Good news in general, and specifically to our friends in DC.

We've been in touch with East City Books in the last couple of weeks and they've been very open and eager to address our concerns. They've ordered many of the titles we recommended, as well as a few upcoming ones. We're very grateful for their collaborative spirit. Thank you, team ECB! 

Here are a few words from owner Laurie Gillman:

Hello,

Emilie shared your correspondence with me and our General Manager Marianne Wald (copied here). Thank you for bringing this up; I know that we've received some of the books on the lists you shared and more are on the way.  We strive to stock our shelves with a variety of perspectives and we want all customers to feel welcome in our space.  As you mentioned in your email to Emilie, displays, faceouts, and shelf talkers are often the best ways to highlight particular titles, and we'll be even more cognizant of the variety of titles that are most visible to customers moving forward. 

We've been telling many stores that boosting the collection is a great start, but the bias is really felt in the displays, and we're happy to see it's being taken to heart.

It's a pleasure to us whenever we can remove a store from the petition, and add that store to our safe spaces list. And we did so with ECB.

As you can see, this is working. Please, keep sharing with friends, and keep submitting stores for our vetting. We want to ensure a pleasant shopper experience globally, as much as we can with such a grassroots effort. There are people on the other side who ARE willing to listen. 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.