Alphabet Soup Books is a pop-up and market-based store focusing exclusively on queer books. ASB curates a selection of books across all genres, ages teen and up, with the goal to provide a joyful, affirming book-buying experience for all the glorious identities that fall within the 2sLGBTQIA+ acronym (and beyond).

ALPHABET SOUP BOOKS IN THEIR OWN WORDS

On a trip to Calgary in 2023, Kaitlyn walked into a romance bookstore and grinned. It was gorgeous, curated, and thriving. The only downside? Because of the small footprint and niche audience, there wasn’t a lot of shelf space for queer books, and what was on hand was mixed in with everything else, making it hard to browse. At the time, she didn’t know a lot of titles or authors to look for, so it felt a little like wading through a heteronormative ocean to find the queer seashell. Upon investigation, it became clear that Canada was sorely lacking in queer bookshops even as other niches were on the rise. 

​Edmonton is lucky to have amazing queer-owned bookstores like Magpie Books and The Book Archive, we love them!! But it was Kaitlyn’s dream to offer a curated selection of exclusively queer books across all genres, sorted by representation as well as other, intersectional markers, making the book-buying experience fun, easy, and affirmative. 

​At the moment, we are able to bring in a limited number of books available with specific distributors, but we hope to expand our offerings to include more independently published titles, and a wider variety of publishing houses in order to offer the spectrum of stories we envisioned from the start.

​Oh, and why the name “Alphabet Soup Bookstore?” It’s a bit of reclamation, a bit of tongue in cheek, and a bit of a crazy dream for a store that offers oodles of representation for every letter in the continually expanding acronym.

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Founded in 2024
Pop-up at Felice Cafe:
10930 84 St NW

EXTRAVAGANZA HOURS

Saturday: 10am – 5pm
Sunday: 1pm – 5:30pm

alphabetsoup.ca
Instagram: @alphabetsoup.yeg

IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Coming soon