Duende District Bookstore, an intersectional, multicultural bookstore premiering as a pop-up shop at the Artomatic arts festival in the Washington, D.C., area this spring, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help build the bookstore. Two days into the campaign, the store has raised just over $1,500 out of a $9,000 goal. Funds will go toward such things as a portable register system, opening inventory orders, display tables and event planning. Backer rewards include personalized book recommendations, prints of a mural designed by bookseller and artist Ashfia Khan, and signed books.
According to store owner and founder Angela Maria Spring, Duende District's mission is to create "an authentic general bookstore space built from the ground up by bookstore professionals who are people of color--but where all people are genuinely welcome." Spring has worked at bookstores around the country, including McNally Jackson Books in New York City and Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. She plans to build a community presence through the pop-up shop while searching for a permanent, bricks-and-mortar home to move into later this year.
