Photo by Tom Jenz
Cetonia Weston-Roy
Cetonia Weston-Roy
Just south of the Black Holocaust Museum on Martin Luther King Drive is the Niche Book Bar, the front window sign announcing, “Black Books Red Wine.” The owner of the Niche Book Bar is Cetonia Weston-Roy, and I met her for a conversation just down the street at HoneyBee Sage.
“The Niche Book Bar hasn’t opened yet,” she explained. “Maybe in the fall.”
For nearly four years, through starts and stops and even contractor deception, Weston-Roy has pursued her dream of running her own bookstore. I was rooting for her to succeed. I was always a reader, and I like hanging out at bookstores, browsing through titles in the peaceful atmosphere. A bookstore can be a sacred place where ideas assign your imagination to spaces it had never been. It is a sanctuary for fascination, an escape into countless worlds and stories. Books offer adventures, knowledge, and perspectives. A good bookstore encourages lingering and contemplation among the shadowed shelves.
Weston-Roy was born in Jacksonville, Florida, but grew up in Racine where her mother and her mother’s family lived. For grade school, she attended a Catholic and a Lutheran school. From 6th through 12th grade, she received her education in a charter school with a diverse group of students. “There were 23 students in my graduating class,” she told me. “I liked the small school atmosphere.”
Did you develop an area of interest when you were in high school?
Since I was seven, I was an avid reader of young adult fiction, vampire and werewolf stories, sci-fi and fantasy. Sometimes, I’d write little short stories. Later in high school, I became enthralled with the TV show, “America’s Next Top Model.” Mainly, I liked their creative photo shoots, which tied into my interest in creativity. a little fantasy, a little otherworldly.
It seems you were attracted to the visual and the written word.
That’s right.
After high school, I believe you attended Ripon College.
I got a scholarship to go to Ripon College. I liked the small college atmosphere, but the students were mostly white. At first, I was scared, but finally I did make friends. I met my husband at Ripon College, and we had a son. I eventually graduated from Concordia College in St Paul Minnesota through online courses. My degree is in psychology.
When did you get interested in books?
As a child, I had a problem with learning to read, but my stepdad was a big reader, and he’d drag me along to the library. I’d grab a stack of books, go home and read the ones I liked. That is how I got hooked on reading from about seven years old on. Now with my son and daughter, we try to do a weekly trip to the library.
You started Niche Book Bar in 2020 with the goal of making Black literature more accessible. You began selling books from your bike by riding around neighborhoods. Describe that experience.
I bought a used tricycle and mounted a book carrier on the back. I pedaled around the community and sold books. I started by attending Black authors popup Book Fairs. I reached out to Black authors, and we would pop up at coffee shops and places like the Sherman Phoenix. These were little book fairs. I found out that people were looking to have a bookstore in the community. In 2018, I began taking business courses. By then, I knew I wanted to own a bookstore.
In 2022, your Niche Book Bar was doing a build-out, but your store never opened because of deceitful contractors. To quote you, “We’ve been really unfortunate to run into everything from contractor theft, severe underbidding and mismanagement during our project, it’s been disheartening.” Tell me what happened and what is the current development with the Niche Book Bar.
I just didn’t hire the right contractor. We committed 40% of the original budget to the first contractor who never worked the job. The building was built in 1895, and the bookstore needs a lot of build-out work. Right now, I do have another contractor lined up. I hope to be open the store in the fall of 2024.
There are many books on the trauma and pain of Black people, fiction and nonfiction. You once said, “I still think it’s a problem that trauma-based (Black) literature is so easy to connect to, that’s what everyone is putting on their top lists. You have to know real life, you have to know past, present, and how it affects the now. But I don’t believe that it should only be trauma books that are easy to find.” Can you expand on that?
I was reading mostly books about the Black experience and culture, and the struggles Blacks went through in terms of trauma and racism. Those books are easily accessible, but they often don’t show a character’s full humanity. The human experience revolves around what we are exposed to. So when you only see yourself in terms of racism and poverty, maybe you only know that’s what there is to life. If you see yourself as a heroine in a healthy romance novel, that can make you more positive. If you see yourself as the hero or heroine in a fantasy or sci-fi book or even historical fiction, that can help change your self-image. Niche Book Bar will feature more balance in the book offerings. There will be stories about racism and prejudice, but it can’t be the characters’ whole lives. They should have other joys, other pains. I want to feature more genres that aren’t usually reflected in Black literature.
You also said, “I’d become cognizant of what was missing from my bookshelves and was deliberately seeking Black literature. I knew that was my bookstore’s ‘niche.’”
Hence, the Niche Book Bar. Octavia Butler is a good example of a Black author who has broader themes in her writings. She was one of the first writers who sparked my imagination. She wrote about Black women who are a vampire or a heroine fighting aliens. Both women characters experience racism, but they are still the heroines. They are multi-faceted characters. Octavia Butler is part of the Afrofuturism genre, which features futuristic or science fiction themes incorporating elements of Black history and culture.
You are an author yourself. Tell me about your books.
I have written a couple children’s books on the Misadventures of Toni Macaroni because of her skinny arms and legs, much to her dismay. Based on my own childhood and some of the crazy things I did. Toni Macaroni was my nickname as a kid.
How can interested investors or contributors help you relaunch your bookstore?
Currently, I am running an Indiegogo campaign to raise money. At this point, we are ten percent funded. We need funds to help with electrical, drywall, carpentry, and more. So far, people are also helping me by donating furniture, paint, and flooring. And if people want to donate their time, that would help. When Niche Book Bar opens, besides books, there will be coffee, tea, a wine bar, a children’s area, a space to hold book clubs, and a venue to just hang out.
To contribute, visit indiegogo.com/projects/niche-book-bar-help-us-open-our-doors.
The Niche Book Bar is located at 1937 N. Martin Luther King Drive: findyournichemke.com.
