To Be Black and Loved | VLOG: I Got Trapped In A Sand Storm At My First Book Conference | @ToBeBlackandLoved @ToBeBlackandLoved | Uploaded July 2022 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
I had the opportunity to spend the week in beautiful (and sweltering) Phoenix, Arizona at ABA Children’s Institute. I met so many awesome independent bookstore owners and bookseller’s, built community with some amazing Black and brown book fanatics and authors who were in attendance, and filled my suitcase with too many advance review copies of upcoming releases. Support your local indie bookstores (especially those that are BIPOC owned), they work incredibly hard to get books in the hands of those that really need them.

Here are a few bookstores I got to connect with while in Phoenix:
• AYA Coffee & Books - Kansas City, MS - Black owned & and woman owned (S/O to Jahna, she’s Pham 💛🖤💚💗) - ayacoffeeandbooks.com
• Word Up Books - New York, NY - Collectively run by Black and Latinx booksellers - wordupbooks.com
• Semicolon Bookstore - Chicago, IL - Black woman owned - semicolonchi.com
• Rooted MKE - Milwaukee, WI - Black woman owned - rootedmke.com
• Sista Scifi - Online Black woman owned sci-fi bookstore - sistahscifi.com