737 8th Street, SE photos courtesy Little District Books
From a press release:
“Little District Books opened June 17th, 2022. A dream business for owner Patrick Kern, a 10-year resident of the greater Washington D.C. area.
“I wanted to create the bookstore I needed when I was younger,” said Kern, explaining that while many indie bookstores carry titles by queer authors, they might only carry one or two titles from a particular author, and they can be hard to locate among the thousands of other books.” As an example, he pointed out writers like T.J. Klune and V.E. Schwab, both authors with recently famous titles, but who also have large catalogs of great stories most people don’t know about.
Kern continued. In addition, when you hear about authors like Lana Popovic Harper going from relative obscurity to having seven publishers bidding on her newest novel, “Payback’s A Witch,” you can see there is a lot of room to grow this market.
Kern plans to carry as much of their work as will fit in his store. A well designed and organized space, Kern opened with the storefront of 300 sq.ft. with the ability to expand into an additional 500 sq.ft., currently used for storage that he hopes to grow into.
Kern comes from an entrepreneurial family background and with his love of indie bookstores this was a natural for him to launch as his next venture.
Little District Books joins the recent trend of queer-owned businesses popping up on Barrack’s Row Main Street with Crazy Aunt Helen’s, a southern-comfort food restaurant launching last year, and As You Are, a queer cafe, bar, and event venue launching early in 2022.
Given the store’s limited size, Kern plans to partner with other local independent businesses for a wide slate of events. The events started before the store was even officially open, working with As You Are on their Conversation with Lauren Hough event, promoting her recent work, “Leaving Isn’t The Hardest Thing” with more events in the planning stage.
Currently the store is open Wednesday through Friday 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm and Saturday and Sunday 11:00 am to 6:00 pm.
Internet shopping will launch in July 2022.”