Hello! We are two fun, resourceful women with tons of life experience who are ready to apply our unique talents to the challenge of opening an independent bookstore! Jennifer is a Latina mom to a teenager. She has a background in retail and the visual arts. Richelle is a disabled historian, museum educator, and former librarian. We met while working in a program at a local high school that helps students improve their critical thinking and collaboration skills.

One of the great things about our home region is that it supports several independent bookstores already. But we want to have our place in a part of Northern Virginia that has not always gotten the love it deserves: the Route One corridor in southeastern Fairfax County. If you’re a local, think Huntington, Hybla Valley, Mount Vernon. As an older, especially car-dependent area, it’s got adequate services, but for special things, many residents go up to Old Town Alexandria. As people who live and work here, we want nice stuff for ourselves and our neighbors! So, we present to you Wake Robin Books & Arts, a place to build community through books and opportunities for creative expression. In addition to books (and we LOVE books), we will offer classes, book clubs, events, and work space for artists.

The single biggest one-time expenditure for a new bookstore is inventory. We will use the funds we raise to buy books for pop-ups so that we can start making some revenue and building awareness of our business. A solid track record will put us in a better position to negotiate with potential funders. We’re ready to go and bursting with ideas, and we can’t wait to have you along on our journey!

P.S. What’s a wake robin? It’s a name for the red trillium, Trillium erectum, a spring wildflower native to the forests of eastern Canada and the United States. They often bloom around the time migrating robins return. In addition to being harbingers of spring, they were used by Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island for menstrual disorders and to bring on and assist with labor. For this reason, they’re also known as bethroot, a corruption of birthroot. As lovers of flowers, birds, and forests, we felt like this was the perfect emblem for our special project!