“That's kind of the formula of the entire bookstore: A little bit of fight the man mixed with a little bit of let's take a breath.”– Steve Shafer
Three Pillars of Resistance
to the Hegemonic Logics of Marketability, Prediction, and the Machine
Genre / Diversity – When genre is reimagined, the physical geography of a bookstore changes. New, hybrid genres are no less identifiable than conventional ones, and an abundance of genres—like species—leads to more diverse, particular, and distinct dynamics: the stuff of evolution.
Order / Discernment – Conventional wisdom holds that the best way to find particular titles is to keep them alphabetized (by author). Yes, and: there are other ways to conceive territory and discern value. Differential sequencing treats books as more than the sum of their authors’ identities.
Inventory / Agency – We log sales by hand, so orders and re-orders are never automatic; even perennial favorites must be considered against an evolving ecosystem of literature. This also means that we do not track your literary decisions, but rather respect and celebrate them.
Mission
To recognize the essential fluidity and kinship of literary genre.
To model and mobilize literary heterogeneity.
To steward embodied connections with literary spaces.
Vision
A resilient and participatory wilderness of literature.
“Perelandra’s reader-in-residence combines the solitude of the original residency tradition with the community engagement of contemporary ones, into a position that’s physically out in public, but mentally tucked away in a good book.”– The Colorado Sun
The Reader in Residence
The Reader in Residence serves a three-month tenure in which they simply read—not aloud, but to themself—at the bookshop. In this setting, the reader hones their attention while making literary engagement visible and relevant. They receive a stipend for both sustenance and books.
2024
Matthew Schlief
Sam Cranshaw
Ricki Ginsberg
Steve Shafer - "Mouth shut, mind open"
2023
Kristy Beachy-Quick - "On learning to read: Proust"
Kristy Leushen
Danielle Parker
Matt Wood
Frankie Rollins
Callahan Woodbery - "Re-reading as re-membering"
2022
Brandi Thomas - "Reading like an animal"
Jeff Chelf - "The pricelessness of personhood"
Elaine Wall
Seth Braverman - "The seed that falls"
Kayla Redd
John Newman
Tobias Bank - "This changes everything"
Kathleen Willard
Lucia Hall
Erica Reid
2021
Rico Lighthouse - "Meaning is what surrounds"
Julia Goolsby - "The diversity of change"
John Flynn - "Time does the deepening"
Robin Walter - "Calling out to ourselves"
Jason Hardung - "The burden of honest work"
Brandi Thomas - "Reading like an animal"
Reading is art.
Readers play an integral role in the creative process by which literature makes meaning. The practicing reader, no less than the writer, models an imaginative power that connects human beings across time and space. But twenty-first century readers face both new and familiar challenges to their practice, from access to literary materials to the more recent hegemony of distracting digital infrastructures. For many people, the idea of regular reading is unattainable.Enter the Reader in Residence. Like other artist residencies, it affords individuals the resources to practice their craft; unlike other artists-in-residence, the Reader is not expected to produce anything but their own attentive presence. By foregrounding the simple act of reading rather than what a given individual “gets out of it,” the Reader in Residence manifests literary engagement instead of value judgment. This is a revolutionary democratic posture in increasingly undemocratic times.Required reading:
In Defense of Literacy - Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony
The Death of the Author - Roland Barthes, Image-Music-Text
Mission
To empower undistracted engagement with diverse literatures.
To nourish literary imagination, empathy and reflexivity.
To keep literary practice visible & viable in the digital age.
Vision
Communities bonded by individuality, openness, and imagination.
“The technologies created and disseminated by modern Western societies are out of control and desecrating the fragile fabric of life on Earth. Like the early Luddites, we too are a desperate people seeking to protect the livelihoods, communities, and families we love, which lie on the verge of destruction.”– Chellis Glendinning
Named for the opening epiphany of Jean Giono's Joy of Man's Desiring, the Wild Carrot Society hosts device-free events at Wolverine Farm and in its greater ecological surrounds. We engage in various activities that generally celebrate attention as a balm against collective technological addiction.Required reading:
Notes toward a Neo-Luddite Manifesto - Chellis Glendinning
Questions We Should Have Asked About Technology - Jerry Mander
Mission
To evaluate & respond to the ubiquity of digital infrastructures.
To empower non-digital sites of communion.
To resist the colonial imagination of technological society.
Vision
Diverse space for the untechnical recovery of self-knowledge.