Exploring Pittsburgh’s progressive independent bookstore scene

In the age of Amazon and artificial intelligence, the ideal of the friendly neighborhood bookstore might seem like a relic of the past. To the modern consumer, a bookseller sounds like more of a rom-com occupation than anything — like a cupcake decorator, gallery curator or, of course, journalist. 

While COVID-19 was another blow to independent bookstores across the country and in Pittsburgh — where an unlikely revival had been in progress — these local havens are bouncing back, with some new additions in the mix.

Across many of these old and new bookstores is a progressive focus, as several have their own unique missions that go beyond profits. From a newly opened children’s bookstore aiming to promote representation and empathy among kids to a feminist and LGBTQ+-centric row nestled within another store, Pittsburgh’s independent booksellers recognize the power of reading to foster empathy. 

Rainbows and representation

Stepping into Stories Like Me on Sunday morning is like entering a young reader’s utopia. Sun streams through tall rectangular windows, and owner Helen Campbell’s soothing British accent is wrapping up story time. There’s a rainbow display of biographies on the back wall and tables that each tackle a different theme (such as pride and body diversity) and range in age from board books “for the teeny tiniest” to young adult novels. 

According to Campbell, many first-time customers have a similar reaction, whether they’re checking out the Greenfield shop or one of her Pride festival pop-ups.

“They’re like, ‘Oh, that’s awesome,’” she says. “‘If only I’d had this when I was growing up.’”

The mission of Stories Like Me is simple: to offer kids books that help them process their own experiences and identities, and empathize with others. Campbell is “buoyed” whenever a customer comes to her with a specific request, and she’s able to suggest not one book that fits the criteria but many. 

“I had somebody come in on Friday and say, ‘I need a book for an 8- to 12-year-old that is about being on the autism spectrum.’ And I had 10,” she says. “I could say, ‘This one, this one, this one. … This one is not at all about being autistic, but it is about a person with autism who’s the protagonist, and it’s a detective story. Whereas this one is more about a memoir/life experience.’”

The inspiration for Stories Like Me came to Campbell around 2017 when she was working in an education nonprofit. She took a training that explored the concept of books serving multiple purposes: as window, mirrors and sliding glass doors. In addition to representation, the right book can allow a child to “step into the world” of someone with a totally different life. 

Campbell called her two adult kids, and they began the process of registering the LLC and building the business with the help of community feedback, the University of Pittsburgh’s Small Business Development Center and Bridgeway Capital.

“During the pandemic, my job went away, and I lost my mom, and I’m like, ‘If not now, when?’ So we got going.”

When it came to selecting a location, Campbell held firm to clear accessibility criteria. She made the decision to buy the Greenfield building so they could knock out walls and ensure that both the entrance and the restrooms were accessible. And the bookshelves themselves? Campbell reveals that they’re actually repurposed doors, which she acquired through “a chap called Andrew from Doors Unhinged.”

Since Stories Like Me opened, it’s seen a steady flow of regulars. Campbell says that she’s gotten to see many of the littlest kids grow a little bigger — Now they’re talking, walking and exploring. She’s loved getting familiar with the needs of each member of her regular families, and she makes recommendations based on what seems to be an encyclopedic knowledge of diverse books. 

“Once I get to know a family, and I know the types of books that they enjoy — the representation that they’re seeking — it’s really fun for me to be able to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this new book about being nonbinary, you know, and the process of emerging as nonbinary,’” Campbell says. “‘It’s called ‘The Beautiful Something Else.’ I think this would be great for your middle one.’”

Amid news stories of banned books and anti-LGBTQ+ moral panic, Campbell says that the store has been a safe space that has far outweighed any pushback. While every once in a while at a pop-up, parents will stop their child from exploring books about gender identity, or Black history, it’s much more common for people to come into her store and express relief at the Pride “progress flag” displayed or the ample collection of YA queer horror. 

Whether it’s a new book that fits perfectly into one of the rotating displays or a special guest — such as the yo-yo expert who taught kids different shapes and techniques at an event — life at Stories Like Me never gets boring. Right now though, Campbell is focused on trying to find a sustainable pace where it can operate. As she and her two kids, Elsie Campbell and Imogen Campbell Hendricks, exit the initial “panic mode” of operating a new business, she’s looking to both diversify revenue, and find new ways of measuring success. 

“I can measure success by the connections that I’m making,” she says, “or by the delight of a book that a person could see themselves in.”

Asylum in Alphabet City

Up on the North Side, a hub of literary activity expands beyond the doors of the next bookstore on the list. Sharing the eclectic Alphabet City building space with 40 North (a restaurant), City of Asylum is partnered with a nonprofit of the same name, whose mission is to promote creative freedom by offering sanctuary and financial support to exiled writers. 

If you’ve ever strolled down Sampsonia Way, a couple of blocks from Randyland and the Mattress Factory, you might have seen some of the “Poet Houses” where these writers reside. Five of them in particular stand out, adorned with colorful murals and characters in the native languages of the displaced authors, who hail from countries such as China, Burma and Ukraine. 

In between the bookstore on the right and the restaurant on the left, there’s a cozy collection of couches and chairs that look perfect for curling up with a good book, and a multicolored chevron woven rug. Near the entrance, there’s an eye-catching display featuring books published by many of these writers-in-residence, such as Israel Centeno’s “The Conspiracy” and Horacio Castellanos Moya’s “Tyrant Memory.” 

The most recent set of exiled authors are from Ukraine: Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko, Olena Boryshpolets and Volodymyr Rafeyenko recently arrived in Pittsburgh, where they can now continue to write and publish despite the still-raging war. Bookstore manager Phoenix Tefel adds that another writer-in-residence from Sudan, Rania Mamoun, revealed her identity to the world with her most recent book of poetry, released in March.

“For a long time, she went by an anonymous name for safety reasons. And then she realized she was tired of that and wanted to come out with her work under her own name,” she says. “It was a really big deal.”

While this display, a table with newly published translated works and a section featuring banned books throughout history are among the most prominent, the place also operates as a general interest bookstore sorted by genre, with translated works sprinkled throughout. Close to the back, there are sections devoted to specialty publishers and a carefully curated kids section, thanks to Jen Kraar, the store’s assistant manager, who used to be a children’s librarian. 

“She cultivates books that are very multicultural, diverse and very timely, just important books for kids to read, and [she] has a story time hour early in the morning on the weekends for various age groups,” Tefel says. 

City of Asylum also offers two subscription services — one for adults and one for kids. Customers can get personalized bundles of books, and many, Tefel adds, are longtime users who keep coming back.

The store’s customer base is “very open,” she says, and it’s always growing. There’s also a consistent group of volunteers who have “really embedded” themselves into the community of the bookstore. 

Even throughout the pandemic, members of the City of Asylum community based in Pittsburgh and abroad tuned into events held beneath the red curtains of the stage in the back and broadcast over Zoom. Each May, people attend the Jazz Poetry Month event series, where musicians and poets perform together and speak about their artistry. On the horizon is LitFest, a 16-day festival promoting cross-cultural exchange. 

Behind the desk, the community is just as supportive. Tefel and Kraar share a bookseller’s notebook, where they pass notes back and forth whenever they aren’t working at the same time. They also keep a running list of compliments from new customers.

“It’s always like, ‘I’ve never seen something like this,’ which feels very special, and we get a lot of praise for the children’s section especially. So many people come in and are blown away by it.”

Tefel adds that it’s powerful to witness exiled authors read their work on stage — because it’s one thing to know about issues facing refugees and another to experience their voices telling their stories. 

“Our goal here is to if we can’t change the entire world, we can at least have a place here where writers can come and be able to express themselves the way they want to and not have to alter how they present themselves based on extenuating circumstances,” she says. 

From Paris to the ‘Paris of Appalachia’

Next to the checkout counter at Oakland’s Caliban Books, a field of feminist and queer thought is contained in just a couple of shelves. Karen Lillis runs Karen’s Book Row, which specializes in what she considers to be staples of feminist and LGBTQ+ literature. 

She explains her methodology for the setup: “There are four novels on top that I want to highlight, and then a few tiny books, including, usually, ‘We Should All Be Feminists,’ spaced out on that second shelf, and then there’s always a queer section at eye level. And then the first full shelf is feminist fiction,” she says. “The next full shelf is feminist nonfiction. And then the bottom is guys because there are still guys that I want to highlight, but [I’m] thinking about Kathleen Hanna’s phrase ‘girls to the front.’ ” 

The rows are lined with Angela Davis, Sylvia Plath, Zora Neale Hurston, Allen Ginsberg and Audre Lorde. Classic feminist philosophers quoted for decades, such as Simone de Beauvoir’s “Second Sex,” are joined with modern picks, such as Imogen Binnie’s “Nevada,” a 2013 novel that has emerged as a staple of trans literature.

Balancing older classics that still hold value and insight for the modern reader with newer books such as “Nevada” and “The Argonauts” — both of which Lillis says are always on the shelf — has been an exciting challenge. Essentially, she can help define what comprises the “new canon” for progressive readers. 

“I think ‘The Awakening’ might fall into one of those categories for me where it’s really affected me, as far as how dramatic [Kate Chopin] makes her point and the feminism, but then there’s like some Southern racism around the edges — Yeah, it’s just not quite up to speed on the race relations. But I feel like the contemporary reader can read that and then be able to critique that,” she says. “The overarching message is worth it.”

Curating the shelves requires a combination of carefully listening to the reading experiences of her customers, intuition and “just having fun,” according to Lillis. 

She’s developed these skills in spades, thanks to a multifaceted literary career. Her first job in the field was at St. Mark’s Bookshop — it closed in 2015 — a progressive hub in New York City’s East Village. There, she met people involved in a variety of protest movements, and she found a taste for their “intersection of lefty politics and avant-garde art.” 

The next stop in her career was the iconic expat bookstore based in Paris: Shakespeare & Company, which she credits for her love of “the bringing together of things” and for welcoming travelers. She appreciated that Karen’s Book Row is located near a host of hotels and tourist attractions, such as the Carnegie Museum of Art, because it allows her to “welcome the world to Pittsburgh.”

In the interim, Lillis took a foray into the small press scene, establishing a pop-up called Small Press Pittsburgh that frequented sidewalk sales and arts festivals. In 2016, she went digital and started Karen’s Book Row as an Etsy shop, which has always had a vintage vibe, married with liberationist theory and a distinct “feminist fiction flavor.”

After working as a manager at Caliban for a couple of years, Lillis opened her current “permanent pop-up” location within Caliban in June 2021. She’s found the college students who frequent Craig Street to be a receptive audience, many of whom might be used to a literary scene in the suburbs consisting of Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

On top of books, Karen’s Book Row offers tote bags with her logo and clever stickers, such as “Zora [Neale Hurston] was robbed” and “Zelda was ransacked,” designed to continue her mission of “being a pusher for the authors that I love.” 

In Pittsburgh, Lillis says she’s discovered a flourishing and friendly community of fellow booksellers. When she was still the face of Small Press Pittsburgh, she coordinated several annual holiday book fairs that connected indie booksellers located all around the city with holiday shoppers. 

Now, she’ll direct customers looking for something specific to check out the nearby Shadyside Books or Cozy Corner Books. Above all, Lillis says, there’s momentum and support around independent bookselling.

“The creativity of booksellers is refreshing to me,” she adds. “I love bookstores as information passing — You always learn.”