Hello SIBA friends!

Tombolo Books is a LGBTQ+, woman-owned bookstore in the Grand Central District of St. Petersburg, Florida. Co-owner Alsace Walentine left a career at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, North Carolina, to move to Florida with her wife, Candice Anderson, in 2015. She noticed the lack of a bookstore community at the time in the St. Petersburg community and launched pop-ups and book clubs in 2017. Their brick-and-mortar store had only been open for three months when everything shut down for the pandemic in March 2020. Like many other stores, they survived through online orders.

Today, Tombolo offers 70+ author events each year and partners with many different community organizations for events, book clubs, book fairs, etc. They’ve run a monthly series since 2021 called “Community Conversations with the African American Heritage Association.” They also regularly work with Allendale United Methodist Church, Florida Humanities, The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg, the Poet Laureate and the City of St. Petersburg for poetry events, and the Tampa Bay Times through their partnership with the Festival of Reading that happens each year. 

Events Coordinator Kelsey Jagneaux said, “I am really passionate about creating spaces where people can come together in an exchange of ideas. Creating that environment for people of all ages and backgrounds to feel comfortable being in community together is really important to me and to the entire staff here. Getting to channel that into bookselling is really a privilege.”  

If you’re curious about the name, “tombolo” is a geographic term for a type of sandbar that connects an island to the mainland. Considering the connections that happen inside indie bookstores, it’s a very appropriate name!

You can learn more about Tombolo Books on their website: https://tombolobooks.com/ and you can follow them on Instagram @tombolobooks.