NEWS HERO OF THE MONTH
Photo by Cetonia Weston-Roy. Photo by Erin Bloodgood.
Cetonia Weston Roy Centers on Black Literature BY ERIN BLOODGOOD
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ou may have heard, there’s a new book seller in town and she’s been doing things a little differently. Cetonia WestonRoy started Niche Book Bar in 2020 with the goal of making Black literature more accessible and, due to the pandemic, she has had to be creative from the start. She has hosted dozens of pop-up book and author events around the city, has created a book bike (a mobile cart full of books she attached to her bike) and sells books through her website. But from the beginning, her dream has always been to have a physical bookshop and she’s almost there. She is in the process of purchasing the building at 1937 North M.L.K Dr. in the heart of Bronzeville and plans to open her bookstore later this year.
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Reading has been a passion of Weston-Roy’s since she was about seven years old and remembers getting lost in books like Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron. However, she recalls not being able to connect with many of the characters she read about, often unable to find books that centered around Black characters.
BEYOND TRAUMA The books she could see herself in were usually based in trauma – as in, stories that center the pain of Black people. “I still think it’s a problem that trauma-based literature is so easy to connect to, that’s what everyone is putting on their top lists,” says WestonRoy. “You have to know real life, you have to know past, present,
