West Asheville's queer, anarchist, feminist bookstore moves into new Haywood Road home

ASHEVILLE - In the cracked asphalt of the parking lot across the street, potholes filled with gravel, weeds poking through hot cement, Libertie Valance can point to a kind of before-and-after. It's what the frontage of their building used to look like: the former site of Dr. Dave's Automotive, now the new location of Firestorm Books.

What was a time-worn West Asheville lot and 1956 garage on the corner of Haywood Road and Covington Street has been transformed into an open, airy building and outdoor space — home to Asheville's own queer, anarchist, feminist bookstore, which first opened downtown in 2008 as a worker-owned and self-managed business.

Valance is among the collective members and worker/owners at the 15-year-old cooperative and led a brief tour of the building in August: around light wood-tone shelves, delineating the bright interior, the nook of children's picture books below an open loft, and through the open garage doors.

In 2014, Firestorm moved to its West Asheville location at 610 Haywood Road, where it rented space. Nine years later, in early August, they moved again, this time a mile away to its current location and "forever home" at 1022 Haywood Road. A grand reopening celebration was held Aug. 27.

“Every time I walk in, there is a new little detail that we’ve added that makes it feel like Firestorm. A new home," said Firestorm Collective member Esmé Joy. The store is collectively owned by the four members of its cooperative.

It's a model that best aligns with the anti-capitalist values of its founding members, Valance said, who saw Firestorm "as an extension of their work as community activists and changemakers." Key to that cooperation, they added, is "a lot of meetings." The collective operates by consensus.

Its 15 years is proof the model works, said another collective member, Beck Nippes. Firestorm is "thriving," Nippes said, without needing to make many compromises on their values.

“We’ve learned how to do this together in a way that just feels really good and took us a while to get to,” Nippes said.

If anything will test a relationship, Joy joked, it's a $1 million renovation. "And I think that we passed with flying colors."

Nippes agreed: "We've taken a huge leap of faith, together."

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Nuances of the building's former life as an automotive shop remain after the seven-month renovation — like the rollup glass doors, which everyone agreed was among their favorite details of the building; slatted metal and wood siding, now a deep forest green; and the industrial vaulted beams.

When doors are open, the space spills out onto a wooden patio, greenspace and wide sidewalks, outdoor areas that will usher in a return to in-person events, on hold since the pandemic. A rainbow flag and the trans pride flag hang on either side of the main entrance.

Land to be donated to community

Valance said the renovations have carried a price tag of about $1 million, made possible by a $900,000 loan through Seed Commons, a national network of loan funds that previously supported Asheville’s PODER Emma in acquiring land for resident-owned mobile home parks.

Remaining costs were covered by a crowdfunding campaign, which raised $50,352, and other savings. Firestorm first announced its $450,000 acquisition of the 2,880-square-foot building in July 2022.

With this announcement came plans to donate the newly acquired land to the Asheville Community Land Trust. It's proved to be a more complicated process than they initially thought, Valance said, as this would be the land trust's first commercial property, but they hope to have the process wrapped by the end of the year.

“It turns out, there is a whole legal structure that has to be created from scratch because no one is doing this currently in Western North Carolina,” Valance said.

The Asheville-Buncombe Community Land Trust is a nonprofit that was founded in response to a 2014 report on gentrification and the displacement of Black residents from the East Riverside neighborhood. The organization aims to create affordable residential, commercial and community spaces with a commitment to racial justice.

As an anarchist collective, private land ownership did not align with Firestorm's vision, members of the collective told the Citizen Times last July, and donation to the land trust ensures a permanent community asset.

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Community response?

Though the space feels brand new, a complete rebuild within the shell of the building, keepsakes remain from previous locations: the hand-painted sign from its first cooperative location, which started in the basement of Downtown Asheville’s Weinhaus, to neon lettering spelling "Outspoken," an artifact from a former West Asheville feminist bookstore, gifted to Firestorm in its early days, Joy said.

Though the building at 1022 Haywood Road is only slightly bigger than its former rented space, the area is more easily utilized, which will ultimately allow for expanded book inventory (there are now 3,400 unique titles, centering on queer, feminist, social movement-oriented lit), and includes a private meeting room for small groups and more floor space dedicated to discount titles.

The community response, in particular, has been among the most gratifying part of reopening, Valance said. There are neighborhood kids who come by almost every day. And Joy pointed to the bright moments of an exhausting renovation: Neighbors lending tools and wheelbarrows, showing up to help and leaving covered in paint.

“For me, it feels like a really important moment for us to exist. Particularly because of the attacks on queer and trans kids, and other marginalized communities in the South," Valance said.

“A phenomena that we see over and over is family members, in particular, of queer and trans youth looking for resources and trying to find spaces either for the young people in their lives or to educate themselves as aspiring allies. I think that being able to be a super visible space where folks can go to get resources and to feel accepted has always been important, but in this moment, for me, feels so critical.”

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Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky. Please support local, daily journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville Firestorm Books reopens with queer, feminist, anarchist lit