This November, residents of Minneapolis’ Ward 4 will have an opportunity to elect a
representative on the Minneapolis City Council.
City Council Member Barb Johnson, a 20-year incumbent and city council president, took office after her mother. Her family has held this seat for 46 consecutive years. Johnson is arguably the most conservative member of the council, and with our weak mayoral system, holds an incredible amount of power both individually and institutionally. This November could change that. Continue Reading
On Thursday January 23rd my partner, Verna Wong, and I signed a lease on a storefront located at 2205 Lowry Avenue N. Minneapolis to be used for our bookstore, Ancestry Books. We had for several years been dreaming of opening up a space that would engage the literary arts with a particular focus on indigenous authors and authors of color.TCDP NOTE: Chaun will be teaching a class for us in April – watch for it! And you can contribute to Ancestry Books on Kickstarter. Based on many of our interactions over the past few months the prospect and direction of Ancestry Books has come both as a shock and a breath of fresh air. It is shocking in light of how difficult it is to keep any independent bookstore open in our present environment of Amazon, of e-books, of the behemoths of Barnes and Noble and Half Price Books. And if those “challenges” weren’t enough, we are deciding to have the selection in our bookstore center on authors of color and indigenous authors, which to some seems like a sure fire way to only stay open for a year!On the flipside there has been an immense energy surrounding what Ancestry Books will mean to the community of North Minneapolis, and the Twin Cities more broadly. Continue Reading
