Pages of Refuge: an East Atlanta Bookstore Provides Safe Harbor

Twenty minutes east of downtown Atlanta, in the suburb of Decatur, Alexis Hampton pondered her next read. She loves queer romance novels, but lately she’s been trying to read more nonfiction. Would she pick up something like the newest Casey McQuiston novel and gallivant through Europe, or would she venture into the world of narrative history?

Regardless of the choice Hampton made (spoiler: it was the romance), she knew where she’d buy the book from. In the past, she’d mostly bought from the big brands that have overtaken the book industry, like Amazon, which accounted for more than half of all print sales and more than 80% of ebook sales in 2019, according to a House Judiciary Committee report.

Then she discovered Charis Books and More.

“Barnes and Noble will display the same 20 books that are all by white people, that are all straight, and it’s just too much,” Hampton said. “Here (at Charis), it’s sectioned out for you, and I feel like it has a bigger selection of books in general. I think the things that they keep on the shelf are really interesting, and I like the staff recommendations because we love a well-read staff.”

Founded in 1974, Charis is the South’s self-proclaimed oldest independent feminist bookstore, working to represent the Atlanta community “in complex and intersectional ways.” The building is tucked between classic Southern-style homes with covered front porches, blending in as unknowing drivers cruise past. Yet, just behind The Little Free Library on the sidewalk, a colorful pride flag broadcasts the store’s queer ownership and feminist mission.

“When you come in, you’re going to see books of all kinds in sections which are a little more distinct than what you’d see in a general bookstore,” said co-owner Sara Luce Look. “If you’re in the fiction section, you’re going to see books by lots and lots of people of color. You’re going to see books by trans people. You’re going to see books by all different kinds of queer people.”

While independent bookstores are benefitting from historic growth, in the South, such a curated, diverse selection can still be hard to come by. Luce Look said that in 1994, North America had over 200 feminist bookstores, but by the mid-2000s that number was just 13. Now, she said those numbers are again on the rise—Charis alone has doubled the number of books it carries in the past decade, with entire shelves dedicated to parenting tips for the guardians of LGBTQ+ kids, nonfiction narratives about mass incarceration, and a full bookshelf overflowing with queer and sapphic romance titles.

About one quarter of the store’s titles is dedicated to inclusive children’s books, an area of particular interest for Charis.

The business also partners with Charis Circle, its nonprofit programming arm dedicated to facilitating events in feminist communities – up to 270 a year. The organization recently acquired a plot of land that will be used to establish a feminist artist’s retreat, dubbed Swallow Hollow.

Luce Look said the growth of the business is due in part to people’s need for a refuge during a period of heightened political polarization and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

In the past two years, the Human Rights Campaign, America’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, declared its first ever state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans, largely because of the high number of anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation and record number of LGBTQ hate crimes. Books haven’t been immune—in the 2023-2024 school year, PEN America documented more than 10,000 book bans, nearly half of which featured LGBTQ+ people and characters. The organization says the number is the highest since the McCarthy-era Red Scare, exceeding this century’s average book ban rate by nearly 900%, according to the American Library Association.

As a result, affirming spaces like Charis, which has always stocked the books that are now often banned, have become a necessity for LGBTQ+ Americans and avid readers alike.

“We’ve always stocked those books,” co-owner Angela Gabriel said. “They’ve always been on our shelves. They’re new to the (general) community, but they’re not new to us.”

For Hampton—the romance reader who is also a lesbian Atlanta native and Georgia State alumnus that’s grown up reading copious amounts of literature—the notion of Charis as a refuge rings true.

“Being Black and being a woman, these things intersect all the time. In the South it’s always like, are they mad at me because I’m Black, because I’m a woman, or because I’m gay? Is it all three?” Hampton said. “I’m really happy for spaces like this, where I can just come in and find a book and not have to worry about being looked at any type of way. We’re all readers, and we’re just trying to find a good story.”