Indie Bookstore Day

Bookmark, Charlottetown’s locally owned, independent bookstore celebrates Canadian Independent Bookstore Day on April 26.

Canadian Independent Bookstore Day is the annual day when readers, writers, illustrators, publishers, and others come together to celebrate indie bookstores across Canada. By joining the celebration, participants are advocating for independent businesses, supporting a flourishing bookselling community, and investing in Canadian culture.

Indie booksellers are experts in their field, passionate about facilitating connections between reader and writer, and creating genuine, lasting relationships with their customers. The shops function as pillars of the community—inclusive spaces for conversation and hubs for events promoting enlightenment and entertainment. Local booksellers also play a vital role in the Canadian literary ecosystem. They are conduits of discovery, championing Canadian creators at all career stages, and introducing Canadian readers to a diverse range of voices from across Canada’s rich cultural landscape.

Bookmark’s 2025 Bookstore Ambassador, local poet, Brent Maclaine, says it’s personal: 

“It’s personal, of course: the kind of bookstore that one prefers. Whether charmingly disheveled or meticulously organized, whether carpeted or dusty floored, whether spacious or (more likely) crowded, our independent bookstore is bound to be original, singular, even idiosyncratic. That’s what ‘independent’ means.

“But note the pronoun—’our.’ Our relationship to the store is as personal as our relationship to the books we choose from its shelves. The genre or title scarcely matter: classic or contemporary, fantasy or philosophy, gardening or garnishing, history or hagiography. Our choosing to engage with a particular book is a fractal of our choosing to enter the store.

“The choosing is part of the pleasure, no doubt, and independent bookstore staff are our valued guides and helpmates. They suggest, locate, order, and deliver. They are characters in an Ishiguro novel, characters in our community, our personal librarians. Owners and staff are community builders. They make local authors into local stars; they invite us to readings with literary icons; they organize book launches and literary events. They are right out there with the first responders and health professionals—stamping out wild fires of ignorance and illiteracy, bandaging our hurting needs, our struggling souls with ‘a good read.’

“There is no oppression of the market place in independent bookstores. We enter them with anticipation and we leave them with hope. We are among our own people in our own community. And all of those books making a brightly coloured display with their front covers and their spines are visitors in all manner of dress—they await our invitations, to be welcomed by us and to be among us.”

This year’s celebration at Bookmark includes a chance to win a $1000 or one of four $200 Bookmark gift certificates (visit indiebookstores.ca/CIBD for contest rules). Their popular Spin to Win contest is back, offering chances to win extra points, swag, products, or donations to the local food bank. There will also be book swag and exclusive merchandise while supplies last, plus double points on all qualifying purchases for the Bookmark Reader Rewards Program (sign up—it’s free). For more information, contact Lori Cheverie at 902-566-4888 or lori@bookmarkreads.ca.

—Submitted by Dan MacDonald