Vanishing Gay Culture: Atlanta's Outwrite Books

As late as Tuesday, Outwrite owner Philip Rafshoon was still talking about finding a new location in Atlanta for the lgbt bookstore that has been a queer Southern haven for 19 years. By the end of the week the store had closed forever and filed for bankruptcy. Their landlord raised the rent on the prime Midtown location. (The B&Ns in Chelsea and Lincoln Square were both said to face 400% increases in their rents causing them to close. Say what you will about Amazon, but greedy landlords are not Kindle's fault.) Rafshoon warned customers in May that they had to step up their spending, and they did, but it wasn't enough.

Possibly May was a little late to sound the alarm. The store owed four years of back taxes totaling $184,000. Their other debts, including four months of unpaid rent, put them more than $500,000 in the red. 

Last month Toronto's 31 year-old Glad Day Bookstore announced it is for sale. The local media claims it's the world's oldest surviving lgbt bookshop. Owner John Scythes has been paying the operating shortfall from his own savings. 

Readers will invariably blame the recession and chain superstores and online retailers and ebooks and bloggers who show up uninvited in their homes and force them to click through evil links, but consider also the broader shift in gay culture away from gay-specific businesses. The collapse of gay magazines and newspapers continues with the demise last month of Portland's Just Out after 28 years. All major cities are losing some gay bars and even San Francisco couldn't sustain their Eagle bar, which closed after 30 years because of a 20% rent increase. One interpretation is that with broader mainstream acceptance people have less need for the ghetto. Another is, blame the internet. The web killed print journalism and hook-up sites killed hook-up bars.

Here's Alan Hollinghurst on the shift in literature: "I think that gay writing, gay fiction, had its point, its urgency, through all those years, and then the AIDS crisis added another huge story. But lately, with all the social and legal changes, and the way the perception of gay people has changed, I feel that gay writing is already dissolving into the main body of writing. I sort of feel we’ve moved on.”

Some cities that still have gay bookstores are Philadelphia, Boston, Ann Arbor, Vancouver, London, Paris, Barcelona and San Jose, Costa Rica.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Comments

[D]

Great piece with a lot to ponder. Can't wait to see the next chapter unfold.

[Steve N]

And once again, I will make the case that you should be providing Nook links along with Kindle links in your book mentions/reviews, for it is B&N's ebooks that for a large measure are keeping the doors of the B&N stores open. B&N stores had a dismal holiday season, but overall the company is holding on largely because of their foresight and corporate wherewithal to get into e-book selling and distribution. No, that doesn't speak to the problem of queer bookstores, but to me any physical bookstore is better than no bookstores at all which is the world that Jeff Bezos would have us live in. Additionally, if you believe in providing useful service to your readers - as you obviously do with your Kindle links - why not provide the same (equality!!!!!) service to your readers who own Nooks? Don't stop providing Kindle links, just add Nook links!
So, what do you say? This is the 3rd time I've written in your blog about this. How about at least a response? You know where to find me.

[Chris]

I appreciate that you do post the Kindle links. I know that adds extra time and coding work for you -- I try to buy through your links as much as I can.

I think Hollinghurst's quote here is kind of sad. I don't think gay people could ever "move on" from hearing stories about ourselves. Every single time I read a well-written story about a gay man, it's special some how, it's a reflection of a story like mine.

[Kergan Edwards-Stout]

To me, as a writer trying to "make it", the loss of such stores is really disheartening. Amazon, in its attempts at marketplace domination, continues to tighten the noose, asking for more and more in terms of exclusivity. While I'm grateful to have them as one option, I fear that the loss of the indies, and potential loss of B&N, could really lead to a terrible consequence where Amazon is allowed to do whatever it wants, all in the name of commerce.

Late last year, they began pushing their own Createspace books over other print-on-demand options, buying less books from other printers, so that Createspace books show as "in stock" and others saying "2-3 week", which is the death knell for shoppers. They recently tried to get Goodreads to agree to a more restrictive contract. Goodreads refused, but now on their site, as they no longer pull images and synopses from Amazon, many books are missing those items. While Goodreads will be using Ingram going forward, many smaller presses may not be using them, and thus may find their books are hard to find online.

But more importantly, from a personal viewpoint, I'll miss such stores, as without them, I'm not sure I would have had such an easy time coming out. I found others like me in the books I purchased there, and those shops felt like very safe spaces. I'm not sure, coming out today, I'd feel such warmth from my online interactions.

Keep up the great work!

[Jeff]

I supported A Different Light in San Francisco for many years, purchasing hundreds of books annually, most of which had to be ordered which often took 3 weeks to receive. I stuck with them as Amazon rose to be a giant...putting up wotj 3 week orders and 20-something employees who regarded themselves as way too cool to actually work...preferring each other's company over lowering themselves to assisting customers or familiarizing themselves with, uh...books. They would routinely process customers without a single word other than the total price due, ignoring "hello" and often even direct questions from customers. This went on for years. I stopped supporting them after going into the store with a list of 16 books for them to order...and the clerk rolled his eyes, saying "why don'tcha just buy them at Amazon" and went back to talking on the phone while painting his nails. I did just that, and never went back. My experience was common. I I wasn't surprised when they closed a couple of years later...after publicly and rather harshly scolding the community for not supporting them. Maybe the community went back to painting their nails and talking on the telephone...

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