Drag queen & television personality RuPaul Charles has announced that she has co-founded an online bookstore. The American personality took to Instagram yesterday to reveal the launch of Allstora, an online marketplace and book club designed to promote authors from underrepresented backgrounds to a wider variety of readers.
In a video posted to the social media platform yesterday, RuPaul announced: “We are moving the conversation forward…this is a platform that I am in love with”. Speaking to the need and timing for this project, she continued: “The conversation needs to move forward…through books, through conversations, through community”. The website for the new book shop states that they are committed to “sharing all stories and sharing all profits fairly…In a time where important stories, especially from queer and marginalized voices, are being banned and ostracized…Allstora is ensuring there is access to books that represent a vast range of intersections, narratives, and history”.
The shop has been co-founded, alongside the RuPaul’s Drag Race host, by New York Times bestselling author and LGBTQ+ advocate Eric Cervini, and drag performer and actor Adam Powell. As well as selling books, the new website also has a dedicated RuPaul’s book club, with interviews and playlists for subscribers from the personality, and signed prints for the first subscribers.
Whilst currently shipping only to the United States, it is hoped that this flourishing book store championing marginalised voices will soon expand further afield, and that the influence of the drag queen who has championed the phrase “reading is fundamental!” will help this store expand and represent the voices it seeks to enhance.
For more information, see @allstorabooks on Instagram, or access the Allstora website here
