Little District Books

Great little bookstore that'll be soon be a neighborhood gem.

ive never been inside because i was on a school trip but i passed by it a few times and i liked the display

I was really excited to come to this bookstore as I had heard about it when I was at another bookstore from another queer couple. My partner and I were visiting from out of state, and it was a priority for our trip to DC to make it to this bookstore last month. When we arrived, the employee was speaking With another customer, and within a few minutes that customer had left, and we were still looking around at the front of the store. No words were spoken to us, no direction about where we might find certain things , no greeting, No questions about what we may be looking for or if it was our first time or anything. We continue to look throughout the store and made our way towards the back, searching through the various different genres excited and hoping to find Black authors, and black queer stories. We were hard pressed to find them, And even a very popular artist, an award-winning POC author was found on the bottom shelf in the corner, which was very shocking considering she was very well known, and it was Black History Month and yet she did not have any type of highlight to her. We were in the store for about an hour and found very few black and queer options. We spent roughly an hour in the store and were never greeted or checked in on. Even as we were heading to check out and we're looking at the stickers right there at the register, we still were not spoken to until we were handing over the candle that we wanted to purchase as we still wanted to support them in some capacity, despite not finding any books. We went to the bookstore next-door, East city bookshop and immediately found many black and queer authors and books. The author that I was speaking about prior the award-winning author, it seemed that East city was very knowledgeable on the titles that they had as she was front and center with the label of her award And a brief description of the book. I even was able to sift through a stack of black and queer stories as they had it highlighted with it being Black History Month. It was a night and day experience and I hope that little district books will learn in the future that queer is for all and not just those that are white.

On Tuesday I was really excited to visit Little District Books while I was in Washington, DC. I’d heard a lot about it and I love supporting queer bookstores. I walked in ready to buy something and honestly the experience just wasn’t good. When my girlfriend and I came in, no one greeted us. The employee at the counter finished with the customer she was talking to and still didn’t say anything. We were standing right there at the front looking at stickers and nothing. No welcome, no hello, nothing. We went deeper into the store and kept browsing. We were in there almost an hour. The two workers kept talking to each other and greeted every person who walked in after us. At no point did either of them even consider to come ask if we needed anything or if they could help. On top of that, for such a big queer collection, there were barely any queer Black authors or authors of color. I checked fantasy, sci fi, romance, the shelves in the back. I found only a handful. It didn’t make sense for a queer bookstore in DC of all places. When I mentioned this at checkout, the employee got defensive. Instead of taking the feedback, he tried to tell me there were Black authors “around the store.” I told him I had already spent an hour looking. Then he asked me to make a list of authors for them so they could “look into it.” That felt strange because that’s the kind of work a bookstore should already be doing. I told him about Ruby Roe who is a well known Black queer author with multiple books out and he had never heard of her. We walked a few doors down to East City Bookshop and the difference was insane. We were greeted by multiple people right away. The energy felt warm and welcoming. We found queer Black authors within minutes. I even bought something right away. Seeing the difference between the two stores made things really clear. At Little District Books, we weren’t acknowledged, the representation wasn’t there, and when I spoke up, I felt the employee was more concerned with defending the bookstore than offering to do better and acknowledging the lack of diversity. I really wanted to love this place but it didn’t feel welcoming and I hope that changes, because queer spaces should feel like they include all of us.