Today we’d like to introduce you to Charlie Hunts.

Hi Charlie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

I began my career as a Harley-Davidson mechanic, but after a motorcycle accident left me bedbound for a year, I fell in love with reading. After going back to college, working in publishing, marketing, and later getting my MBA, it felt like the right time to return to literature.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

We started as a traveling book cart in different Seattle neighborhoods. Not every neighborhood was welcoming, but the overwhelming majority of the response was positive and encouraged us that this could be a viable storefront. So our path to becoming a store was relatively smooth- we got lucky with our brick-and-mortar location in Fremont. However, needless to say this is a challenging political and social atmosphere to be a queer bookstore in. There’s record anti-LGBTQ legislation and book bans that primarily target queer writers of color. The rhetoric has resulted in an increase of hate we’ve dealt with, but also demonstrates the need for spaces like ours to exist in the world.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

The store’s mission is to offer the same genres you would find at any general bookstore, but written by queer authors and/or feature queer characters and themes. Most bookstores either have a single shelf dedicated to LGBTQ books near “self help,” or have integrated them completely, making them hard to find.

Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?

Would rather not answer this

Contact Info:

• Website: https://charliesqueerbooks.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/charliesqueerbooks

Image Credits

Jo Sisodia/Charlie’s Queer Books