On the corner of Edgewood Avenue in New Haven Connecticut, you'll find Possible Futures. It's called a neighborhood bookspace, not a bookstore. There's a difference. WSHU's Randye Kaye spent time at Possible Futures and spoke with Lauren Andersen and Jada, who are the keepers of the bookspace.
WSHU: When you walk into Possible Futures, it does feel like a living room. Children in school uniforms sit on the comfy couches and chairs—sunlight streams in through the front window. Plants grow everywhere. Paintings by local artists decorate the walls, and best of all, there's Sugar. She's the official canine greeter for the book space. And there are books, lots of them. I asked Lauren and Jada why they chose to create this space.
LA: One of the things that I felt super strongly about, and a lot of people in New Haven feel strongly about, is that we have a shortage of public space, like we're in a city where our library doesn't get the funding that it needs to be open seven days a week, and so when we originally opened, we opened on Sundays as a place for people to go to engage in self education and community conversation around books. Probably the things that have prepared me most to do this work are my experiences as a teacher, literacy educator, teacher educator, and a good neighbor for a long time in a city I love.
WSHU: I believe you left a pretty, let's just say, steady money job. I don't know how much you made. That's not my business, but you left a steady income to put it all into this bookstore. What said, Okay, Lauren, we're going to do this.
LA: I realized that I didn't want to live my life on a college campus. I wanted to be in my neighborhood, and I wanted to be working for an institution that felt radically public. And it's interesting because I thought about the public library. I thought about going back to public school as a public school teacher. Interestingly, we created something that's technically a business. Still, we think about it as a publicly owned offering, like it doesn't just belong to us; it belongs to anyone who needs to use it for what they want to use it for, and that's kind of how we go about running it.
WSHU: So, Jada, why are you doing this?
Jada: Well, mine's a simple one, because honestly, I think anybody could do what I do. It's just the fact that I love books and I love people, and this space does a really good job of putting an emphasis on both. That means that I can go and I can have, like, a super nerdy, super niche conversation with people that I don't know, because I get to see the books that they bring up to me, and I get to ask them, “Why this one?” And the way their eyes light up because we are coming together over a shared interest. And so many people, I think they don't get those genuine connections very often. I feel like a lot of the time, they'll come into a space or a store in which they go in and they go out, and it's all about sales, but we really care about people here. It's a way for us to really connect, to smile, to hug, and just be people together,
WSHU: Who helps you and inspires you?
Jada: Who helps me and inspires me? My mom and I know that it's like a cheesy answer, but she's the person who taught me how to view the world, and she's passionate about, you know, diversity and inclusion, for example. She's passionate about books. She's worked with me through all of my tantrum phases. My not-so-pretty phases. She makes sure that she comes here and she buys books. She and I found something that we could connect over. So that was my person.
WSHU: Lauren, now the same questions, who helps you or inspires you?
LA: I have an amazing circle of, mostly women, friends who are just doers of the highest order. My dear friend, Babs, just finished her second week of law school in her 60s, right? These are people the moss does not grow on: Ife Michelle Gardin, founder of Kulturally Lit. Also, when things get hard, they're the ones that hold you up. The time when we moved from the first iteration of the book space to the one that we're in now was really rocky. I got to be in the fetal position for a short amount of time, and then I got the loving kick in the tush of, it's actually time to, like, get up and do what you're supposed to do. Yeah, you're just gonna have to do it again. So I think it's really that, that amazing circle of women who are super community-minded and who are super committed as lifelong learners. And I don't say that in a trite way. I mean, these are people who are just learning all the time. And also the space benefits tremendously, like we would not exist if it were not for the fact that there is just this circle of aunties who are connecting people to the space all the time, promoting the space and also making the space what it is.
WSHU: Two final questions I like to ask, is there a particular quote or philosophy that guides you?
Lauren: It's the one that's on the mural outside that's like, “we can make freedom out of what we have.” We are blessed with tremendous resources, material resources, human resources, relationships, and the capacity to make the world that we want to live in. It's not the world that we currently have, although there are many beautiful things about it. Mass incarceration is an example of something that we don't want, we don't need. We could rearrange ourselves and those resources in much more humane and loving ways, where all people are allowed to engage in repair, to thrive, to grow, to learn. And so that idea that we are the ones we are waiting for, and we have what we need. We just need space, time, and the full power of our creativity to activate the world. I think Arundhati Roy has a thing where I'm going to get it wrong, but it's like there's a new world coming, and on a quiet day, if you listen carefully, you can hear her breathing. Reading is a part of getting ready to do something that you are not yet ready to do often.
Jada: My personal quote that I like made up for myself was, “Don't be an octopus.” And it's coming from the little fact that octopuses are incredibly intelligent, but they're solitary. Their parents leave them when they're young, and so when they interact with the world, they have to figure everything out for themselves, and people will look at their problem-solving, their critical thinking, and they'll think, if they had learned these things from their parents, that they would they would be smarter, more capable, almost dangerous. And so my philosophy for that, that I came up with when I was young, is just use the resources that you have, use the people that you have around you, like you are not alone and you are not the person that is doing this first, there are always places where you can go and you can learn. So it's like leaning on community. Yes, I know you can figure this out on your own, but why would you struggle to figure it out when there are people around you who are willing to help?
WSHU: Is there anything people need to know about keeping a space like yours alive?
Lauren: We actually have something called the Book Joy Fund that people can donate to. It's a pay-it-forward account so that our neighbors, kids, and families in the community can shop for free here. We also use those funds to partner with schools that lack the resources to host certain types of events related to books. We can always benefit from donations. We are doing okay. The math is challenging in a bookstore, period, end of story, and it's especially challenging now, given Amazon and everything else. So, I would just say that one thing people can really do is shop local and buy their books from independent bookstores like ours. It's a values choice. It won't be as fast, but I always tell people that there's no such thing as free shipping. Free shipping is being subsidized by a warehouse worker somewhere, and it's being paid for in the form of pollution that ends up in our air and water. And so, if you shop local, it's a healthier choice for our local economies and the environment. Please buy books and support local businesses.
