You All Made a Difference! And We Made that Difference Together.
On Tuesday April 14th, we sent off a donation of $600.00 to Equality Kansas, via the LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas, in particular, to fight against SB244 which became an official law on February 26, 2026. This law defines gender as sex assigned at birth, invalidates the state identification (driver’s licenses, birth certificates, etc.) of those who previously changed the gender marker on these documents, and criminalized multi-gender, multi-occupancy private spaces such as restrooms and locker rooms at government-owned facilities like public pools, schools, libraries, and government offices. As Equality Kansas writes on its website, “In the days surrounding this law’s publication, transgender Kansans started receiving letters from the Kansas Department of Revenue notifying them that their identification would immediately become invalid on February 26th, 2026 with no grace period and no fee waiver. Folks would be burdened not only with the renewal fees, but travel to and from the DMV and lost income due to time away from work to complete this process.” Our donation goes to support the mutual aid fund for those affected by SB244.
I’m writing to thank DJ Grandformat for alerting us to this particular organization in need as well as ALL THE SMALL BUSINESSES and individuals in our community:
Ollie’s Pizza
Green Cottage
Fool for Love
Curious Cat
High Falls Food Co-op
Montauk Catch Club
Bklyn Sour
Hash Café
Locust Grove Historic Site via the Ambient Harpist Courtney Conte; and
Diane Boisvert
…Each of whom batted not an eye when we made the rounds to solicit items for our weekend-long silent auction which our reading community bid on in order to raise the funds. You’re all part of the reason why we feel so fortunate to have landed in the middle of such a special place—srsly, I had no idea High Falls was the center of the universe—and, now, I know!
I also want to shout out thanks to all who helped make the Orlando Experience Extravaganza so extraordinaryyyy (I knowwww the fish just keeps getting bigger, but in truth, or as Woolf writes at the point of Orlando’s transition: “Truth! Truth!”) it was big. And it took a hamlet to make it so. Thank you Ollie’s for adding us to your Thurs-gays thematics on 3/26, as it set the tone for the rest of the weekend at Blue Heron Books.
Thank you to our superb speaker on Friday, Dr. Madelyn Detloff, whose Introduction to the Norton edition of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography is theee one to snap up if you want the best of the best that provides queer and trans contexts for this literary love letter that the next day took us all on a gender bending romp through and for the ages. Thank you to the 27!!! readers of all ages!!! who signed up to read aloud beginning the novel at 9:19 AM and finishing the entire book by 6:40PM same day. The bagels and coffee helped as well as the deviled eggs made by Martha (courtesy of our 17 chickens or as the chickens say, we go as a group or we don’t go!)
And, if that wasn’t enough, we screened our first film, on Sunday, Paul Preciado’s Orlando: My Political Biography, which impressed the crowd gathered in our space, and sparked even more conversation -- with thx to Mad Detloff for staying on to engage in further reflections and Q and A even after the popcorn was et.
Thank you to our indispensable staff and helpers galore: Azra! Vaidya! Ruby! And to Harry! Jed! Teal! Jeremy! Siena! But most of all to my wife and partner in all things mischievous but just crazy enough to work, Martha Marcie, Marce, Martha Lou, Lou La La! As you can see, so many Orlando’s make up our wonderfully diverse world.
With much love and respect, see you at the bookshop!
Jean and Martha
For more information about SB244 and the aftermath, please reference the ACLU.
To Donate to Equality Kansas, click here: https://eqks.org/donate/