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Literary Activism

Support This: The Lev, a Community Bookstore for Women and People of Color

Patricia Elzie-Tuttle

Contributing Editor

Patricia Elzie-Tuttle is a writer, podcaster, librarian, and information fanatic who appreciates potatoes in every single one of their beautiful iterations. Patricia earned a B.A. in Creative Writing and Musical Theatre from the University of Southern California and an MLIS from San Jose State University. Her weekly newsletter, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice offers self-improvement and mental health advice, essays, and resources that pull from her experience as a queer, Black, & Filipina person existing in the world. She is also doing the same on the Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Podcast. More of her written work can also be found in Body Talk: 37 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy edited by Kelly Jensen, and, if you’re feeling spicy, in Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Patricia has been a Book Riot contributor since 2016 and is currently co-host of the All the Books! podcast and one of the weekly writers of the Read This Book newsletter. She lives in Oakland, CA on unceded Ohlone land with her wife and a positively alarming amount of books. Find her on her Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkTree.

The Lev is a bookstore in Greater Los Angeles. Created by Miriam Chan, the store aims to build a community for women around books, and to promote women and people of color writers. It was operating as a pop-up in the Venice, California, area; the pop-up closed at the end of June and The Lev is currently raising money to fund a long-term space.

From Miriam Chan on Vimeo.

The Lev’s pop-up was open from February 2018 through June 2018. It has brought together an amazing community of readers, connected online communities such as Girls at Library (GAL) and Mend by hosting over twenty author readings, talks, story time and art hours, book swaps, workshops, monthly book clubs, and other community events in these four short months.

Though the pop-up is no longer open, The Lev can be found at a number of events around Los Angeles. The schedule is updated on the shop’s event page.

There are less than three weeks to go in the fundraiser and The Lev is currently a long way from its goal. Click here to support the store.