This Vancouver bookstore is a haven for romantics at heart

Last month, a new bookstore opened in Vancouver. But this isn’t your typical brick-and-mortar spot to pick up the latest thriller, mystery or best-selling memoir of a pop star. The Romance Era Bookshop sells only romance novels and related subgenres, including “romantasy,” in which classic fairy tales are reimagined, with strong female protagonists embarking on quests both otherworldly and romantically relatable. The store is also less like Barnes & Noble and more like “hanging out at your best friend’s house,” according to The Romance Era Bookshop owner and founder Ren Rice. The Columbian recently profiled Rice about their new venture to create “a safe space” free of judgement for visitors to explore this popular genre. Rice joins us to talk about their bookstore and efforts to showcase an increasing number of BIPOC, women and LGBTQ+ authors writing romance fiction today.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. A new bookstore opened in Vancouver last month. You won’t find the latest thrillers or mysteries or memoirs there. Instead, The Romance Era Bookshop, as its name suggests, is focused on the huge and increasingly popular market of romance novels. As owner Ren Rice told The Columbian recently, they started the store to “create a safe space, free of judgment, where browsers can explore the many subgenres of romance and build community.” Ren Rice joins me now. It’s great to have you on the show.

Ren Rice: Thanks for having me. I’m so excited.

Miller: When did you first become interested in romance novels?

Rice: I feel like there’s a universal relation with the lockdown in 2020 and then people getting back into reading…

Miller:  And I assume for you too.

Rice: Yeah, absolutely. I had quit my job because I just mentally couldn’t do it. And so I got into reading fan fiction, actually, a lot. I’m a big Star Wars fan, so I kind of filled the void of Star Wars movies by reading Star Wars fanfiction and a lot of that fell into the romance genre. So, it was a lot of love stories within the universe of Star Wars that I really love.

Miller: It’s possible people listening now won’t know what fanfiction is. Can you just describe what super fans do to fill in what they think is missing?

Rice: In the genre that I read, in the fandom that I read specifically, I was really a big fan of the sequel trilogy, that’s the latest trilogy that came out. And a lot of us were really sad about the relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren, so to fill that void of sadness and

not enjoying what happened, a lot of people wrote stories. And so it was all about fixing the movies, basically, in our own way because we couldn’t fix them for real. So let’s fix them with stories.

Miller: And for you, the fanfiction you were drawn to, it happened to have romantic elements and that was a kind of gateway for you.

Rice: Absolutely. In talking to a lot of the authors that wrote those, it just gave me a lot of insight into more of the subgenres of romance, so to speak. So I was able to document those things on my off time and then find them within published work. And I told my friend the other day, for some reason, when I thought of romance back then, it didn’t really click that there was more to it than the Harlequin novels - those little, small, cowboy dollar-store books that you’ve seen..

Miller:  Shirtless men, women with their dresses being ripped off, or both together.

Rice:  Exactly, and there is a market for that, they’re called bodice-rippers, and there is a market for that still today, which is really great. But I didn’t think that there was more to the romance genre until I was able to talk to a lot of people and they were like, there’s published books, you know, and I’m like, “oh!”

Miller: What other subgenres do you think people who don’t read romance now should be aware of?  What are the big newer ones?

Rice: I would say a lot of the more popular ones lean towards contemporary, so that’s romance stories that take place in today. So, they’re all modern. That’s a huge one. A lot of people love, for example, sports romances, and I just found this really cool community that loves the hockey team in Seattle. So they are all about reading hockey romances because they love the hockey team.

Miller: And these are where professional hockey players are the romantic leads. They’re not just fans falling on each other.

Rice: Not in the published books, they’re not naming the actual people..

Miller:  Oh, still in the world of fanfiction.

Rice: No, no…In the published book, it’s not like they’re naming an actual person. It’s like a hockey player falls in love with just a regular person, and that fulfills that fantasy of hockey lovers that want to date hockey players but they can’t. So they read books.

Miller: You fell in love with romance novels in recent years. When did you decide that you would open up your own store?

Rice: A romance bookstore wasn’t clearly on the docket, but a bookstore in general was. I always wanted to open a bookstore. I’ve been a reader since I was a kid. I’m an only child, so my upbringing was books and movies, so I knew from a very young age a bookstore is the top goal in life for me. But as I got older and like most people, they sort of pushed the dream jobs and the dream things away for more, “I’ve got to do the 9-to-5 to make the money.”

Miller: When you were little and the dream was to be a bookstore owner, what was the fantasy, what were you doing during the day? What was the store like? It’s a very specific kid’s dream...

Rice: It really is. I did have fleeting moments where I was like, oh, teacher because I had a Barbie that was a teacher and I was like, maybe I could be a teacher. But no, and I always went back to bookstores. But it was always a bookstore cafe starting out, where I wanted to serve drinks and then have books available. And then as I got older, it kind of blossomed into a bookstore and a gaming store because I got into tabletop gaming, so I wanted to offer that.

Miller: In the fantasy, were you interacting with the customers? Were you talking about books with people?

Rice: Yeah, which is cool because it’s like, now I get to do that.

Miller: So that part has come true. Alright, so you always knew you wanted to own a bookstore, you got more interested in romance books, but you have your own career in apparel. So what made you say, I’m actually going to take this on?

Rice: My therapist. And she, God bless her, is just amazing at what she does. But she more or less told me that retirement plans or like, later plans are kind of stupid - not her words, but that’s kind of the takeaway that I got from it because she was like, there’s never going to be a right time, you just gotta do it.

Miller: Don’t put off stuff you want to do.

Rice: Exactly, yeah. And for some reason I took that to heart and I was like, okay, yeah, you’re right, you’re right…

Miller: ...I’m gonna do it.

Rice: Then I just went for it.

Miller: What was the hardest part about actually creating the store?

Rice: Getting the location, because the end game actually at this point in time wasn’t going to be a location because I do work a full-time job in apparel that I’ve worked towards my whole adult career.  Originally I was just going to be online and then Pop-up. So I started off doing Pop-ups in Vancouver. But people started asking me, “Do you have a location? Are you going to get a location? I would love to shop in person.” And so those seeds got planted and then just trying to track down a physical location became like the hurdle that I needed to get over.

Miller: Can you describe the Lincoln Warehouse project where you are set up? It seems like a pretty unique space.

Rice: It’s an amazing space. So the way that I describe it to people is a community creative hub. I’m actually the only full time business in the warehouse. My doors open during my open hours, but everyone else sort of floats in and out. We’ve got  two in-house photographers. They both do amazing creative boudoir photography and amazing creative projects.  One of those is Marina, who co-owns the warehouse.  There’s body practitioners - my next door neighbor is actually a massage parlor-studio. So, I’ll see people floating in and out of there, but it’s a hub for classes and events and it’s all centered around community, body-positive, sex-positive, just a great space for people that want to have those outlets, but haven’t found it in Vancouver.

Miller: You used to work at Barnes & Noble. Did that give you lessons about what you wanted to create in your own store, or what you wanted to avoid?

Rice: I definitely learned that I don’t like the corporate route. Barnes & Noble is great, I still have a membership there. But, yeah, I didn’t like the idea that you have to push certain things like memberships, and there was just sort of a formula to it. Now though, in recent years - because I worked in Barnes & Noble years ago, this was like before the rise of BookTok on TikTok, and more book-centric things popping up on social media - now you go into a Barnes & Noble and you see the influence of social media all over the place, and I think that’s really cool. So I think had I worked there now, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more than I did when I worked there before.

Miller: What were your goals when you were physically setting up your own store?

I mean, what did you want people to feel or experience when they walked in?

Rice: I always tell people the shop is like hanging out at your best friend’s house. Because when you walk in, it’s super cozy, I don’t like to use overhead lights. So all the lights are natural and then when it gets darker, it’s Edison bulbs. So it’s got that cozy sort of vibe to it. There’s access to food because I love snacks. I have a snack bar and a tea bar.

But I wanted to create a community in a space where, like you said, there’s no judgment. Because the romance genre is so vast and there’s a lot of aspects to it where…it’s only become more acceptable now to talk about certain aspects of that genre on the internet. And some people still don’t feel comfortable talking about it publicly. So I like when people walk in, we can talk about books, we could talk about genres, we could talk about authors we like, and it’s just like talking with your friend.

Miller: Do you find that still some people who walk in are embarrassed to talk to you, the store owner, about the books they’re looking for?

Rice: No, because I kind of force them to talk to me. Not to be pushy, but it’s because I don’t want the space to feel like you’ve got to come in like kind of shy and buy what you want and leave. I want that conversation. So it usually starts off with, “Hey, are you looking for anything specific?” And they’ll say yeah or no…And I’m like, “Well, what do you like to read?” And that just opens up that comfortability level, I think, because they know that I’m not really going to judge them because I could just be sitting at a table reading a smut book, too, just like what they’re looking for.

So, I like that. I like to be able to let people know, “Hey, you’re fine here. It’s a safe space here. We’re going to talk about it. We can laugh about it. We can relate because I’m never going to yuck anyone’s yum.” That’s also my motto. You like what you like and if I can provide a service and get you that book in your hands, then I will absolutely try my best to do that.

Miller:  This is a side gig in a sense. How important is it to you to make money?

Rice:  Right now, very, because I do want it to be my full-time. I would love to eventually transition out of the job that I have, to do this more full-time because I am wanting to do a lot more community-centric things that I just don’t have time for right now.

Miller: So it’s not just about building community and building body positivity. You want to also move merchandise.

Rice: Well, yeah. I think anyone that opens a business obviously wants to make money and with me, you know, I have to survive. So that is a huge thing for it. But it’s not something where I am making prices so high to make that money. I love the fact that I am primarily, if not all, a used bookstore. And I have one set price for paperbacks and one set price for hard covers because I think reading should be accessible. Buying a $30 book is not doable for everybody, but you can come in and buy a $10 book and get reading material. And I think that’s what sets me apart a little bit is that people can come in and get maybe three or four books for the cost of a new book, and they get four books to read. And then the loyalty of that is, if you don’t like it, bring it back and you’ll get 10% off your next purchase. That way that book can go into someone else’s hands if you didn’t like it.

So building that community is important and building that loyalty with myself and the people that come in. But obviously working two jobs is very taxing because I do work 40 hours a week at my full-time job.

Miller: And then the limited hours on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then full hours 10 AM to 5 PM on the weekends. How would you describe the evolution of the genre in terms of the diversity of authors who are being published these days compared to 20 years ago?

Rice: Being a new person in the genre, I still consider myself a newbie, only reading it since 2020. But it’s really cool now - and I think it’s important due to social media - I’m able to connect with and see all the diverse authors that are making books. I can see the Black women making romance stories. I can see the gay men writing romance stories, and it’s just because everyone’s putting themselves out there. I’m not familiar with what the demographic was like before I started reading. But I think it’s great to see and know that I can hop on the internet or I can go into a bookstore and it’s just there.

And I love that now, with the rise of what I call, and I think many of us call, illustrated covers, which is like, most romance books do have artwork that shows you what the characters look like. So if you’re looking for a queer, maybe female-female romance or one of them is a BIPOC person, nine times out of 10 you can look at a cover and say, “OK, cool. Yeah, this is it,”

Miller: You can judge the book by its cover, in a way that’s helpful for what people are looking for.

Rice: Exactly. And I think that’s really cool.

Miller: How do you decide what to carry?

Rice:  If it looks and sounds like a romance book, I will get it.

Miller: It’s that simple.

Rice: Yeah, yeah…Because even if it’s not something that I read, I know for a fact someone’s going to want to read it, and because of the nature of how I acquire my books, I kind of grab what I find and especially if it’s a diverse read, then 100% that’s coming home with me because I want to make sure that I have a lot of that stocked. But it’s really just if it’s romance and I know that it’s popular right now or I know or think, hey, someone might like this, I’ll just grab it. Yeah.

Miller: You told The Colombian in a great profile that they ran of you at the end of October that you are demiromantic. What does that mean? And what does it mean in the context of running a romance bookstore?

Rice: I’ll just speak for myself because it does mean something different to everyone who identifies as that. But for me in particular, the romantic connection isn’t there until I really get to know someone on a more deep personal, intellectual level. I don’t experience crushes very often or like insta-love or anything like that, I view everyone as a base layer, as a friend and then maybe if we connect from there and there’s a bond in some way that’s not just surface level. Then I’m like, hmm, maybe this could be something romantic and then kind of go from there.

Miller: Do you think that affects the way you view fiction?

Rice: No, and also to kind of add on to that, I identify as asexual and I’m not sexually attracted to anybody, but I love reading books that have sex in it. I love talking about it. I love celebrating it because it is a thing that obviously people experience and I love that. I don’t think it affects my reading other than like questioning. And I love that I have my friends, or if I’m reading a certain book, I can be like, “Do people actually really like this?” and I can go to my friends and be like, “Hey, so I read this in a book. Can you tell me more about this?” And then we have these conversations and I really like that - that my friends aren’t super judgmental, the fact that I, while I don’t experience the same things they do, they’re just cool with me to talk about it.

But I will read everything and anything. I’m an experimental reader. If anything sounds interesting, I’m going to read it. If I didn’t like it, then I can just say, well, at least I read it, and that’s just how I’ve always been.

Miller: If you were going to write a romance novel, what would you write?

Rice: Oh, man, that’s so funny because everyone’s like, do you write? And I’m, like, absolutely not. I don’t know how to write anything to save my life. I think that I would definitely probably write something based off of my life experience. So more of a memoir-ish, or I guess like a fiction book that has droplets of real things that happened to me as someone who grew up surviving not one but two abusive relationships and then sort of coming into this whole thing about gender and sexuality at a late age. I think a story could be told in that, of maybe finding someone who understands that and sort of helps through that or even if it just ends in like a platonic thing, I think that’s cool too because books about platonic love are just as important.

Miller: Ren Rice, it was great talking to you. Thanks very much.

Rice: Thank you.

Miller:  Ren Rice is the owner and founder of the new bookstore, The Romance Era Bookshop, in Vancouver.

Contact “Think Out Loud®”

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.