Black Birch Books & Curiosities owner Taylor Jordan in her Wasilla bookstore on Wednesday, April 12, 2023.
Organizers of the events say drag is a light-hearted art form, and that the events are designed to be kid-appropriate and promote literacy and diversity. “Anyone who takes their child to this should have their parental rights terminated,” one person wrote.In the reactions, Jordan found a microcosm of the polarization playing out nationally over issues of gender expression. It got Jordan thinking about why she’d started the bookstore in Wasilla to begin with.
She opened Black Birch Books in 2018, with her own collection of books as inventory. The pandemic soon followed, and later a move to a new space in a strip mall off Bogard Road, between a gym and a carpet store. The store doesn’t make much money. Jordan says she just wants to keep the lights on and bills paid. The things for sale — paperbacks, handmade candles, pagan wreaths, various handicrafts made by local artists — are almost incidental. The store reflects Jordan’s own Goth sensibilities.
Drag storytimes can promote acceptance, diversity and literacy, he said. But the events “seem to automatically push this button with folks” who are “caught up on this narrative that drag is only a sexual thing,” he said. “That’s not true. It’s like the idea that drag performers are all gay men. That’s also not true.”
Walker’s books feature the dogs in her life — especially her German shepherd Sweet Saucy — giving Bible lessons. One book focuses on having dogs relate the Ten Commandments. Another features Sweet Saucy telling the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. On the morning of Walker’s author signing event, Jordan received some ugly phone calls from people mad about the event. It turned out Walker had gotten a phone call of her own.ADVERTISEMENT