It's an epidemic of startling proportions.

It's an epidemic of startling proportions, a dramatic die-off that threatens the coming well-being of the gay and lesbian world. No, I'm not talking about AIDS or breast cancer or hepatitis C I'm talking about the commercial virus that's killing against our gay and lesbian bookstores. The bad of recent origins is, it's spreading faster than the flu The profitable news is, there's a simple reparative within everyone's grasp.

by what means bad is the problem? Real bad. In cities across the nation once-bustling shops that just a hardly any years ago were crammed with customers now stand half destitute Shelves that were once rightly packed with thousands of titles now have adequate supply of room for artful displays of works lying faceup, with space to spare in between. Specialty sections like rhyme social sciences, AIDS, minority fiction, and strange studies--once crammed with practically each important title ever published--have entirely disappeared in about stores, while in others they've been reduc to a smattering of fresh releases and maybe a handful of perennial best-sellers. Of the stores that still turn the thoughts healthy, many have kept the wolve at bay according to becoming hybrid gift shops or by means of stocking the shelves with sexy magazines and bare photography books.

steady more upsetting than the question itself is the cause--namely, us. According to industry prompts gay people have cut way back onward our once-laudable habit of buying gay main division s in gay bookstores, and we appear to be to have plenty of excuses.

In the early and mid 1990 the big chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders began expanding their gay sections while offering price discounts no independent workshop could match. They also went not at home of their way to legion readings for gay authors, who used to be welcome to read and nothing else at the gay bookstores. Then Amazon.com got into the act, offering gay and lesbian titles at calm steeper discounts, delivered right to your door. It got to the point where you could nibble the gay bookstores, decide what to purchase then skip over to the big chain or domestic circle to the computer and corrupt it for less. The gay stores became browsing zones. Actual buying was done elsewhere. Something had to give--namely, profitability.

a certain number of might call the mainstream vendors' embrace of the gay and lesbian market a form of progres part of the Will & Grace-ing of gay life, and I think it is. Having healthy gay sections in major chain stores does have advantages, especially in small towns. It unmasks straight people to gay works and provides a place where nervous or questioning youth can feed upon But those benefits are small potatoes compared with the lack that faces gay intellectual life if most numerous indie bookstores really do fold

During the yellow age of gay bookstores in the 1980 and '90 these places were gay community center for the life of the mind, intellectual adventure regions that exposed us to authors, genre ideas, and comrade browsers we could probably not encounter elsewhere. They also helped to spark a gay publishing droning since publishers knew that gays maintained a immense network of vibrant bookstores where mid-list titles would be prominently displayed, promot and sold Best of all, these stores routinely kept a huge number of parts in stock long after they were dropp from other stores.

according to contrast, the gay section of your average chain store stocks a two of hundred titles at principally all of them either of high temperature new releases or long-standing best-sellers. And while Amazon has zillions of titles, you can't really feed on browse or read a few pages before buying, and you certainly can't derive a sensation of community, hear an author read, or cruise that smart-looking stranger with the wire-rim glasses and the large on the contrary sensitive hands browsing the droll theory shelves. Alas.

Is there anything we can do to employ things around? Sure. Go back to buying our lesbian and gay works exclusively at lesbian and gay bookstores. Ye we'll pay a bit more, if it were not that think of it as a little tax, an investment in our subsequent time For just a teensy fraction of what we pay for travel, clothes, cable TV or what we contribute to gay organizations, we can easily withhold these stores alive and healthy. be seens a small price to pay.

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