The Murder has Crowsen
For the past 3 weeks, we’ve been hosting a poll on the website that would decide our first cycle of book club genres.
We knew going in that Local Authors would always have a spot at our book club table. We’re a Saskatchewan bookshop, my own writing career would not have gotten off the ground without the advice and support of other Saskatchewan authors, and the Writers’ Guild, AND interest in Local Writing has been the most consistent feedback we’ve received across all of our surveys and questionnaires. It feels important, a real no-brainer.
But we wanted to have weekly meetings, which meant we decided on a four week Club Cycle and had to figure out 3 more.
We put it to a vote, and the Murder has Crowsen Chosen:
Honestly, I was kinda surprised by the verdict. When I made the poll, I thought Romance would be the clear winner (one of the two options, at least), and early voting suggested Fantasy would run away with it.
But in the end: Here’s what you‘ve chosen:
Lit Fic — 20 votes
Indigenous Voices — 19 votes
Queer Voices — 16 votes
Fantasy — 10 votes (tie)
Sci-Fi — 10 votes (tie)
Cozy Romance — 5 votes (tie)
Spicey Romance — 5 votes (tie)
Lit Fic and Indigenous Voices were essentially inseparable. They were tied until the last vote came in on the last day. Queer Voices wasn’t far behind.
Together, Sci-Fi & Fantasy reached 20 votes, so it feels like a shame to leave them out of the cycle. I’m gonna try to remedy that by offering Sci-Fi & Fantasy options in our monthly Reaping of Titles.
For each club, I’ll create a poll of 4 titles, and voting members will get to vote, and then (obviously), the book with the most votes will be our pick for the next month.
This means: If you’re dying to read Sci-Fi or Fantasy or even Romance, these options will still be included regularly in the Reapings.
You can join as a voting member here.
So, our four founding book clubs:
Always was, always will be. Saskatchewan writers, regional voices, stories rooted in this specific, strange, flat, weird place.
For readers who like their books to ask more questions than they answer. Language people. This is my fave, where I’ve spent most of my reading life. It should open a lot of different genre doors if we want it to.
I’m very happy this placed so high. This One feels important to me, and to Chantelle, and to the Shop’s identity in general. I’d like this to be a dedicated space for Indigenous authors and stories, not as a footnote to the rest of the programming but as a foundation for it. Here, too, I want to include a plethora of genres, as I know Indigenous authors are doing great work all over the place!
I love this very much. For this to get as many votes as it has, in a town like Regina, in a place like Saskatchewan. I’m very happy.
I think between the 4 options, we’ll have opportunities to read books from all the genres. I’ll even be sprinkling in some non-fiction options here-n-there. I really can’t wait for this all to get going.
Each club will meet once a month on a Tuesday evening, cycling through the four genres.
Voting Members will vote on titles from a curated shortlist, we’ll announce the winner, then we’ll have about 3 weeks to read the book(s), sometimes longer.
I’ll post our first round of shortlists later this week and the Reaping will commence!
Each club is free to join & attend, but if you’d like voting rights (as well as other perks—including 10% Book Club Picks!), you can become Certified Murder Members for $5/month per club OR $15/month for all 4 clubs.
All of the funding raised through these memberships will go directly back into programming for the shop.
Thank you very much for weighing in! Can’t wait to get started.
CaCaw for now!
Tim & Chantelle
