MARIETTA — Growing up in east Tennessee in the mid-aughts, Sara Williford didn’t have access to many books that depicted lesbians like her.
“There was ‘Ruby Fruit Jungle’ or ‘Fried Green Tomatoes (at the Whistle Stop Cafe),’” she said. “There was more, but you couldn’t get them. … It just wasn’t something east Tennessee had.”
Though she loved reading as a young girl — with a particular affinity for science fiction and all things fantastical — she quickly became bored by the barrage of characters she couldn’t relate to, and gave up on literature all together.
Her book boycott continued well after her 2011 graduation from Agnes Scott College, until Williford discovered queer fiction while working at a used bookstore in Kennesaw.
“I didn’t really have anything to base myself off of, I just knew I was different. When I found the words for that, that was great,” she said.
That breakthrough led Williford to open up her own bookstore, The Lavender Bookshop, which carries hundreds of queer stories. To Williford, that means that the central character or theme of the book has to be LGBTQ+.