About us
Who are we?
We’re two best friends who turned our lifelong dream of owning a bookstore into a community focused online and pop-up store built around books, art, and community.
We believe that your interests truly become a part of who you are, and your life and surroundings should reflect that.
Our small business will always prioritize supporting the reading community and we always donate a portion of our profits to organizations that directly support our local communities and what we believe in.
"you are a museum of everything you have ever loved."
What do we do?
Hadley is the illustrator and graphic designer behind all of our visuals. From our custom bookmarks and sticker designs to our website and all of our branding. She brings each idea to life through her beautiful illustrations, and background in graphic design. She will spend 24-hours straight staring at her screen to perfect each and every illustration and design, and no one can stop her!
Kathleen is the non-stop idea machine and production aficionado. Fueled by her constant stream of books, media, and new hyper fixations, she’s always dreaming up new concepts, collections, and ways to make products feel even more bookish and reader-focused. She is also a self proclaimed professional at cutting paper projects in our guillotine cutter.
Every single paper product in our shop starts as a blank piece of paper and both of us personally create it into the magic seen on our website or at our pop-up tables!
Together we wear *all* the hats needed for our company as it is just the two of us running the show!
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How did we start?
We have spent every second of our friendship recommending books to each other and anyone else in our vicinity, attending book signings and book events, and working on art and projects that revolved around our current reads. We got our start with bookbinding, making custom dust jackets (like the one shown above!), bookmarks, and stickers for ourselves and our friends, and wanted to make them available to the rest of our bookish community.
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Our reads
Together, we collectively read over 100+ books in a year, and we created The Ardent Archive for people like us, the readers who annotate everything, self-proclaimed superfans who obsess over their fictional worlds, and readers who want to carry their favorite books with them everywhere.
Hadley is known for her love of horror and "weird girl lit", while Kathleen is known for all things romance, especially non-human, monster & alien romances.
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What we believe in
As a queer and woman-owned business, we’re passionate about curating a collection that feels diverse, inclusive, and welcoming to every reader. From uplifting LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC stories and creators to celebrating books across genres, identities, and experiences, we believe the best stories are the ones that help people feel seen, understood, and connected.
