While Cross and Crows brings a new independent bookstore to East Vancouver, owner Nena Rawdah is not new to the industry.
Having sold and edited books for years (including a stint at the famed Powell Books and her own shop in Portland, Oregon), Rawdah is bringing her experiences to a new shop that opened earlier this month on the southern end of Commercial Drive.
Cross and Crows, a new and used bookstore at 2836 Commercial Dr., aims to be a cozy, accessible place for people to be, she says, playing into the concept of "third spaces."
"A library or gym can be a third space. A park can definitely be a third space. A good bookstore can be a third space," she explains to V.I.A. "I believe a bookstore should be a third space, where members of its community can enjoy books individually or together, and connect with writers and other readers to the extent that suits them."
Support for a new shop
This isn't the first shop Rawdah has owned; before moving to Vancouver, she ran St. Johns Booksellers in Portland, a much-loved independent bookstore that closed in 2016.
She moved north a few years ago and edited books for a while, along with working and volunteering in local bookshops. When one was closing last year she was approached with the idea of buying it. Unfortunately, financing fell through, and she had to pass on the opportunity.
However, people who used to visit her shop in Portland were so excited for her that they offered help.
"When the story got 'round that I might have a crack at another bookstore these people who might never see a bookstore in B.C. started throwing money at me," she says. "It was like, ok, open a bookstore somewhere, somehow, or give it back."
So she got going on Cross and Crows for Vancouver.
"My old customers gave their resources because they believed I had done that once in Portland, and they want me to do it again," she tells V.I.A. "In a real way, this new shop is a gift from one community of readers and writers to another."
'A queer lens'
Rawdah describes Cross and Crows as reflecting who she is and how she sees the world as a middle-aged, queer cis woman and describes the shop as "a general neighbourhood bookstore with a queer lens."
"My spouse is gender-queer, my kids are both various flavours of their own, so it's kinda cool," she says. "When I was a young person the idea of being a queer parent with a queer family didn't seem possible, but here we are."
The shop has all the sections expected in a little independent bookstore, with classic literature, poetry, mystery, art history, and lots of other categories (they just got 40 boxes of books from a retired architect). But it also has a queer and trans section at the front, and books by queer and trans authors are marked as such in other categories.
One particular strength Rawdah feels Cross and Crows has is the children's section, which she curated as a queer parent.
Fueling the community
Building a cozy, accessible space for the neighbourhood was important to Rawdah, as well.
"One of the things that I haven't seen for a while lot of in other books stores since I've been in Vancouver has been coziness with places to sit and places to linger," she says.
At the same time, she's made sure to make the store's aisle wide, and created bays for browsing so people with mobility scooters and similar can move about. There are also times with no music and dimmed lights; she says she's following the lead of others in that regard.
"If people need that from a grocery store, then maybe they need that from a bookstore, too," she says.
She notes that Commercial Drive already has four other bookstores and hopes that, like her time in Portland, they can all fuel and support each other.
"To be part of an environment like that can be really powerful for all involved," she says.
Events, too
While only being open for a couple of weeks, an event is already planned in Cross and Crows.
Martha Shelley, a long-time LGBTQ+ activist who cofounded the Gay Liberation Front and helped organize marches directly after the Stonewall riots (she took the name Shelley due to concerns about FBI surveillance), will be reading here on Aug. 5 at 6 pm, directly after the Vancouver Dyke March.
