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| Medicine for Nightmares owners J.K. Fowler, Tân Khánh Cao and Josiah Luis Alderete. | |
Alley Cat Bookstore & Gallery, San Francisco, Calif., has closed, and has been replaced by a new bookstore called Medicine for Nightmares, which has taken over the lease for the space, Mission Local reported.
In August, owner Kate Razo put the 10-year-old store up for sale, noting that it was "in the center of the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District" and sold new, used and remaindered titles "with a Latinx flavor." There was also a robust selection of vinyl.
Razo said she wanted to get the store "into the next, rightful hands," which turn out to be a trio: Chicano poet and City Lights bookseller Josiah Luis Alderete, J.K. Fowler of Nomadic Press, and Tân Khánh Cao, a former Dog Eared Books staff member.
"It would be a BIPOC collective," Razo said, and "what would be better than that, right? In my mind, with all hope, prayers and confidence, they are going to take it to its next rightful place in the community."
Razo, who sold the Dog Eared Books location in the Castro in September (it reopened as Fabulosa Books), still owns Dog Eared Books on Valencia Street. She noted that the pandemic, which caused her three stores to shut their doors for a while, also "afforded me an opportunity to reprioritize my priorities" and reevaluate how she wanted to live the rest of her life, especially considering that she is 60 and her husband 65. She plans to focus on her "beloved" Dog Eared.