Series Business

Concordia Co-op Bookstore Hosts Local Legends Readings

Fringe ArtsAlex Manley — Published October 26, 2010

Consider: the Really, Really Free Market, The People’s Potato, The Hive, Le Frigo Vert, and so on. Well, there’s another one to consider: The Concordia Community Solidarity Co-operative Bookstore.

The Co-op Bookstore, situated at 2150 Bishop St. (just north of the Hall building) is a sort of anti-capitalist alternative to the main bookstore in the Library building.

Roughly 60 Concordia profs will order textbooks for their classes through it, but unless you’re an Arts and Science student, you’ve probably never heard of the place before.

Jam-packed with leftist literature, zines, music, pins for your bag and assorted other underground media, the Co-op has now been around for eight years. The eighth anniversary doesn’t quite have the cachet of the five-years or the ten-years, but that didn’t stop Larissa Dutil, the store’s bookseller and outreach co-ordinator, from trying to “bring sexy back to the number eight!”

That’s why, for its eighth birthday, the bookstore is hosting the Local Legends Reading Series.

Taking place every Wednesday night since Oct. 6, and continuing with readings on Oct. 27, 29 and into November, the Local Legends readings feature a local author, often with a Concordia connection, reading from a relatively new book.

So far, the series has consisted of readings by Concordia graduate student Jeff Miller from Ghost Pine, Louis Rastelli from Fish Piss, creative writing alum Larissa Andrusyshyn from Mammoth, and this week, undergrad JP King from We Will Be Fish and Daniel Allen Cox from Krakow Melt.

So far, Dutil admitted the readings have been “intimate,” but noted that the series has “garnered more interest with each reading,” and that she expected a good turnout for the Lambda Literary Award-nominated Cox’s reading Friday as Krakow Melt, which dropped in September, is still pretty hot off the presses.
Apparently, a bookstore like the Co-op is the perfect place to hold a reading series, since most of the authors involved had pre-existing ties to the store.

“Cox has volunteered and read at the Co-op in the past,” Dutil pointed out, and Harris and Rastelli both consign work there. Furthermore, the store historically had ties with some of the publishers involved—namely Invisible Publishing, Lickety Split Smut Zine and Pistol Press.

All told, the Local Legends Reading Series has been enjoyable enough to warrant a second edition. “There is definitely a lot of local indie talent in the city,” said Dutil, predicting another series “maybe as early as some time in the Spring of 2011. We’ll see.”

If you’ve missed out on the readings so far and want to make up for it like a good, responsible Concordia student who cares about literature, JP King will be reading from We Will All Be Fish on Oct. 27 at the Concordia Community Solidarity Co-Operative Bookstore (2150 Bishop St.) as of 7:00 p.m. Daniel Allen Cox will be reading from Krakow Melt on Oct. 29, also starting at 7:00 p.m. Both events are Pay What You Can, though a $2 donation is suggested.