We've de-Googled our biz operations and are now working on moving away from data center reliant cloud storage. It was not nearly as technical or challenging as I feared it would be and it's saved us $$$. Always happy to chat with any orgs, fellow bookstores, whoever that are considering it.

Happy International Bee Day! In the Rethinking Lawns lab @negauneeinstitute.bsky.social Chicago Botanic Garden, we're working to help turn our lawns into better spaces for native pollinators. To celebrate, have some id keys for Midwestern/NE American bumblebees! drive.google.com/drive/folder...

New merch alert! Let everyone know that you have correct opinions and excellent taste with a Skunk Cabbage Books bumper sticker.

new: last week, the cook county board signed off on sheriff tom dart's request to nearly double the size of his flock license plate reader network. it came despite revelations the agency worked with the controversial company for years without an agreement and as other cities are ditching the tech.

Take a peek at what's on the staff picks shelf these days!

What do you want to know about the multibillion-dollar Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park? Come ask us!

Local author Lorraine Boissoneault will be joining us on May 26th to celebrate the release of her new book, Body Weather. These braided essays traverse science, history, and memoir to explore the interconnectednss of the human body and Earth’s meteorology.

Airplane Mode is our subscription club for books in translation. Every other month, members get 2 books originally published in a language other than English at 15% off. In May, members will be reading sci-fi from South Korea and fantasy from the Dominican Republic.

🦅🦅🦅🦅

new: an effort to phase out chicago's subminimum wage was a done deal—until, one day, it wasn't. @dmbrown-tboy.bsky.social sifted through two city council votes, a mayoral veto, a seemingly failed end run to the state capitol, and a whole lotta back-and-forth to separate fact from fiction.

“Miriam Aiki prayed for the fruit of the womb for thirteen years.” Read from ’Pemi Aguda’s new novel, One Leg on Earth.

Catch us tonight at @inthesetimes.com for a panel discussion about labor and the continuing resistance to the fascist attacks on working people across the country. Check out the full details here: secure.actblue.com/donate/mayda...

Thank you to everyone who made @cakechicago.bsky.social so wonderful!! I had such a great time all weekend, the readings Friday night @skunkcabbagebooks.bsky.social were incredible and both days of the show, I met so many cool people making just the most fun things, I love comics so much!!!

My 64 page riso comic And Up!, They Sprung! Launches TONIGHT @skunkcabbagebooks.bsky.social in Chicago in partnership with the CAKE Chicago Cupcake Award! With incredibly exciting readings by @anatwocomics.bsky.social and Teddie Bernard and a guest appearance by my mentor Pidge!

We will be closed for regular sales on Friday, May 1st in observance of May Day & in solidarity with work stoppages across the country. Doors will open at 6:00 for @cakechicago 's Cupcake Award winner Mili St. John's comic release party. US out of everywhere. Abolish ICE. Take care of each other.

As always, we'll be closed on May Day in solidarity with workers everywhere engaging in collective action for a better world. Meet us at Union Park at 1 pm at the corner of Ogden & Randolph for the march and rally! We'll be there with @skunkcabbagebooks.bsky.social & @restoriedbookshop.bsky.social 😎

We celebrated our 4th Indie Bookstore Day and I have continued my 4 year long streak of forgetting to take a single photo during the Bookstore Crawl. 🙃

Doing some @unraveledpress.com spring cleaning and noticed a folder named "Opinions." In it, one forgotten, untitled document from March 2025. It's still relevant, so here it is in it's entirety:

happy almost indie bookstore day u scoundrels

Happy Earth Day! 🌎️ We're keeping up our Indie Bookstore Day tradition of sharing native prairie plant seeds with our IBD visitors! This year's species are purple coneflower, yellow coneflower, and blue vervain.

Happy Earth Day.

Join us for our biggest peer-to-peer fundraiser of the year, fund some abortions, and build community through the end of May! 💐 We are hosting our second Fund-A-Thon in-person community gathering at @skunkcabbagebooks.bsky.social on 5/8 from 6-8PM, as well as virtual gatherings throughout May.

We have some special hours for this coming weekend over Indie Bookstore Day. Saturday, April 25th: Doors open at 9:30 for West Trolley rider pick up General IBD hours: 10 am - 6 pm Sunday, April 26th: CLOSED for a post-IBD reset

There's a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

Ask A Scientist night is back in May! We'll be joined by Sammie Clark, a beaver researcher at @urbanrivers. Sammie uses trail cameras to monitor beaver activity on the Chicago River and Bubbly Creek. Tickets on sale at noon on 5/5.

I'm grateful to Whet Moser (who seems to have left bsky; we miss you) for sharing this subscription for books in translation. I'm already behind (reading book 2; 4 have been mailed) but can tell you the two titles pictured here are astonishing. I don't think I would have encountered them otherwise.

CAKE would love to thank another 2026 festival sponsor @skunkcabbagebooks.bsky.social Join us on Friday May 1st at 6:30pm, at Skunk Cabbage (2826 N Milwaukee) for our Cupcake Mini Comic Release Party and reading celebrating 2025 Cupcake Award winner Mili St. John!

It's our third birthday! To celebrate, we asked our friend @weneedtogooutside to design a tour poster for our bird neighbor's big spring migration. The lovely folks at @transfigureprintco put it on a tote. The Spring Migration Tour totes are ~limited edition~ and available now in store + online.

Spot Skunk Cabbage in the wild! We'll be tabling at the 2026 Chicago Beaver Festival in Nichols Park in Hyde Park on May 2nd. The festival runs from 1 - 4 pm. Thanks to the @illinois.beaver.alliance for inviting us our to celebrate our favorite landscape architects.

Happy National Poetry Month! Celebrate with us 4/29, 6:30-8 PM at @skunkcabbagebooks.bsky.social. Register at concentratingchaos.com .

@blackbirdletterpress.com and I have partnered again on a notebook. 50% of proceeds will go to the Chicago Freedom School. I think that the notebook turned out beautifully. Limited number of copies available. www.blackbirdletterpress.com/limited-edit...

Since the toilets on Orion are a continuing topic of fascination, here's a thread about space toilets. It's not just about function - toilets are symbolic and social too, and raise issues of privacy and intimacy. This image shows how to use the Apollo Fecal Containment Device. #ArtemisII 🧪

Everyone show some goddamn respect

bell hooks vs. hell books

Here's your official Everything You Need to Know for Indie Bookstore Day post! Swipe through for details on how it works, route options, Skunk Cabbage specials (including a sneak peek of our spring merch) and hours. 🚎 📚️ 🚴 Still got more questions? Drop 'em here! We'll get you some answers.

Spaceship ASMR

I wrote about the Bund and jail support for Harpers Bazaar. Thank you @prisonculture.bsky.social for your beautiful quote www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-...

If you're in the store today, this is what we have streaming in the background on the point of sale lol

We’re teaming up with @skunkcabbagebooks.bsky.social to celebrate @milimonster.bsky.social debuting “And Up!, They Sprung!” Comics Reading Party: 5-1 / 6:30-8pm / readers TBA Check out the 40 page surrealist memoir mini-comic by Mili, 2025 Cupcake Award winner: www.milistjohn.com/and-up-they-...

Sure signs of spring: + Skunk Cabbages 🌱 + Sandhill Cranes 🦢 + Indie Bookstore Day 📚️ This year's Chicagoland Indie Bookstore Day Crawl will be on Saturday, April 25th! Visit chilovebooks.com for full details and stay tuned for more IBD news from us soon.

It’s so beautiful!

engaging with work by a long-dead artist who was shitty is not the same as supporting childhood nostalgia turned global brand that funnels money directly to an anti-trans bigot who has made it her life mission to inflict cruelty on others, hope this helps

A decade ago, I did make a reading list to help scientists get started! 🧪 medium.com/@chanda/deco...

Foraging Friends is a monthly meet up for anyone who likes growing their own food, foraging for wild snacks, and generally looking for little treasures in the natural world. Come out for a meet up, nature show and tell, and seed swap with your neighbors. RSVP on our website please!

Come buy some trans writing from trans booksellers electricliterature.com/the-renaissa...

PICNIC MAG IS BACK! Just in time for things to heat up, we have a steamy, sensual new collection of fiction, essays, and poetry from your favorite NYC transexual literary magazine and culture rag

Join us as we welcome poet Samyak Shertok to celebrate his new collection, No Rhododendron. Samyak will be joined by local poets Rob Macaisa Colgate and IS Jones, reading from their own debut collections, Hardly Creatures and Bloodmercy. April 17th at 6:30.

Bianca Xunise reflects on Chicago punks, the Orph, and underground worlds that "continue to sprout." inthesetimes.com/article/homa...

Civil Rights icon, @doloreshuerta, made a brave move today, revealing a secret she had been holding for 60 years for the sake of the Farm Workers movement. You can read her letter here: medium.com/@dolores_hue...