oh, I see it in the window, a stuffed animal.
Speaker 1:I was first introduced to TJ Klune's writing by the children's author Elizabeth Bloomley, who owns Flying Pig Bookstore in Vermont, and she said to me have you ever read the House in the Cerulean Sea? And I said no, and she said look for a copy of it, I'm going to send you one in the mail. I started reading the book the day it arrived and couldn't put it down. Tj has this gift within his writing of bringing magic to the words. We are all one. That's all I'm going to say about him. I just think he's a fabulous writer and, importantly, his books inspire empathy. Do you have many queer authors living in the area?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do. We have a lot of queer poets. We have some that write fiction.
Speaker 1:That's great. How many of their books do you carry?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know how many we're carrying right now. I'm looking at the shelf with our local authors. I would say we carry about 40 local authors right now and anytime anyone reaches out I'm always willing to review if I'm worried it doesn't fit, but usually it's pretty, pretty obvious that it fits. So, even some self-published things, you know we have a little bit of everything. We try to get them all signed and sell them as signed copies because people really enjoy that.
Speaker 3:And then we we've had multiple local author events where we bring in authors and sometimes like just for a poetry reading, and then one time we tried a larger event where we brought in about 10 local artists at one time. So yeah, we have a lot of local artists and more and more reaching out. We have local artists coming in and bringing children's books and doing children's story hours and yeah. So we've had a lot of support and we're trying now to figure out a way to work with our local queer artists to do some commission based like hanging of work and stuff. We're so small, we don't have a lot of room, so we're trying to figure out what the best way to do that is. So we can, you know, show different, I guess, ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you read the Sister Holiday mystery series? It's published by Gillian Flynn through Zando.
Speaker 3:I haven't, but we have it. We have the series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've read Scorched Grace. I've got Blessed Water, which I haven't read yet, but I found it fantastic. I think it's gritty, it's kind of dark, it's mysterious. I'm so happy that Gillian is publishing these books. It's really exciting.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I'll have to read it. Yeah, we have the. I think there are three now right In the series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe I just have the two right now. Let's talk about publishing. Has the rise in independent queer bookstores helped publishers realize that there is a need for more books written by queer authors and books about the LGBTQ plus community, and are there any publishers you'd like to acknowledge?
Speaker 3:I was thinking about that and it's kind of one of those chicken and egg questions to me. I'm not sure I mean you could have had a queer bookstore at any time, but like the amount of books and amount of access we have to queer authors and queer books now is just unprecedented. It feels like the growth in queer bookstores might have come after that trend started, but I'm not sure, you know, I'm sure it does help and uh, especially like even local queer authors who don't have publishers and stuff, knowing that there are places that they could publish probably gives them that extra bump to say, yeah, yeah, we could do that, but yeah, I don't know what started first.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing I have noticed is that over the last five years, I've interviewed a couple of hundred independent bookshop owners and booksellers globally, as well as authors, and something that they've all noted is that, since COVID, publishers realized a couple of things. First of all, people love reading books. In have more books written by the LGBTQ plus community. We need to have more books written by people with disabilities. Because of that reason, customers want to see themselves on bookshelves in bookshops and in libraries. But you know what, before I go any further, I do want to step back a little bit. You mentioned that you had written books, so could you tell us a little bit about your books, baker, please?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so far I have written academic books. I have a book called Trans Men in the South, so I do a lot of gender and sexuality in the South. I have a book about Mississippi Christians' views on gay and lesbian civil rights. It's a little older. That was based on my dissertation. I have a book about drag kings in the South and currently I'm working on a book about lesbian identity. So that's my academic writing. But I would also love to write fiction. I've written some but haven't had the time or energy between my job and this job to publish it yet. But that's my goal. It's like I said, getting out of academia into running the bookstore, and writing would be my goal, and I think there are some projects I want to do that are fiction and some that are nonfiction. Have you read yet the bookshop? The History of the American Bookstore.
Speaker 1:I have it, but I haven't read it as yet, and that's by Evan Friss, and his wife owns a bookshop called Parentheses Books. It's in Harrisonburg, virginia.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it just came out. You have to read it. It's all about the different types of independent bookstores and the fight against like Barnes and Noble and Amazon, but also it talks about the first black you know on bookstore. The first queer on bookstore talked a little about feminist bookstores and that made me like think. And then I I got some information from a lesbian scholar, julie Enzer. I don't know if you've ever heard of her work. She created a database with all these archives from feminist bookstores through the US, through I don't know since, like their beginnings, and I'm thinking that would be a really cool project learning more about queer, feminist, radical bookshops like that, because the bookshop, the American History, it's very broad and I think focusing in on those radical bookshops would be also a very fun project. That's really needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the projects I would like to work on is the history of radical bookshops globally. Some of the stories I've read about the heartache and the courage of women and men who have, throughout history, worked to tell the truth through books and flyers. It just amazes me, and I think they deserve a voice, so I would love to do a documentary on them. Before I forget, there's an author in a book that I want to tell you about. The author is Paul Rudnick. He's a screenwriter. He is a playwright. He's wonderful. He's written many books, but one of them, which I spoke with him about a couple of years ago, is Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style. I'm sure it would be a wonderful book for you to carry in the bookshop.
Speaker 3:Take a picture of it while you're holding it up. I was going to say too, before I forget it, like with the podcast, I would love like, because I'm really interested in the history as well. If you need people involved in the research and the stuff, yeah, I would love that.
Speaker 1:Over the documentary of the history of the radical bookshops? That would be awesome. Okay, madeline, I have a question for you.
Speaker 2:I counted about 43 queer independent bookshops in the US and it's growing. Does that sound about right to you? That sounds right. I counted them not too long ago and that's about the number that I remember getting in the United States.
Speaker 1:Is there a camaraderie between all of you?
Speaker 3:meeting with Under the Umbrella out of Salt Lake City, utah, because they have a very similar model to us queer bookstore. They're much bigger but and also they're in like small city, you know, not that queer friendly. And so we talked quite a bit and then the American Bookseller Association set me up with a small feminist bookseller which I haven't gotten a chance to work with much, but we've started to develop a relationship. And then the local, just like our independent bookstore here, like the more general independent bookstore, we have a good relationship with them as well. They helped us get started really. So, yeah, yeah, we have that. I think we could build on that, especially when we're talking about 43 places. Right, that's manageable to create some kind of at least some kind of network.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great idea. Now has Queer Haven Books been affected by book bans.
Speaker 3:I would say it's helped us, which is the opposite. We always had banned books, but we have focused on getting more and they sell quickly People probably want all of them banned.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it all stems from fear. Fear and ignorance, right.
Speaker 3:It does. Yeah, yeah. And in South Carolina there's 10 books being challenged in Beaufort. Well, we passed a law where if they're banned by the school, then it could go to the school board. If the school board bans it, then they're out of every library in South Carolina that's publicly funded.
Speaker 1:But they can't take them out of your bookshop.
Speaker 3:No, because we're private. Yeah, so only if you're federally funded or you've received some type of federal funding so they could take it out of a nonprofit bookshop. I guess, technically, if they have any federal funding, if those 10 books are banned and I'm not sure if the vote has happened South Carolina is up to have the most banned books in the US. But we have people come in here every day like I got to get this before it's sold out, or I got to get this because people are talking about it, so like they're actually helping us in some way, which is not okay, like we don't. It's not worth it for us, right? We don't want that, but they haven't harmed us because we can continue to carry them and we're some of the only places that have like so many. Yeah, when people ask what we have our band I was like we have a lot of band books and the rest would be banned if they knew they existed.
Speaker 1:For anyone interested I recommend googling penorg forward slash, band hyphen books, hyphen week, forward slash, and I'll make sure to put that in the show notes. But I was shocked when I saw how many banned books were in California, because you know we're pretty liberal here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was on a federal grant. I was on the advisory board. It wasn't my grant to study trans rural lives in the Pacific Northwest and they just cut the funding April 1st from the government. But talking about those red states and what's happening with queers in those rural areas, yeah, it was like a $600,000 federal grant and it was cut on April 1st.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.
Speaker 3:But, like you're saying, they're very different. We think California, but there's very different things happening in Northern rural California than in the city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in Central California too. Okay, let's talk about books. You're reading Madeline. How about you go first?
Speaker 2:I'm reading a book on bisexuality. I run the nonfiction book club and so I do a lot of sex and sexuality. That's what the book club is based on, so I'm reading that on bisexuality. Then I'm also reading the second book in the fourth wing series. When we started the bookstore, I was halfway through the second one, and then when you open a bookstore, you don't read books anymore. Really sometimes. I know, I know, but I had to put it down just because we were so busy. So when the third one came out, I restarted them. So I'm in the second one right now and we're listening to one together. What book is that?
Speaker 3:uh, we're listening to the impossible life by matt haig together. I don't know if I'd call it queer, but it's well. Maybe it's all about environmentalism. We would probably carry it um, because it's all about environmentalism and saving the planet. And, yeah, and the bi. When you're reading it's like it's called by the history and culture and something of bisexuality. It's yeah and um, right now I'm reading stone butch blues. I haven't read stone butch blues all the way through ever because it's such a hard read.
Speaker 3:It's by leslie feinberg. It was written in the early 90s and it's about witches in new york's in the 50s and 60s and it's a it's fiction, but it's very, uh, autobiographical fiction. Um, the main character is experiencing. It's very hard read. I mean a book from the 90s with a trigger warning, you know, tells you something. It's, it's hard, but, um, we just had our book club for it last night.
Speaker 3:What you said about fiction creating or building empathy is definitely so true and and that book everybody should read sunbush blues and leslie feinberg lost the publisher, went out of business and they lost the rights to their own book and they finally got the rights back to their book later in life. They I think they passed away in 2002 but got the books back later in life, and so now it's free um pdf or ebook, or you can print on demand and after I fully read it. And so now it's free PDF or ebook, or you can print on demand and after I fully read it, and all that it's very anti-capitalist. So we're selling them for exactly what we pay to print on demand, making no profit off of them as a like anti-capitalist solidarity with Feinberg.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm reading that and I'm also reading the Night Watchman. It was a Pulitzer Prize winner. I can't remember if it was 2024 or which year and it's about. It's set in the 1950s when the government was trying to take more land out in Utah and North Dakota South Dakota from Native people. Well, they call themselves Indians in the book and they're trying to take their land. Very, very good book.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for the recommendations. Where can people find you online and in your brick and mortar bookshop?
Speaker 2:We're at queerhavenbookscom, we're on Instagram and Facebook as Queer Haven Books, and then we're located in the Ardcade.
Speaker 3:Mall 1332 Main Street, 29201.
Speaker 2:Unit 120. Yeah and yeah, suite 120, the mall and um, only about three blocks up from the capitol building, like I said so online on our website you can order books for shipping and we've actually gotten our online orders have seemed to have gone up a little bit recently, which is interesting and great yeah, people, even from around the country choosing to support small local queer businesses rather than Amazon has been very cool that we're starting to build a little bit.
Speaker 3:It's still slow in the online.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in an in-person event the other day it was all about the environment. It was with an author named Edward Humes who has written a lot about the environment. He's written a great book called Total Garbage, and we started talking about what I think is one of the main issues with people ordering online through Amazon. We have become a society who expects instant gratification, and if you look at people ordering books online from Amazon because they want it the next morning to be delivered at like three o'clock in the morning or something, rather than order through their independent bookshop, it's just crazy. You know, yeah, it might take one extra day to arrive, but they work hard to get it there to you as quickly as possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what the book the bookshop, american History of the Bookstore was talking about too. And I didn't even know that Amazon I think it was all in California tried to open in-person bookstores and people hated them and they quit. Because the reason you go to a bookshop is not instant gratification, it's to read something you've never read, it's to talk to the booksellers, it's to have an experience. Right, it's an experience rather than an instant gratification, and the book you're planning to buy might not be the book that's going to be best for you. And that's what's cool about booksellers too, as you know, having done it, is that you can be like yeah, everybody likes that one, but here's why it wasn't my favorite, but I think you would like this one better, and so I think that community and those relationships are what are bringing people back to independent bookshop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was curious. So I did go into one of the Amazon bookstores in Los Angeles and, yeah, I wasn't impressed. I walked straight back out again. Most of the books were front facing and I don't think that's necessary, especially in a small independent bookshop. You cannot do that. You just don't have the space.
Speaker 3:So they took all of this knowledge about how to do it and they put it together and it didn't work because they left out the booksellers. They had young people paying them barely nothing, that knew nothing about books and that's why people didn't want to go there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it gets back to building relationships between booksellers and customers and readers.
Speaker 3:Why go there when you could order have it delivered? Right, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:Baker and Madeline, thank you so much for being a guest on the Bookshop Podcast and I wish you all the best with Queer Haven Books.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for doing what you're doing and talking to people and sharing why independent bookstores matter. And yeah, definitely read the bookshop. Read the bookshop history, you're going to love it.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to my conversation with Baker Rogers and Madeline Courtney, owners of Queer Haven Books in South Carolina. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. To find out more about the Bookshop Podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. Shop podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson-Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy, adrian Otterhan and graphic design by Francis Perala. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time. Bye.