Ep 163: The Ripped Bodice owners, Bea and Leah Koch

Bea and Leah Koch, two sisters who co-own The Ripped Bodice, the
only brick and mortar bookstore in the U.S. to sell exclusively
romance titles, who were named 2017 RWA Steffie Walker
Booksellers of the Year by the Romance Writers of America and
recently struck an overall deal with Sony Pictures. I loved what
Bea and Leah had to say about being activist booksellers,
retraining romance readers, and becoming advocates for
representation and change in publishing.






Bea and Leah Koch, owners of The Ripped Bodice, Show
Notes


Women and Children First (bookstore in Illinois)


The Ripped Bodice Kickstarter


Preeti Chhibber (of Scholastic)


Word bookstore’s Romance Book Club


Greenlight (bookstore in Brooklyn)


Ashley C. Ford (author and editor running the Green Light romance
book club)


The Ripped Bodice State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing
Report (2016 and 2017) (The New York Times artiicle detailing the
report’s findings, “In Love With Romance Novels, But Not Their
Lack of Diversity”)


Vivian Stevens (editor of romance novels)


Beverly Jenkins (romance author)


RWA (Romance Writers Association)



The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (listen to Associate
Director of Event Programming for LATFoB, Maret Orliss, here)