The 2026 BIPOC Bookseller Award will be opening soon!
Duende District & The Word present the annual BIPOC Bookseller Awards to celebrate and uplift the BIPOC independent booksellers whose dedication to indie bookstores and their Black, Indigenous, and POC colleagues and communities have touched and influenced countless lives.
All BIPOC who work in U.S. independent bookstores in any capacity are eligible to be nominated for the three categories (nominations for the same bookseller in multiple categories is allowed). The winning booksellers will be honored during #MarginsBookselling Month celebrations, and will receive a plaque and a $1,000 prize.
Categories
Activism
Innovation
Leadership
This award is for the bookseller who goes above and beyond to advocate for BIPOC booksellers and literary representation in their stores and communities.
This award is for the bookseller whose vision, whether entrepreneurial or programmatic, has shown us what the future of the industry should be.
This award is for the bookseller who has dedicated their career to supporting, uplifting, and leading BIPOC booksellers in their stores, communities, regions, and/or nationally, fighting for systemic change for all BIPOC in the bookstore industry.
2025 BIPOC Bookseller Award Winners!
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Also, serving as Judges for the 2026 Awards:
Lily Clay
Winner of the Activism Award
Lily Clay is the Children’s Department Manager and Buyer at Eagle Harbor Book Co. on Bainbridge Island, Washington. She has participated in various committees with the American Booksellers Association including the Independent Bookstore Day committee, Children’s Advisory Council, Bookseller Advisory Council, Indies Introduce. She currently sits on the PNBA Education Committee. She is also an instructor for the Professional Booksellers School.
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Dr. Latasha N. Eley Kelly
Winner of the Innovation Award
Dr. Latasha N. Eley Kelly (Dr. Tasha) is The Millennial Black Professor®: educator, wellbeing advocate, and amplifier of underrepresented stories. Founder of TMBP Media (a nonprofit disrupting mainstream narratives), and owner of Left on Read (currently Kansas' only Black-owned bookstore), Dr. Tasha specializes in cultivating perspective, empowering community, and supporting marginalized students, professionals, and entrepreneurs. She teaches English Literature and African American Studies courses at the University of Maryland Global Campus and is a three-time first-generation college graduate with a Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture and expertise in higher education policy and leadership. A Virginia native, Dr. Tasha lives in Park City, KS, with her husband Corinthian Kelly.
Sarah Rafael García
Winner of the Leadership Award
Sarah Rafael García is an award-winning Chicana author, multimedia artist, digital archivist, and literary arts advocate raised in Santa Ana, California. As a child of immigrants and a first-generation graduate, she understands what it means to face challenges and overcome them in life. Her literary advocacy started with Barrio Writers, a free creative writing summer program for teens in 2009, and the need to have diverse voices in literature led her to establish the LibroMobile Bookstore in 2016. She is co-editor of Pariahs, Writing from Outside the Margins and Speculative Fiction for Dreamers. Her book, SanTana’s Fairy Tales, is part of an oral history multimedia exhibition awarded by the Andy Warhol Foundation, and a required Ethnic Studies text in the Santa Ana Unified School District. Her work in the digital humanities (DH) began as a 2020 USLDH-Mellon Grantee with the University of Houston US Latino Digital Humanities Center and includes virtual timelines, Mapping Santa Ana, the Modesta Avila archives, and Mapping BIPOC Bookstores, along with DH training for and by the community and Ethnofiction Through Contemporary Narratives in classrooms. She is a 2024-2025 Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium Faculty Fellow and Community-Centered Archives Practice Community Partner with the UC Irvine Libraries Department of Special Collections & Archives. As the founder of the LibroMobile Arts Cooperative and Bookstore, García also established the Orange County Poet Laureate initiative and serves as a lecturer at Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.
2025 Honorees:
All of our 2025 honorees are incredible and creative booksellers. Thank you to all of you for all you do!
Lilia Rosas, Sokha Danh, Channel H. Jenifer, Matilija Collective, Michelle Sanchez Corujo, Kristian Beverly, Kerri Kelly, Blake Stephens, Courtney Bledsoe, Van Brooks and Justin Moore, Rima Parikh, Vanessa Nicole, Hillary Smith, Nadia Alawa, Andrew Colarusso, Leah Johnson, Leslie Damaso, Adesina Brown, Victoria Scott-Miller, and Rekaya Gibson.
Past Award Winners:
Much love and appreciation for our previous award winners!
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ACTIVISM: Serena Morales (2020), Denise Chavez (2021), Pilot Viruet (2022), Erica Tso Haidas (2023), Dr. Artika Tyner (2024)
INNOVATION: Rosaura (Chawa) Magaña (2020), Dartricia Rollins (2021), Anada Werner (2022), Jhoanna Belfer (2023), Carolann Jane Duro (2024)
LEADERSHIP: Hannah Oliver Depp (2020), Michelle Malonzo (2021), Calvin Crosby (2022), Egypt Otis (2023), Christine Bollow (2024)
Sponsors
Thank you to our #MarginsBookselling sponsors who ensure this award is brought to life!
