Toronto Women's Bookstore

The Toronto Women's Bookstore was the largest nonprofit, feminist bookstore in Canada, before its closure in November 2012. It was run and staffed primarily by women of color, and sold fiction, poetry and non-fiction by women writers to promote feminist and anti-oppression politics.

The bookstore informally began as a single shelf of books in a women's resource centre on Dupont Street in the early 1970s, and opened as a bookstore in 1973 at a site in Kensington Market, where it was associated with a feminist printing press and a self-defence collective.

The bookstore was nearly destroyed on July 29, 1983, in an accidental firebombing which was actually intended to attack the neighbouring abortion clinic of Henry Morgentaler. The loss of merchandise, combined with a slow insurance settlement and delays in reopening put significant strain on the bookstore's finances. A Fire Sale, where the bookstore sold off merchandise damaged in the fire to supporters of its cause, provided enough capital for the bookstore to re-open at a new location, 73 Harbord St. An employee of the store at the time of its firebombing, Janine Fuller, later moved to Vancouver, where she became manager of Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium and attained prominence as one of Canada's most influential anti-censorship activists in the store's ongoing battles against Canada Customs. The store later suffered more moderate damage in a second firebombing attack on Morgentaler's clinic in May 1992.

By 1993, stiff competition from larger chain bookstores saw the Toronto's Women's bookstore showing a loss. Similar situations faced many other independent bookstores around the same time. The bookstore reorganised its operations, expanding their inventory of books on anti-racism, feminist theory, disability and health. The bookstore also engaged in increased community outreach, with more book readings and launches, as well as hosting book clubs. Combined with a Jobs Ontario Community Action Grant, the store turned around its operations and stopped losing money. The store also increased its emphasis on books aimed at visible minority women, with separate sections titled "African-Canadian," "Caribbean," "South Asian" "First Nations," "Latina," and "Arab."

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Wikipedia