6/11/2020

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To Len and Kristen, owners of Tattered Cover,

 

After your recent letters of June 6 & 8, we the undersigned—as members of the literary community of Denver, of Colorado, of the region—write to insist that the concerns raised in response to your initial letter, concerns which reverberate from past events, be met with more than a written apology. We write to insist that Tattered Cover take immediate actions necessary to its responsible participation in our community.

 

As you acknowledge, neutrality with regard to the murders of innumerable members of the Black community owing to nothing other than the color of their skin does not arise from a neutral political stance. It is not a political matter that humanity demands that an individual not be shot, choked, or beaten to their death simply for being born into their existence. It is not a political matter that members of the Black community should not be made to bear over and over again the loss of sons, sisters, mothers, uncles, fathers, daughters, neighbors, community leaders, stolen by unconscionable brutality. We ask further: where is the safe space you aim to provide for all members of the community when, for its Black members, the most basic right to breathe is one you do not feel you can insist upon?

 

An independent bookstore is meant to be a trusted partner, a uniting space. Every indie bookstore has its own DNA, personality, voice. We do not expect Tattered Cover to have the same central mission, the same look as its sister indies near or far. But we do expect Tattered Cover to reflect the community of which it aims to be a part. An indie bookstore that is disconnected from its heart cannot remain relevant to the larger body it serves.

 

Tattered Cover is not simply one independent bookstore among hundreds: it has sought out and plays a deeply interconnected role with the literary and educational networks of this region and beyond. Its ordering choices affect our local libraries’ lists; its choices of authors for school visits affect availability of educational programming; its decision to leverage its visibility to create programs such as the Teen Book Con or the Colorado Big Summer Read affect which stories and voices are most amplified. As representatives of your store, a large, respected entity that is looked to as a model across the Mountains and Plains bookselling region, you are asked to serve on influential bookselling and book award committees. None of us would be in the literary world if we did not believe in the power of storytelling to shape our culture. In each of these spaces, you do far more than sell a few books—you serve as an example of the culture you mean to build. 

 

Championing the free exchange of ideas is a laudable central goal, but turns quickly dangerous without clarity of the principles you seek to steward. Free expression is curbed when voices are muted by state-sanctioned genocide. Additionally, holding your business in line with the silencing of systemic marginalization of communities of color does nothing but deny your readers the knowledge of these groups.

 

For Tattered Cover to continue in this community as a trusted partner, as well as a champion of free expression, we insist that you take immediate action as outlined here:

 

1.   Tattered Cover will articulate specific goals for increased hiring and retention of individuals from marginalized backgrounds, to bring its staff in line with the demographics of the Denver-area. Tattered Cover will additionally create a meaningful program for promotion for new hires and existing staff to further the goal of a representative employee makeup. Tattered Cover will commit to hiring/promotion to managerial and book-buying roles for individuals from marginalized backgrounds, rather than with a focus centered on its café, stock, and floor bookselling positions. Tattered Cover will additionally articulate specific steps it will take to train upper management with regard to the presence of systemic workplace racism.

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2.   Tattered Cover will additionally develop a plan, with the input of employees, to ensure that its work environment is safe, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of employees from marginalized backgrounds. As a first step, Tattered Cover will acknowledge the pain caused to its employees in releasing the June 6 statement, will issue an apology to its employees and employees who recently voluntarily separated, and will seek meaningful input from these parties with regard to response to this action. This will also include planning to ensure that future employee concerns relating to diversity and inclusion are meaningful heard and addressed.

 

3.   Tattered Cover will articulate specific goals for increasing representation among its carried titles, to ensure that its lists adequately reflect the demographics of the United States. Tattered Cover will additionally articulate specific goals for ensuring that authors invited for in-store events adequately reflect these demographics and will commit meaningful marketing resources to ensuring those events are promoted. Tattered Cover will also articulate specific goals for increasing representation of small and independent presses, especially those publishing Black authors and authors from other marginalized backgrounds, among its carried titles. These goals should include the store’s research and outreach initiatives to invite a wider variety of small publishers to submit their catalogs.

 

4.   Tattered Cover will immediately desist in charging any and all fees to authors not represented by major publishing houses in order to carry those titles in Tattered Cover stores or in relation to author events. Authors from marginalized backgrounds are far less likely to be associated with major publishers; fees that limit the reach of their works are simply another form of systemic bias preventing these authors from accessing resources equitably.

 

5.   Tattered Cover will donate 10% of its paid promotional space (i.e. endcaps, standing displays) to highlight Black authors and authors from other marginalized backgrounds.

  

6.  Tattered Cover will continue to support authors and community members who participate in actions for basic human rights, including this and future such actions.

 

7.  Tattered Cover will articulate a policy to ensure that its store environments are welcoming to guests from marginalized communities and will be transparent about its policies. For example, Tattered Cover should consider development of an alternative “disruptive behavior protocol” that does not include police intervention for petty offenses. Every police interaction exposes Black and other marginalized community members to deadly risks.

 

8.   Tattered Cover will articulate guiding values and principles, determined in conjunction with relevant community organizations, for future educational and public interest programming. Any future educational or large-scale community programming must be managed in conjunction with a voting-empowered board that includes relevant community members. In determining where such programming resources are placed, Tattered Cover will ensure a focus on underserved communities. Tattered Cover will take immediate steps to manage assets, such as ARCs that can be donated, to provide more sustained and consistent support to communities in need. Additionally, Tattered Cover will consider supporting organizations with experience and expertise in any relevant programming, rather than spearheading such programming within the bookstore. 

 

9.  Tattered Cover will acknowledge the influence and responsibility it holds within the literary community. The owners of Tattered Cover will take a minimum of one (1) year to learn from and listen to its community; during that time, in lieu of serving directly on book award judging committees and in other similar roles, the owners will seek to identify and recommend individuals of marginalized backgrounds to serve in such roles.

 

10.  Tattered Cover will articulate a set of guiding principles in its stewardship of reader privacy and free expression. These principles will reflect the distinction between basic truths of human rights and political speech. Clarity and transparency on these goals is necessary to rebuild community trust and to ensure future accountability.

 

We insist on clear articulation of Tattered Cover’s plans and response to the above stated action-items within 30 days of this letter. Until that response is received, the undersigned individuals and organizations will not pursue purchases or partnerships with Tattered Cover.

 

In closing, we share a statement from a former employee who recently resigned to protest the handling of this matter. “This is voluntary evil, white America is choosing to do this. America is a rootless land. This country did not just end up this way. It was built this way. And the spectacle of a black person terrorized by a white person, struggling to breathe and stay alive while other folks looked on, is not new; in fact, it’s foundational to America's becoming. This violent America was built on king cotton on stolen grounds. To be black in America and survive is to be of dual wakefulness on how to survive a country bent on your not becoming, all the while clasping for dear life onto a dream, to fantasize that it will one day include you.”

 

Sincerely,

 

The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary

 

Viniyanka Prasad, Executive Director, The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary

 

Bunmi Ishola, Board Chair, The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary

 

Chris Aguilar Garcia, Board Member, The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary

 

Liza M. Bevams, Board Treasurer, The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary

 

Manuel Aragon, Board Member, The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary; Lighthouse Writers Workshop

 

Olivia Abtahi, Board Secretary, The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary

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Aida Lilly, Communications Fellow, The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary

 

KT Literary, LLC

 

Kerrie Joy, The Kaleidoscope Project

 

Chinelo Tyler, The Kaleidoscope Project

 

Kristin Nelson, President, Nelson Literary Agency, LLC

 

Tallahj Curry, Literary Assistant, Nelson Literary Agency, LLC

 

Quressa Robinson, Literary Agent, Nelson Literary Agency, LLC

 

Danielle Burby, Literary Agent, Nelson Literary Agency, LLC

 

Joanna MacKenzie, Literary Agent, Nelson Literary Agency, LLC

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Angie Hodapp, Director of Literary Development, Nelson Literary Agency, LLC

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Courtney Milan, Colorado author

 

Suzi Q. Smith

 

Bobby LeFebre, Colorado Poet Laureate

 

Brenna Yovanoff

 

Sandhya Menon

 

Mariam Osman

 

Jade 

 

Elise 

 

Abi

 

Simone Liggins

 

Ryan Dorman

 

Virginia Webster

 

Eileen Silverthorne 

 

pavlos stavropoulos

 

Julia E. Torres

 

Angela Maria Spring, Owner, Duende District Bookstore

 

Michael Henry, Executive Director, Lighthouse Writers Workshop

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Brooke Dilling

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Helen Armstrong, Administrative Specialist, Lighthouse Writers Workshop

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Maria Gabriela Guevara, author, reader

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Cynthia Swanson, Colorado author

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Carleen Brice, author, former employee

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Carolina Alvarado Molk

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Shaleen DeStefano, Urban Life Wash Park Magazine

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Olivia Waite, author

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Ali Sweeney, customer

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Kelsey Bowe, poet, former customer

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Patricia McCrystal, writer

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Alyssia Bevams, customer

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Jake Arlow, author

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Brice Maiurro

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Carrie Bindschadler, teacher, customer

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Anya Prosser, former customer, teacher

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Larisa Hohenboken, editor

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Iden Sheng, customer

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Jessica Montgomerie, customer

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Eun Jung Decker

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Suzanne Brockmann, author

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Chelsea Bashford, former customer

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Jenna Miles, Center for Visual Arts

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Hillary Leftwich, author

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Kit Nowell

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Sinjin Jones, storytelling artist, former customer

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Misty Saribal

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Tara Roberts, former employee

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Andrea Rexilius, customer

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Brian McElmurry, customer

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Compost Colorado, customer

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Monterey Buchanan, author, customer

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Christina McClelland

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Caitlin Sulik, writer, lover of books, former customer

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Bailey Pittenger

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Deborah Jang

 

Renee Marino, Dirt Media, independent publisher

 

Tori Thacher, editorial director

 

Joy Carletti

 

Nina Reyes Rosenberg, Mala Forever, LLC

 

Eric Baus, author

 

Kateri Kramer, Lighthouse Writers, former customer

 

Alice Gerfen, bookseller

 

Sarah LaRue

 

Natalie Winslow, former employee, customer

 

AP Kramaric

 

Natja Soave, customer

 

S.E. Fleenor, author, essayist, former customer

 

Michelle Cantwell, teacher, writer

 

Vanesha McGee, poet, writer, former customer

 

Izra Rodriguez, employee, customer

 

Heather Garcia, customer

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Vince Trujillo, educator/program manager

 

Amy Quinton, author

 

Jen Curran, Future Publishers of America

 

Gemma Webster, customer, Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop Student

 

Ahja Fox, customer, Colorado poet

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Ken Arkind, poet

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Sheyenne Magana, former customer

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Scott Beck, writer

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Nawal Nader-French, EIC: Inverted Syntax

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Herman Luis Chavez, former customer

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Emily Marie Passos Duffy, reader, poet

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Marjorie Florestal, professor, novelist

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Bekki Forstrom, former employee, customer

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Amanda Worden, customer

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Erica Bates, former employee

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Patrycja Humienik, poet, writer, former customer

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Roberto Martinez, playwright, poet, comics author, former customer

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Ashley Wallis, community health worker, author, reader

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Mickey Thompson, teacher

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Cydney Trapp, customer

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Sophia Cordero, community member, customer

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Rebecca Hunter, author

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Rita Ruderman, former customer

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Ashley Bunn, former customer, local writer, editorial staff: Inverted Syntax

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Matilde Marrero VanFleet, former employee

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Amy Jo Cousins, author

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Aleeya Wilson, MFA, Denver poet

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Leah Koch, Owner: The Ripped Bodice Bookstore

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Michael William Prince, writer, publisher, poet

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Brittany O., customer

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Jef Otte. writer, reader

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Z. Hunter, customer

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Mary Catherine La Mar, writer

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Lucy Sroka, former employee

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Marie Scott

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Maxx Zenisek

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Selah Saterstrom, Director of Creative Writing: University of Denver; writer

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Anna Berthon, bookseller

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Claire Heywood

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Matilda (Tihleigh) Roach, InfoSec analyst, former employee

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Maureen Lincke

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Sarah Elizabeth Schantz, customer, author, writing teacher at Lighthouse and Front Range Community College, owner and teacher of (W)rites of Passage Workshop Series, daughter of The Rue Morgue Bookstore and Press

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Katie O., teacher

 

Lauren Brown, customer

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Diana Schmitt, former employee

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Katie Koivisto, social worker, community member, customer

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Andrea Giron Mathern, researcher

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Kyle Sutherland, Islamic writer, poet, punk emcee, Sufi

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Sydney Rakestraw, DPI alum

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Julie Carr, writer, professor: CU Boulder

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Nami Thompson, author

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Mary Ann Dimand, Colorado poet, reader

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Tony Mancus

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Avry Williams, customer

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D. L. Cordero, author

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Kayla Borden, DPI Alum, former customer

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Christopher Merkner, writer, teacher, customer

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Fernando Gomez, poet

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Adina Glickstein, customer, Colorado writer

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Andre Hoilette, poet, former customer

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Philip Clapham, customer

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Yvette Frida Lonteen y Torres, customer

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Julie Piller, customer

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Catherine Bathe, writer, student

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Kate Nicholson, lawyer, writer

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Lindsay Turner, poet, professor of creative writing: University of Denver

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Jo Cusick, RN, customer

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Kelsey Pepin, customer

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Hayley Brooks, poet, former customer

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Beth Leyba, writer, community organizer

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Carol, teacher

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Mary McEuen, customer

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Angelika Bravo, former customer

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Antonio Escamilla, writer, former customer

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Shy Yant, CPhT, customer

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Em Leo, student, customer

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Eleanor Swensson, poet, co-director of Writers Warehouse, former customer

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Caspian Samuel, artist

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Victoria Lopez, customer

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Ella Longpre, author

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Olivia, customer

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Raymond Cober, DPI alum, author, customer, member: Denver Branch NLPW, Chairperson: Parker Writers

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Hannah Bowe, editor, customer

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Lee FG

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NiNi Banh, customer

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Shawnie Hamer, author, former customer

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Christy Bouchard, customer

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David Dye, author

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Tiffany Fitzgerald, customer

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Tim Earley

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Evelyn Hampton, author

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Robyn Parker, customer

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Whit Griffin, poet, former customer

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Lizzie, customer

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Elisabeth Rappe, reader

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Camila Biddulph, local journalist, customer

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TJ Bishop, customer

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HR Hegnauer, book designer, author

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Kevin Reidy, customer

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Adriana Gonzales, customer

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Ashleigh Ruehrdanz, educator, customer

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Shannon Tharp, writer, librarian

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Emily Browning, customer

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Tasneem Muhammad, educator, writer, teacher, parent

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Yesica Mirambeaux

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Diane Sullivan, customer

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Yolanda Anyon, customer

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Jen Simon, customer

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Sarah Richards Graba, writer, educator, former customer

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Jesse Morse, adjunct professor: Clark College, former customer

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Emily McCabe, customer

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Maria Diaz, royalty analyst

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Steve Smith, customer

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Jessica Comola

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Shannon Wheeler, writer, reader, editor: Colorado State Capitol

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Elyssa Lewis, poet, former customer

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Jaimie Gershen, creative, customer

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Lainie Formby, former employee, librarian

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Carmen Cordova, former employee

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Bryan Marmolejo, customer

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Samuel Clare Knights, writer

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Sara Veglahn, writer, instructor: Naropa University

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Erinrose Mager

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Toni Riggio, customer

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Anthony

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Max Miller, customer

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Linda Hladik

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Alicya Tebo, former employee

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LJ Holder, customer, lover of books

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Samantha Miller, customer

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Sarah Slater, customer

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Katie P., former employee

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Violet Mitchell, writer, former customer

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Melanie Merle, writer, Chickasaw Nation Multimedia: communications division

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Teresa Carmody, writer

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Esther Hernandez

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Kate Crowe, librarian, customer, Friends of Tattered Cover member

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Ami Heinrich-LaGreca, publicist, customer

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Julie M.

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Kate Shylo, author

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Harris Armstrong, writer, bibliophile

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Amelia Cessna, former employee

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Jessica Jones, criminal defense lawyer, customer

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Leigh Ann Cowan, DPI alum

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Sloane Kohnstamm, reader, producer: Who Cares?! Podcast

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Erin Wilkins

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Haydn Jeffers, DPI alum, editor, former customer

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Stan Yan, author, SCBWI member, customer

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Dennis James Sweeney, writer, customer

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Iley Cao

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Angela Nguyen, designer

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Dustin Resch, aspiring author, former employee

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Theo Spain, former customer

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Penny S. Evans, customer

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Grace Johnson, special issues editor: Peninsula Publishing & Distribution

​

Jen Mart, former customer

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Claire Wright, library assistant

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Yvonne Su

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Carlos Francisco Rodriquez, customer

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Laura Bond, writer, customer

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Sprout Conner

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Amber Taufen, editor, writer, former Friend of Tattered Cover member, customer

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Katherine D. Morgan

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Dwan Dawson-Tape, indie bookstore employee

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Damon May, reader, former customer

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Kristen Andersen, writer, translator, customer

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Magdalen Thulson, teacher, former customer

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Melissa Rolli, journalist, aspiring novelist, editor, DPI alum, former customer

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Carrie Olson, customer

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Lauri Lynnxe Murphy, artist, writer, former employee

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Laura Donohue, book blogger

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Lindsey Earl, grant writer, author, creator, activist

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Joel Warner, writer, author, instructor: Lighthouse Writers Workshop

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Julie Whitehead, former customer

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Sarah Olsen, customer

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Erin Severs, former customer

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Erin, conditional customer

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Monica Romero, former customer

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Erin C., customer

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Aron Macarow, writer

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Laurel Harris, customer

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Megan Noone, customer

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Anthony Chavez, former customer

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Shannon Schmit, customer

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Maddie Hosack

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Glenn Jacoby, reader

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Cass Eddington, poet

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Allyson Mills, poet, artist, teacher, former customer

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Laura Wolf, civil rights attorney

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Alexus Blanding, DPI alum

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Karen Spooner, teacher

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Liana Kiddy-Gan, library assistant, customer

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Teow Lim Goh, author, customer

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Annalouiza Armendariz, parent, homeschool teacher

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Sydney Chinowsky, writer, editor, former customer

​

Sara Gordon, customer

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Susanna Donato, customer

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Adrian Barron, customer

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Michael Martin, bibliophile, customer

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Sonja Thomas, author

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Meg Wells, bookworm

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Madden Ott, customer

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Bree Davies, Denver media

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Monique Bourdage, former employee

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Susan Squibb, Cannabis Maven: writer

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Maxfield Sparrow, author, MFA candidate

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Melissa Pettek, former customer

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Tari St.Marie, teacher, writer, customer

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Catherine O’Neill Thorn, Art from Ashes, Inc.

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Kelly Guest

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Joanna Szabo, bookseller

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Katherine Peterson, former customer

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Tara Milligan, customer, neighbor

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Matthew Omalley, customer, neighbor

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Cecily Cullen

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Kathy Moss Bradford

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Mandy Rose, writer

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Claire Radtke, teacher, customer

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Reuben Gregory, former customer, former employee

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