"That store was a beautiful place for Latino and Latina writers, for people interested in Latinx literature. When you lose a store like that, you're also losing community." In Los Angeles, there's in Leimert Park, a black-owned bookstore that's been in business for nearly three decades. James Fugate, one of the co-owners, says: "Our store is the kind of space that allows black writers to come in and feel at home.
When they come here they can speak their mind, they know the owners, there's a multicultural, diverse audience. Whereas when they go to a Barnes & Nobles, it's got to be a different feeling." Eso Won has hosted signings with big names like Muhammad Ali, Terry McMillan, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, as well as countless up-and-coming novelists and poets since the store's opening in 1989. When we spoke, Fugate was busy preparing for an event with , the best-selling crime and mystery writer. Like many authors with whom Fugate and his co-proprietor, Tom Hamilton, have built meaningful relationships, Mosley has been holding readings at Eso Won for years. Fugate tells a great story about a young writer whose first signing at Eso Won in 1995 drew a measly crowd of 10 people, "and five of them worked at the store!" In 2006, that same writer's second book signing with Eso Won attracted nearly a thousand fans. "And now, he's the president Led Bulb Light of the United States," says Fugate, revealing the identity of the writer and his two books, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope.
The anecdote about President Obama's reception from one book to the next is an outlier — no literary writer can reasonably expect to match that level of fame — but Fugate's point is that at Eso Won, the owners are committed to supporting black writers at all stages of their careers. "With black writers and other minorities, the history of publishing has been unreceptive," Fugate says. "I think it's important we have stores and spaces like Eso Won. If you go to most other independents, they will have a section of African-American books. But a whole bookstore filled with books on African-Americans? That's something that people should see." "Books are not going to stop anytime soon," publicist Kima Jones says. "Racism says that black writers and writers of color can't write the 'great American novel.' This conversation is decades old; people need to see that black literature is not anthropology. This is art making. And to say it's anything other than that is lessening the integrity of the art." For her part, Jones is working hard to make sure that her clients get the same fighting chance at literary glory as anyone else. Whether that's a culturally specific campaign or organizing a national tour aimed to draw as many attendees as possible across the country, Jones says what keeps her going is her love of literature, period. "I love books," she says. "I'm a person who advocates for literature all the way around. I love introducing readers to a new voice that's not like any other voice that's out there right now." is a writer in Los Angeles. She is currently a doctoral candidate in USC's Creative Writing and Literature Ph.D. program.