Little Pockets of Weird

Ren Dean wanted to create the kind of place they wanted to see in the world. After spending ten years in urban planning focusing on financial work, Dean had felt disconnected from the communities they were aiming to serve. That’s why they decided to open Skunk Cabbage Books in 2023. It’s a community-based bookstore with a niche of books about sustainability and the environment.

The impetus started with Dean’s own community focused work. While they worked specifically in community development finance, they dealt with a lot of red tape and justifying expenses to funders. They decided that they wanted to find a way to use all of their experience to create a self-sufficient place, one that paid its own bills and employee salaries, where people could come together.

The store takes its name from the  Chicago native plant, the Eastern skunk cabbage, known for its potent smell. According to the bookstore website, the plant is often one of the first to emerge in the spring and it generates its own heat, helping thaw the ground around it. The website said: “Like our namesake, Skunk Cabbage Books hopes to foster an environment that supports new growth and interdependence in our communities.”

The bookstore offered a lot of versatility. They acknowledged that there is a lot of romance behind bookstores, some of it is true, but it is still a retail business. “I don't want to over glamorize it,” they said, but “there is something about books that requires you to slow down and take your time.” It allows for nuance and shades of grey, compared to other retail shops and other businesses.

Dean wanted to carve out a place on the neighborhood scale that is needed or wanted by the community. They wanted a place where people who have niche passions could find a place with other people with niche passions. “We're increasingly living in conditions that are very constrained and make it hard to take risks,” Dean said. “It feels important to me that we continue to nurture the little pockets of weird that still exist.”

It was also important that Dean open in the neighborhood, where they had spent the past 13-years. “I couldn't envision doing this in another neighborhood where I hadn't been a resident for so long,” Dean said.

In order to cultivate that ecosystem, Dean was very intentional about accessibility in the bookstore. One priority was protecting each other from COVID-19. The bookstore opened in 2023 just when society was pushing people back into “new normal,” even though the threat was not gone. Dean found it frustrating that there was no acknowledgement of the past few years in the pandemic or the continued lack of a functioning healthcare system. They decided to ask people to wear masks in the store, because they “want[ed] to practice doing the things that we wish we were seeing in the world, as opposed to just talking about it.”

The store no longer requires masks thanks to the installation of a Far-UVC disinfectant system, used by congressional office buildings and the White House under Biden, as a COVID-19 precaution. They reviewed the research and decided it was a good step forward. Skunk Cabbage Books still supplies masks for people who wish to continue masking.

In general, Dean’s experiences in urban planning made them more aware of accessibility, such as having wide-enough aisles for wheelchairs. “It’s one of those things where once you start seeing it, you see it everywhere,” Dean said. Thinking about making the space accessible was top of mind in Dean’s mind as they looked at storefronts. They were able to get some things on the wish list, such as no step access, but other things, like a public bathroom, were out of the price range for the neighborhood.

Not only did Dean consider accessibility, they wanted to create a space for wide-range programming from traditional author events to community-led events. Dean said that one of the cool things about bookstores, compared to other retail shops, is that “you are taking someone's baby that they have labored over for years and years and putting it in front of an audience in a way that feels really cool.” Offering up the space allows authors to come and talk about their books.

Dean highlighted that they are particularly interested in featuring trans writers. Dean said, “As a trans and non-binary person, it feels important to me that we put those things front and center, because personally I really enjoy these books.” On top of that there are some incredible works that trans writers are publishing including Torrey Peters, Kelsey L. Smoot, and Margaret Killjoy.

In addition to author events, the bookstore holds time for events pitched by people in the community, like someone who works at a local organization. In the past, the store hosted events by the Chicago Abortion Fund to do teach-ins and kickstart some fundraising efforts. In late June, Skunk Cabbage Books and Chicago BIPOC Birders partnered to create a bird walk that helped raise funds for Midwest Immigration Bond Fund and Albany Park Mutual Aid.

Skunk Cabbage also hosts Q&A with scientists on a bimonthly basis. Dean invites someone who has a cool science job to the store. They ask some basic questions about the scientist’s field and then the scientist takes questions from the audience. Several months ago, Dr. Shanika Galaudage, an astrophysicist at Northwestern and the Adler Planetarium, talked about black holes. Recently, Sammie Clark, a researcher at Urban Rivers, spoke about urban beaver populations in the Chicago River. 

On July 8th, Tyler Keillor, a paleoartist, will discuss his work bringing together art and science. According to his website, he creates “skeletal restorations, and sculpt[s] flesh reconstructions of prehistoric life at the University of Chicago and other institutions.” If you have ever seen models of dinosaurs that look like they are living, breathing animals, the paleoartist is the one who makes the magic happen.

Since 2023, Dean has appreciated getting to know people in the neighborhood and feeling like a fixture in the neighborhood. They joked with their coworker that they feel like Stardew Valley characters where “we’re like little video NPC (non-player characters) where if you need us, you know where to find us. You can come and chat with us. We exchange knowledge and hints in book form for coins.” They’ve gotten to watch kids grow up and see them getting excited about new books “as they get more confident reading. That's really fun.”

Dean also noted that people also visit from out of town, often from places where they cannot easily access books on race, consent, sexuality, and other "controversial topics.” Dean pointed out that it is a reminder that other states are much more restrictive about books and other materials than Chicagoland. They appreciate being a resource to teachers, therapists and other people coming from out of town.

Since opening the bookstore’s doors in 2023, Dean learned to feel more confident in what they were doing with the shop. There were things they learned working for Skunk Cabbage instead of worrying about what other bookstores were doing. There’s lots of great independent bookstores in the city that are doing cool and interesting things, but Skunk Cabbage did not need to do everything. Dean noted it took some time to “keep my eyes on my own paper.” 

But they added that the Chicago independent bookstore community has been very welcoming and collaborative from the very beginning, which is great. 

Dean concluded, “We've got weird books, and people are always welcome. We hope they'll drop in and find us and loiter for a little bit and find something that they didn't know they wanted to read."