WOW—what a busy start to the month! First, a very entertaining concert in the historic Nazrey A.M.E. Church with Maestro Robert Franz and the Windsor Symphony orchestra. Then, a riveting discussion with bestselling author and activist Desmond Cole the next day. Learning about the sad history of the McDougall Street Corridor from Willow Key, followed the next night by a presentation about the history of the Amherstburg Freedom Museum.
Whew! 😅
It was great teaming up with the Amherstburg Freedom Museum on those events—but Black History Month isn’t over yet, and there’s still more happening at the River Bookshop. Be sure to check out our pop-up art gallery upstairs, featuring rarely seen Black art from the museum. There are even five pieces of original art from Black artists being auctioned off with 100% of the proceeds going to museum. The River Bookshop is an 1885 heritage building and while we invested in making our first floor fully accessible, we could not make our second floor Hole in the Wall event space accessible. So instead, we try to make it virtually accessible. Click here to enjoy a virtual tour of our pop-up art gallery.
Have a look at our displays of adult and children’s titles from Black authors that our staff has curated for the month.
And there is still time to sign up for Cindy’s book club for this month; our meeting will be on February 28th, and this month we’ll be discussing The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr! Just email info@riverbookshop.com to sign up, and you'll also receive links to attend via Zoom.
We teamed up with the Amherstburg Freedom Museum because shining a light on Black History Month checked all our boxes: educate ✔️ engage ✔️ inspire ✔️ and entertain ✔️. We definitely look forward to teaming up with the Museum again and again!
Now what’s planned going forward at Amherstburg’s little independent bookshop? Look for our Local Author Event on the weekend of February 25th and 26th. On each day, 10 local authors will be hosted upstairs, signing and selling their books—think of it as speed dating with 20 of our area’s great authors.
Soon, we’ll share more information about our new initiative “Alumni Meet-Ups” with the University of Windsor Alumni Association. And as we establish a growing reputation as a successful bookshop, look for some big name authors visiting our community.
Once again, the River Bookshop team would like to thank you for supporting local.
River Bookshop Team