Treebark Books to Open in Gordon Square This Fall

Rebecca Fisher had been a librarian for about half a decade before she felt overwhelmed by a political climate she thought was working against her profession.

In 2022, there were nearly 1,300 demands across the country to censor or take books off library shelves, mostly books penned by the same folks being harmed by the Trump administration’s policies targeting minorities and members of the LGBTQ community.

Fisher said the anxiety of working in a library and being politically attuned was a total maelstrom.

“Everybody at work was like, ‘Are we gonna lose our funding? Are we gonna close our doors?’” she recalled recently. “Are we actually going to have people come in and storm our shelves?”

Today, four years out of the profession, Fisher has channeled her expertise into a new passion project. By November, Fisher will open Treebark Books on the western edge of Gordon, a store dedicated to the same works under fire by right-leaning censors and conservative skeptics. She plans on mainly stocking books by minority and women writers.

Niche and specialty bookstores have been all the rage in the post-pandemic literary world. Flame & Fable, a romantasy store in Lakewood; Hexagon Books, world literature sold in Cleveland Heights; and Parallel Universe, Sci-Fi books in Hingetown, have all opened up in the past few years.

But bookstores are gambles as small businesses, even more for stores reliant on niche readers. Just this summer, after four years in business selling works in translation, Clevo Books shuttered its store on Euclid Avenue, in July.

What Fisher hopes to do with Treebark is reach profitability in the next three years while staying as close to her mission as possible. That is, acting as a refuge for free speech during a time when it’s being tampered with and threatened in the public realm.

“We have to do something, even if it’s just to give people some hope and something to look forward to, something to be happy about,” Fisher said. “I want to provide resources to the community they might otherwise have.”

Gordon Square may be the right place to do so. Its nearby theaters—Near West, Blank Canvas and Cleveland Public Theatre—routinely host plays by minority and female writers. The LGBT Community Center is a few blocks down on West 67th. The Girls’ Joint, a smoke shop tailored to women, reopened up in July a few doors down.

Fisher hopes Treebark will make a sound literary accompaniment. Whether that means hosting poetry readings, writers workshops, book clubs, or events in partnership with Lake Erie Ink or Literary Cleveland.

Unlike Visible Voice, which opened with a bang last November in its new Ohio City home, Treebark will not serve food or drinks. Its space is homey with its modest shelving and emerald walls. Having Ready Set! Coffee nextdoor, Fisher said, will be a boon to foot traffic.

Growing up in Lyndhurst, Fisher’s father, Jeff, ran the Cleveland Running Company off Lee Road in Cleveland Heights. It closed and merged with a competitor in 2019, Fisher recalled, after a “hard eight years.”

A lesson in running a business Fisher said she’s applying to Treebark: Not to be like everyone else, but to allow Treebark to respond to the needs of Gordon Square and the greater West Side.

“I don’t see us as being competition,” she said. “It’s more that we’re adding to the conversation that all bookstores are partaking in.”