Slightly edited for clarity.
Alex
Welcome to Paper Defiance, a fortnightly podcast all about indie bookshops and their owners. My name is Alex, and I am recording this on Wadawaurang land, in Ballarat Australia. It’s exciting to have you join me.
The last three episodes have been focused on people who are relatively new to the business of bookshops, with Leah at the Ripped Bodice the oldest with about 7 years of experience. In this episode, I’m talking to someone with 30 years of experience in owning his bookshop, and a few more years before that in the book trade.
Rowland owns Hares and Hyenas, a – or really, the – queer bookshop in Melbourne. I should note that this episode was recorded several weeks ago now, so bookclubs do seem to be back on, and events starting soon; you should check their website for details. Rowland also mentions a police raid on their premise, which as he notes turned out to have nothing to do with being a queer bookshop; if you don’t remember this, or if you’ve never heard of it, here are some links:
Now, over to Rowland – and I hope you’re ready to write down a bunch of book recommendations.
Rowland
My name is Rowland Thompson. I’m the owner of Hares and Hyenas Bookshop, which is located in the Victorian Pride Centre. It specialises in LGBTQI titles.
Alex
Splendid. That gives me so many questions to ask. So can I start with the name – can you explain where that comes from?
Rowland
The name comes from the Middle Ages. Hares, hyenas, weasels, stoats and a few other animals were seen as night animals associated with witches and the outsiders. Hyenas were thought to be grave robbers. Hares were thought to have multiple vaginas and hyenas – because the clitoris is on the outside, it’s hard to sex them, so it was thought that they could change sex. So that sort of thing. That concept – around that concept. So it’s from – it’s not from primary source material. It’s from a book, Christianity’s – goodness gracious, I’ve said it so many times and this time I can’t say it – Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, by John Boswell.
Alex
Fantastic. And how long has Hares and Hyenas been in existence?
Rowland
We signed the lease for our Commercial Road shop on the first of December 1991. And we opened on the 23rd of December 1991, two days before Christmas, after a whirlwind fit out. Ironically, the first one took three weeks, and the the fit out for the Pride Centre has been going on for about sixteen months, and we’re still not close to having it sorted out. So we haven’t learned – I haven’t learned much in 30 years.
Alex
So back in 1991, how did you get to the point of opening a bookshop in general, and we’ll get to the kind of specific focus in a moment.
Rowland
Right. Well, I’s been working in bookshops for what – well, Hartwig’s [spelling?] in Brunswick St. Fitzroy for about four years. We had a – like a few places – had a bay of gay, lesbian, trans books. My then-partner was also working at Hardwig’s in St. Kilda, and they had a little bit larger section. We both knew that there was a lot of titles that couldn’t be stocked; International Bookshop in Elizabeth Street had the biggest section of queer titles at the time, and it was just like still, a couple of bays. We’d been to Sydney to see Bookshop Darlinghurst – had shopped there a number of times – so we knew that the stock was available. Also Crusade, my ex-partner, he was the book representative for Bulldog Books, which was the main importer of the small queer presses, especially from the US, you know, Alice [unclear], I think was still going at that stage. Onlywomen Books, Gay Men’s Press in the UK. So we had the knowledge. And we knew that it was time to do it in Melbourne. And we basically worked out the main areas where there were – I use the word queer as an umbrella term. So I mean, there’s many, many meanings for the word, but for me, it’s a convenient term to cover everything from sort of non-straight straights, to straight gays, but everything in between. So we went around a few different suburbs – well inner-city suburbs – and realised that Commercial Road was, I would say, at the time, the most vibrant area: it had, well it had the Beat Bookshop, which was a gay adult bookshop. It had a number of venues open for night trade. So we just kept looking in that small patch there until the one in Commercial Road turned up. And we haven’t looked back since, I say confidently.
Alex
That’s fantastic. When you were starting to put together the idea and looking around for places, I almost hesitate to ask, how did people respond to the idea of a bookshop that was focused on queer content and queer presses and so on? Did you mostly get a good response? She says, crossing your fingers.
Rowland
Yes. The only strange response was when we were doing the fit out. And – because we were between Three Faces or whatever it was called at the time, the Market Hotel and the one down the road. So there was a lot of evening, people walking backwards and forwards in the evening. And a drag queen came in and said to us, “of course, you’re going to be covering up the windows aren’t you.” And we said no, and said, “well, it won’t work, if – no one will come in, if you if you don’t cover up the windows.” And I would say that was the only negative observation we had from anyone. It was – touch wood, well, it’s all passed now, so we don’t need to, but it was a very positive response from publishers, and the real estate agent. If you’re renting properties around Commercial Road and Chapel Street, you’ve got to be comfortable with that type of thing. A couple of years later, the first Grand Prix that we had in Melbourne coincided around Easter, and there was a big drama, because the poster for the gay party at the Easter was Our Lady of Guadalupe. And so, you know, 3AW and everything were getting on about using the image of the Virgin Mary for a gay party. And on the Sunday of the Grand Prix, we had a group of male youths come in, and two of them just walked behind the counter up to the window and ripped all the posters off the window, and then left, and… that shook us. And at the same time, it happened so quickly that we hardly knew what was happening. You know, there’s been very few bad responses from any of the locations. I mean, they’re all inner city for a start. But at the same time, you know, there’s the case today of an inner city pub with the Neo Nazis and stuff. So we’ve had a good run politically, along those lines. In fact, sometimes it is people from within the community that we’ve had more problems with than outside the community, just the various politics of well, any minority group where there’s clashes within the community, and – I’ve always right from the beginning, I said, we’re not going to get involved in any, any political side. So we, I mean, my idea of a gatekeeper is just leave the gate open. I believe I’m a gatekeeper, but that’s only to oil the hinges Not to open and shut it. And so we’ve tried to always be collecting from both sides in the titles. It has become a little bit murkier now that certain feminist groupsare treating the trans community, as if, well, a) they don’t exist, or if they do exist, they’re, I don’t know, they’re delusional or something. And I refuse to have material that doesn’t treat other sections of the community with respect. So that is a line that has had to be drawn recently. Before that, I would try and tiptoe around things and try to present different sides. I mean, in the 90s pretty well all the books around transgender were from you know, Janice Raymond’s Transsexual Empire, which is like a science fiction, ‘transgender people are going to ruin the world’ type thing. So looking back, I shudder that we stocked those books, but at the time, it was part of a discussion that didn’t have – wasn’t – well, I mean, I’m not transgender, so I can’t speak how transgender people would feel about it. But it didn’t feel like it was weaponised in the same way as, as those attitudes are these days.
Alex
You said you’re in the process of a new fit out, because I was reading on your website that of course, you’re moving to a new – have moved, sorry.
Rowland
We’ve moved! Last December, we’ve moved, but still taking its time.
Alex
Yeah, so tell me about that move. What prompted you to move into the new, newish I guess, Pride Centre.
Rowland
A year is still new in that area. But we were approached quite a few years ago, by the Pride Centre people when they were in the planning, and I saw it as a good opportunity. Where… yeah, if I can just have a little moment, just to say, my partner and I split up a couple of years ago, so it’s difficult to explain the process of what we’re… So we decided to split the businesses up and so I moved to the Pride Centre, and Crusader has kept the Johnston St space as a venue and secondhand books. The secondhand book section is fantastic if anyone wants – if anyone’s into second hand books, it’s like a different tribe of people, those secondhand book buying people; I recommend that they check out the collection at Johnston Street. And we did have – before COVID – our performance and events I thought was fantastic. We’d cover so many different areas and being a small venue, we would get established stars doing, you know, tryouts of ideas. So Crusader’s continuing with that, while I’m just focusing on the bookshop at the Pride Centre. I think it’s great in that even though as a specialist shop when we were in a suburban space, we’d get people coming from all over the place, it still is focused within that area. So book sales in Fitzroy were very different from South Yarra, but not in the ways you would assume, or a lot of people jump to the conclusion of. Whereas at the Pride Centre, we get people from all over the place. I mean, the Pride Centre is a space that attracts people. And so the book sales are so varied, it’s fantastic. I just love that, you know, one minute you can be selling sort of a feminist history and next minute, you can be selling some gay male erotica and then a kid’s book, and then this – I just love the way that in the Pride Centre, we get customers that are interested in basically any area. I mean, that’s a chaotic explanation of why I’ve gone to the Pride Centre.
Alex
And when you were thinking about the space itself and what you wanted it to look like, what sorts of things have you been considering? What do you want it to feel like?
Rowland
Yeah, well, the space is under the stairs. And it’s quite an open space. So at the moment, I’ve got temporary fencing around the outside. The concept that I’ve got is that it will be – we’re using a macrame screen as a security screen with – it’s been the main stumbling block in that there’s, surprisingly, no building specifications for bondage rope. So, the building surveyor has said that the melting point of the bondage rope is too low. I would have thought that it would have to be quite high because people use candles around the everything, but it’s too low, so we’ve had to rejig it so that it’s not part of the structure and it is part of the decorations. So, Luke George, who people might know from his recent installation at the NGV of the footballers being suspended in the great hall – he’s doing the macrame for that, with – using pink and turquoise bondage rope, which are the two colors which were dropped from the original gay pride flag, because there were too many colors and it made the logistics of making them too expensive. So the Pride Centre itself is quite muted. And I like the idea of when you come around the corner to the bookshop, it’s in bright colours – just hopefully, it’ll just knock you out. So I think it’s going to be a fit out that will be worth waiting for. Every time we have a meeting, and it’s so exciting, and then there’s a new hurdle that we have to get over. But we’ve been able to – using all those pandemic words of pivot and cohort and supply chain issues – we’re getting there.
Alex
Excellent. So you’ve been in the business for 30 years now – I feel like I should say congratulations. That’s very exciting.
Rowland
I’ve been – about 35. And then the bookshop’s been 30, yes. We didn’t have a celebration in December last year. But I think with fingers crossed with the fit out finished, that we’ll have a big celebration this year with re-launching.
Alex
Awesome.
Rowland
I think. So why celebrate anniversaries with zeros. Let’s start celebrating them with ones on the end.
Alex
I’m a big fan of prime numbers, so 31 works for me.
Rowland
31’s a prime number oh, yes, that would be good. Okay.
Alex
It feels like almost a silly question, because so much has changed in 30 years. But is there something that stands out for you, that is one of the biggest changes in the bookselling industry over the last 30 years?
Rowland
Apart from the obvious of the internet – well look. Perhaps I should say I think this year for queer titles, is the most significant year since 1995. In 1995, we had Holding the Man; there was a whole group of not major authors, but secondary authors – though they probably hate me saying secondary authors, but those ones that just really write really good books but don’t get that same visibility, so. And then Christos’ [Tsiolkas] first book came out. In America, they started signing up basically queer activists, because they started publishing more in the nonfiction areas. So titles like oh, Transgender Warriors was published around then – don’t quote me on that one – so, and I think this year, it’s been a staggering year for new titles. And they keep coming, both locally, you know, if we start with the November of last year with Christos, and then there was Hannah Kent’s Devotion, and then this year, you know, this week, we’ve had Marlo from Ian Carmichael; The Brink from – I always think of William Holden, but it’s Holden Sheppard but – I get my Holdens mixed up sometimes. Sarah Hardy published a fantastic book, A Secret Life, self-published, a novel looking at the history from the end of the First World War through to the ’60s in both England and then looks at the Well of Loneliness and how people bought it in Australia. I just – it’s a fantastic year for for titles. Patrick Gale was published; major publishers, major writers; and then smaller writers, and something like Bad Gays, which – I think it was late ’90s there was a book about Hitler, you know, saying that he was probably gay. And we got into so much strife from people that said, we shouldn’t have that type of book in the shop, you know, you can’t have negative portrayals of gay people, whereas now we’ve got a book that just is all about bad gays history and it’s really popular, selling really well. So within the queer area that I would say, well, that’s a change – but more a development from, to be in such a significant year. And hopefully it will continue next year as well.
Alex
Yeah, absolutely. In your time as a bookseller, what sorts of things have particularly surprised you?
Rowland
Oh, what’s surprised me? I better be very, very tactful. I, early on when we were still a bit nervous about the shop, what surprised me was you can’t make assumptions about people – and I still think that’s the case. I remember, an older woman came in and she was dressed very conservatively, and I was thinking “oh, Christian, going to cause trouble.” And she ended up buying all this bondage stuff and everything. I mean, those things that really surprised me – just you can’t make assumptions about people. I just love it. I just think it’s fantastic that people have their secret lives, or not so secret but not obvious lives. So you just don’t know what someone’s going to bring up to the counter. So I don’t know if that’s the way that you were heading with the question. But that would be my biggest surprise is just what some people bring up to buy. Yeah, as I said, I just love that. It’s wonderful.
Alex
Fantastic. As we’ve been talking Rowland, you obviously have so much passion for selling books, and for the specifics at Hares and Hyenas. What is it that has kept you going for 30 years?
Rowland
Well, I would say those surprises – every day, you’re never completely sure what’s what’s going to happen. You never know what new books are around the corner. No, as I was saying, when we first started, an area like transgender studies was very dodgy area of what was available. And now, there’s just so much fantastic stuff, a book like The [Hidden] Case of Ewan Forbes who I rave about – trans man who was born in 1912, to a Scottish aristocratic family, and his mother was very accepting of him presenting as male, took him on the grand European tours, but instead of seeing the different sites of Europe, they went to the different sex clinics for treatments. So he was on testosterone very early on. And it’s – life is amazing. And in England, up until the late ’60s, you could get the birth certificate changed to affirm your gender identity. It was only when politics came into it in, in the early ’70s that, and I think also capitalism – in that if people don’t have the traumas and you know certain industries don’t flourish – yeah, that was the reason that in England it was changed, the laws were changed. So then – it had to be re-fought for. And things like that, you know, you don’t know each day what’s going to come in and what new ideas that you find out about yourself. I studied librarianship. I worked at the Bureau of Meteorology library because I also studied meteorology. And so I think a lot of that comes from from a librarian’s way of thinking and – which is also a little bit of my downfall because I collect the books that I – my philosophy of book buying is along the same lines as a librarian’s in that you cover things, you don’t think about what’s best sellers and stuff. And that’s been a bit of downfall with some cash flow every now and then. When we were in Johnston Street and had the venue – you know, I just used to love, again, you know, one night we’d have you know, feminist film festival and the next night, there’s something else completely different, some sort of queer cabaret or something. And then we’d have, in the day, the gay book club and then stitch and bitch – you’re never, it’s never the same day twice.
Alex
Awesome. Hares and Hyenas obviously offers – and has offered quite a centre and I guess a meeting point for people over many years – do you think that that’s one of the important reasons for physical bookshops to exist?
Rowland
Without a doubt, without a doubt, and going back to your original question, that’s one of the reasons for moving to the Pride Centre would be to be part of a queer space. Johnston Street, we developed it as a queer space with the different events and having the cafe and… over the years – there’s a story, I hope I’ve not repeated to too many of your listeners. But in Commercial Road, we’d get a lot of students from the private schools around the corner; we knew they were from the private schools because they wore the uniforms – who would read the street press, basically, I assumed because they couldn’t take them home. So they’d come in each Friday, and would read the street press and then there was one who would come in every Friday, didn’t talk to anyone else, didn’t talk to us, would just sit in the corner, read the paper, pick up a couple of books and read them. And he did that for a number of years. And then he started talking and he became much more confident. I mean, you see – I’ve seen, I feel like I’m sort of a queer godparent to – you know, because you see people that have come in looking for books for themselves, and then they come in looking for books for their parents. This is back then, this doesn’t happen so much – now it’s parents looking for books to give their kids because they know that their kids are going to be gay, it’s sort of a bit more topsy turvy these days. So there’s that. When we had the police raid, the response from the community showed how significant the Johnston Street space was for the community – even though the raid itself wasn’t around our queerness or anything, that it was – it could have happened to anyone in any suburb, although it wouldn’t happen to people in rich suburbs, but anyone in any suburb could have been accidentally thought to be harbouring a violent Middle Eastern criminal on their premises; just so happened to be us who they raided and – but the response from the community was just… flowers, food, just everything. So it just showed – we didn’t have any doubt but it just showed how people viewed the space. It felt like there was a – personal for so many people that they raided the space. So yeah, it is so important and that’s – I would say that would be for pretty much most book shops in that they do develop the community around them and whether it’s a local bookshop in a suburb, it will connect with the various groups of people – and and bookshop staff I have to say are almost always wonderful people.
Alex
That’s definitely been my experience. Roland, I’ve got two final questions for you. The first one is what are you currently reading?
Rowland
I am – oh I always hate this one. Because immediately it just disappears from my brain. I just finished The Brink by Holden – the Holden fellow, which I thought was fantastic. Development on his first novel, which was a fantastic young young adult novel. This one sort of breaches – breaches, broaches, whatever the word is – between young adult and adult and his writing around character is so much stronger, a broader range of characters. So I’m now reading After Sappho – that gave me time to think of what I’m reading – After Sappho, which has been long listed for the Booker Prize, which is little segments around sapphic people, sapphic women through history, and it sort of interconnects the history of ideas – I’m only 40 pages in so I’m just assuming this is what happens. So yeah, it connects various poets and feminist thinkers from, well, Sapph, and then for the next section it jumps to 19th century Italy. So it’s – I’m still warming to it. I think I’m going to really enjoy it.
Alex
Splendid. The last thing is, what sorts of things would you like listeners to know about, about the shop or about upcoming events?
Rowland
Okay, well, the event program is on hold until the fitout’s done, because everything’s a little bit too chaotic. So, and things like with book clubs will – I’m waiting, the cafe is going to happen in about six weeks at the Pride Centre. And so we’ll be starting to develop the book clubs and events, probably when spring hits. So I would say keep an eye out. You might have been thinking “what’s happened to Hares and Hyenas? Now that they’re in the Grand Palace, they’re putting their feet up.” No, we’ve been working behind the scenes. And we’ll be having events starting in the next couple of months when our gorgeous fitout and the cafe opens. So that’s one thing. I don’t know what else – just doesn’t matter, just come along. I’m a terrible sales promoter.
Alex
I’ll have a link to the website, on my website. So everyone will be able to see your program when it’s up.
Rowland
And I tell you this Christmas is fantastic books. Anyone who’s into Heartstopper, the Heartstopper yearbook comes out in October. If you’re into Trixie and Katya, from RuPaul’s Drag Race, they’ve got a new book in November. So if you’re into science fiction, there’s about 10 new science fiction titles coming out next month. So I don’t know where we’re going to put them. So come in and buy. How’s that?
Alex
Awesome. I’ll leave it there because it doesn’t get any better than that.
My thanks to Rowland for his time. As always, to complete this episode I have a vignette about another favourite bookshop…
Amy
Hi, I’m Amy, and one of my favorite book shops is called Third Place Books. But please feel free to be confused as there are three shops of the same name, and only one of them is my favorite. It’s the one that is nestled in the corner of Ravenna, Seattle, perfectly perched atop a Greek pub with the best apricot ale and whipped feta fries in the world. But the food isn’t why it’s my favorite. That rationale lies in the absolutely brilliant staff pics that have introduced me to two old friends: The Last Unicorn by Peter Beale and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It’s the perfect place to get a science fiction novel if you’re stuck in the middle of a life game called “Get dad a sci fi book he hasn’t read”. And I have to say that without the wise guidance of the perfect book staffers at Third Place Books, I would be a poor reader and so would my dad.
Alex
Thanks for listening to this third episode. You can find paper defiance on Twitter as paperdefiancepod. On Instagram, as paperdefiance. And on Facebook, it is Paper Defiance Podcast.
This podcast is created and produced by me, Alexandra Pierce.
Music: “Loopster” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Paper Defiance 