Feminist Book Club celebrated its 5th birthday in July with an announcement (we’re transitioning into a co-op!) and a call for help (we were robbed 4 times…). It’s been a very tumultuous few months to say the least.
While there are a few major changes ahead for Feminist Book Club, who we are, what we do, and why it matters will never change:
Feminist Book Club uses literature as a launchpad to have difficult conversations. Our community is the heart of our mission, holding space for those conversations to organically and safely happen. We provide thoughtful content and exceptional book recommendations to help you diversify your bookshelf and read your values. Feminist Book Club is an organization that truly puts people over profit, so you can feel good supporting us with your dollars. We don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk and put our money where our mouth is.
You are Feminist Book Club. And you are welcome here as long as you commit to showing up with radical compassion.
In order to stay truly aligned with our mission, I have decided to hand over the Feminist Book Club brand to our team of staff and contributors. We have begun the process of transitioning into a worker-owned co-operative. This joint ownership will benefit everyone because our community will know that the leadership is intersectional and from a diverse array of personal and professional backgrounds, so we’ll be less likely to overlook an issue in our community. And if we do, we’ll be better equipped to work towards restoring trust. One thing I know for sure: more voices and more experiences make an organization stronger. I look forward to deepening our work with this team.
This restructure is a long process and it can be arduous, so it does require a few significant changes.
- Our blog and podcast content will go on hiatus once we publish everything that’s in our backlog.
- Our author Q&As are becoming more and more difficult to schedule for a variety of reasons. We will continue reaching out to our authors but this is a difficult time of year for a lot of them to commit, especially when attendance has waned significantly.
- Response time to customer service issues. We promise to rectify any issues with your account and/or orders but it may take us a few extra days to get back to you.
- Once we officially restructure to a worker-owned co-op, you may see some familiar faces in new roles behind the scenes. Folks will be new to these roles so all we ask is patience as we work out the kinks.
- You’ll see less of me, Renee, at the helm. In order to keep FBC afloat for now, I’ve accepted a full-time position with PangoBooks. I’ll still be leading FBC for now, though! Again, I just ask for patience as we all learn our new routines.
What’s not changing:
- Much of the Mighty Networks community will be business as usual, including book discussion questions, moderated Zoom chat discussions, and opportunities to connect with one another.
- Your books of the month! Nothing about your subscription is changing. We’re still fulfilling orders and taking your suggestions and writing your notes and sending your audiobooks and making sure your bookshelf stays full and intersectional. You want books? We got books.
Feminist Book Club is committed to helping you find your next intersectional book, read in community, and fuck up systems of oppression in tangible ways. That will never change. Thank you for supporting us these last 5 years and we can’t wait to show you what’s to come.
If you’d like to support our transition to a worker-owned co-op, you can contribute to our GoFundMe here!
In solidarity,
Renee Powers
Thank you so much for the update! You answered all of my questions and I am so grateful to all of you for finding new ways to stay strong. Onward!