I can't believe I have to make this statement, but thanks to my good friend, Dominique Burleson (owner of Paperbacks & Frybread), a number of you have reached out to let me know how surprised you were to find out I am turning fifty in a few days. 🤣🤣🤣

I'm not there yet, friends! Though I look forward to getting there. Aging is beautiful! But I'm still almost not old for now! lol But Dominque was right about one thing. My birthday is right around the corner! And it is going to be a big year for me, for a number of reasons that I don't feel like sharing with the internet quite yet. But I do feel like celebrating in a big way!

Whenever I travel to another city, I like to pop in on local Indie bookstores and to buy some Black and brown books from them. Both to support Indie bookstores and to encourage them to keep stocking marginalized authors. And this weekend, Dominique and I will be in Petersburg, VA for Petersburg Book Fest, and we would love to take that opportunity to pour into as many marginalized authors and indie bookstores as we possibly can while we're there!

Obviously, we want to buy some books from Resist Bookstore, the incredible indie hosting the festival! But we also wanna pop in on a few others around the city and grab some books, maybe film some content, etc. We're going to be surrounded by incredible marginalized authors all weekend and we want to make sure we take that opportunity to buy their books, support their careers/businesses, and be a blessing.

And low-key, we'd love to do that on a much larger scale than we already plan to. I have already told all of my friends and family who typically "surprise me" with a book on my birthday that I'd rather they just send me cash for my book buying splurge next week.

And if you'd like to throw a few dollars into our budget too so we can go crazy, please do!

https://cash.app/$michaellaborn

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/allyn2010?locale.x=en_US

Thanks!

And if you are going to be at Petersburg Book Fest, let me know in the comments! I'd love to meet as many of you as possible while I'm in the area!!!!

I also still need more recommendations for where to eat and what bookstores we should go to! Give me your favorites in the comments!

AHH! Only two days until I leave for Petersburg!!!!!!