A conversation with the owner of Paperbacks & Frybread, an online bookstore in North Carolina that centers on Indigenous stories and authors.
Dominique Burleson is doing this Zoom interview from her bathroom because she has kids in the house. That’s the life of a parent — if you know, you know.
It’s also the life of a small business owner, whose businesses are usually passion projects made by local people, built and sustained at all hours, in all places. Sometimes you have to do an interview with your shower curtain in the background.
Burleson, who is a member of the Lumbee Tribe, is the owner of Paperbacks & Frybread, an independent bookstore based in North Carolina that centers on Indigenous authors and stories. Calling it just a bookstore is an injustice though. It’s also a curated collection of Native history, culture, a listing of banned and challenged books, and a place for independent authors to learn how to succeed.
Read More: NC has 8 recognized Native American tribes. Here’s a little about each.
The store, which is based in Lilesville in rural Anson County, started during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s grown since then.
Burleson’s an advocate as much as she’s a bookseller. Her bookstore’s tag is “decolonize your bookshelf.” Some products are “pay-what-you-can.” And her collection has expanded beyond Indigenous books. She features the stories of LGBTQ+ people, Black people, Latinx people — anyone whose culture has been pushed down, she says.
“I just wanted to give people really good books,” Burleson says. “But now it’s become kind of a mission and I’m really proud of where it’s gone.”
It’s a salient mission in North Carolina, which is home 8 Native American tribes that are recognized by the state or federal government. It’s also home to many more peoples who integrated with other tribes or were driven from existence by American colonial expansion.
North Carolina has more than 130,000 Native people in it — the second largest population east of the Mississippi.
We talked to Burleson about her shop and her mission. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Cardinal & Pine:
Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your business and how you started it, what your vision was, and what really drove you to go this route?
Dominique Burleson:
So I’ve wanted to own a bookstore since I was a little girl. I think every nerd wants to own a bookstore at some point in their life. And this really kind of came about in the middle of the pandemic. I’m a homeschool mom and I used to be a book blogger. I used to do a lot of promotions for homeschool companies and things like that. And one of the things that I just kept seeing over and over again was that anytime we hit US history and we started to talk about Native people, none of the books recommended were ever written by Natives.
I grew up never having that kind of representation. The only time I ever got to see my culture was around this time of the year, around Thanksgiving or even around Columbus Day, which as a little girl, I really didn’t understand how problematic that was.
I was just excited that for once I got to see people that were like me. So during the pandemic, I was just really frustrated with the lack of access. Yeah, I could hop online and do a lot of research, but it was really hard to find books that I could share with my kids to help them have a really well-rounded history. And that’s really how Paperbacks & Frybread was born.
It’s just kind of blown up from there, from just being a bookstore to now kind of being an education platform about representation and fighting back against this push to not have the conversations about history, colonialism, all of the things. So it’s kind of become its own activism platform that I never imagined in a million years. I just wanted to give people really good books, but now it’s become kind of a mission and I’m really proud of where it’s gone.
C&P:
How’s the community reacting to it?
Burleson:
Man, it is so awesome. Our first year in business, it was kind of small. We also do popups and book fairs and things like that. And the first year that we were open, I had a book fair that was a big flop and I decided to make a funny video about it. What do you do when you have social anxiety and nobody’s at your event?
So I posted it on TikTok and it kind of went viral. So I had actors like Dallas Goldtooth and some other actors from “Reservation Dogs,” which is one of my favorite Native shows. They’re sharing it and stitching it. And then my best friend who had a platform, she did a video kind of just sharing about my business. I had no idea she had done it. And I woke up the next morning. So it was just sale after sale, after sale after sale.
And I had 400 orders by the end of the week. And it’s just kind of been solid since then. I went to Canada this year to speak on Indigenous representation for an education organization up there. I went to DC to represent my shop with the American Booksellers Association.
So it’s just opened a lot of doors and I don’t take that as it’s about me, because in a lot of these spaces it’s being the only Native in the room, which is true for a lot of us when we come to these tables. So I look at it as that when I’m walking into these spaces, into these rooms, it’s that I’m bringing my culture to the table, that I’m being a voice for my people. So it’s not just a bookstore.
C&P:
There’ve been a number of Native authors who’ve made big splashes in recent years, but beyond that we’re seeing Black and Brown writers with big followings, especially in fantasy books. Do you see progress in making literature more inclusive?
Burleson:
There’s still a lot of issues to be worked on, but I will say that we are making really big strides.
For example, just this summer for Natives, we had a really big win because Danica Nava, she wrote “The Truth According to Ember.” That was the very first Indigenous romcom that’s been published by one of the big five (publishers).
And that’s crazy to even think that it’s 2024 and we’re just now getting our very first Indigenous representation in the romantic comedy genre.
So it’s a step forward, but then it’s also kind of sombering on how we’re having to make these strides. But I do agree that we are having so much beautiful representation in fantasy and crime and thriller (genres). It is growing. It’s kind of a snail’s pace when you’ve been waiting for so long. But I think that there’s big changes, but then we’re also having a lot of imprints and indie publishers that are coming out.
Row House is probably one of my favorites, and they focus on marginalized voices and pushing them out there. And they’ve had a ton of books do just phenomenally well, just the way that it is more of a community than it is just a commodity of a story.
So I am seeing a really big shift, even from the time that I started, you’re just kind of seeing this really big rollout. We’re seeing a lot of people feeling emboldened to start to share their story, to kind of push back on this narrative that nobody wants these or because a lot of the big box bookstores aren’t carrying as much. This is kind of the way to fight back. And a lot of indie stores, indie bookstores are doing this as well. So the tide is definitely turning. I would like to see it go a little bit faster, but some of these things take time. And with all the red tape and the book bans and whatnot, there’s a lot going on, but I think there’s a lot of good happening too.
C&P:
What’s your reaction to the book banning that’s been happening in some communities across the U.S. in recent years?
Burleson:
It’s heartbreaking, because my shop carries a huge portion of these books that are being challenged and some of them, it’s so infuriating to see the reasoning behind these.
Because I’m a student at UNC-Pembroke as well, I’m actually doing a presentation on book bans this week. And just looking at the staggering numbers, we’ve hit about 10,000 for this school year alone. A lot of them are initiated by one person, just a parent that’s ticked off.
And we’re seeing, obviously in states like Texas and Florida, we’re just seeing huge numbers of these books being pulled off. And like I said before, as a child who didn’t have access to the stories that represented me, that’s all that is happening is that we’re going to have generations of kids who are growing up no different than I did without that access to those stories of seeing us as heroes and not background characters and to be able to connect to these stories.
So many picture books are being just kind of thrown to the wayside simply because they celebrate a particular culture. The book like “Hair Love,” which is about a father and a daughter bonding over Black hair is, somehow, triggering. And it’s so infuriating that these things, that these topics are viewed as dangerous to our children when in fact it’s the thing that can grow empathy and community with our children with different cultures.
I carry most of these books and they’re beautiful stories. They’re beautiful, beautiful stories, and it’s a shame that we aren’t allowing parents to be the ones who have a say on what’s in their home instead of what’s in the school system.
C&P:
There’s so many people, so much history and so much culture to put out there from Native peoples in North Carolina. How do you approach it?
Burleson:
By being in community with lots of different people. And that’s kind of the great thing about being online and having the platform that I have is I get to have a lot of these conversations with people from walks of life that I’ve never experienced.
I am in community with trans people, with queer people from across the spectrum, people from all different tribes and communities, immigrants from all over. I aim to have community with these people so that I can uplift their voice because at the end of the day, my shop’s mission isn’t to make money or to be a brand or any of this. It’s simply a vehicle to uplift the stories that have been just pushed down for so long. So anytime that I hear someone bring up a community that’s not represented by my shop, I’m immediately trying to research and see if I can find books.
C&P:
How can people support you?
Burleson:
So if you follow me on any of my socials, I do share a lot of education. I do a lot of resources as well. Each year we have a reading, we call it a journey. That way we’re not threatening people with a challenge because sometimes that can be intimidating.
But every year, every month is a different prompt to kind of challenge people in their reading and stretch people in their readings. But I produce a lot of resources, principles, PDFs, and all of this is “pay what you can.” So I try to make it accessible for everyone and that’s a great way to support the shop.
I do have a Patreon as well where people support monthly to just help me in this work. But obviously we have an online shop. I ship anywhere in the world, so that’s always a great place to go, so there’s plenty of places, but starting at my socials is great.
This post was originally published on here
