This Queer-Owned Bookstore in Glasgow Is the Community Hub We All Need

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Glasgow’s West End, Marginalia Books is busy. There’s a teenager in the corner reading a graphic novel about a bisexual time traveler. Two older women are at the events table, signing up for next month’s sapphic fiction book club. Near the register, owner Callum MacPherson is packing a mutual aid food parcel between helping customers find exactly the right book.

This is a regular Tuesday.

How Marginalia Started

Callum, who is gay and grew up in a small town outside Inverness, opened Marginalia in 2021 after a decade working in publishing. He’d spent years acquiring books he loved but watching them get shelved in the back of stores, if they got stocked at all.

“I wanted a shop where queer books were the default, not the exception,” he says. “Where they were at the front, face-out, treated like the important books they are.”

He found a narrow shopfront on a street full of independent businesses and signed the lease on the same day he handed in his notice at the publishing house. Classic Callum, his friends say.

What’s on the Shelves

Marginalia stocks around 3,000 titles. The curation is intentional and broad. Literary fiction sits next to genre fiction. Poetry shares space with cookbooks. There’s a large children’s and YA section, because Callum believes it’s important to reach readers early.

“The kid who finds a book with a character like them at age ten,” he says, “that can change everything. I know because it happened to me, eventually. Just too late.”

He also stocks a significant section of trans and non-binary authors, which he says is often the most-shopped area in the store.

Beyond the Books

Marginalia runs an events programme that the shop’s social media calls “aggressively wholesome.” There are author readings, writing workshops, a monthly zine-making night, and a free drop-in homework club on Wednesday afternoons for queer young people who need a safe place after school.

The mutual aid shelf near the door is stocked with food, hygiene products, and warm clothing. No questions asked, no forms to fill in. Callum restocks it twice a week and accepts donations from regulars.

“A bookshop has four walls and a door,” he says. “That’s already more than a lot of people have access to. It felt wrong not to use them.”

The Regulars

Ask any of Marginalia’s regulars what the shop means to them and you’ll get a version of the same answer. It’s safe. It’s warm. It feels like being known.

One regular, a non-binary university student, described it as “the first room I ever walked into where I didn’t have to explain myself.” That kind of feedback is what keeps Callum going on the days the margins are thin and the heating bill is alarming.

What Keeps It Going

Marginalia has a community membership scheme. Members pay a small monthly amount and get early access to events, a discount on books, and the warm feeling of keeping an independent queer bookshop alive. Callum is honest on his newsletter about the economics of small bookselling. Readers respect that.

“I’m not trying to be mysterious about it,” he says. “We survive because people choose us. Every time someone buys a book here instead of online, that’s a choice. I don’t take it for granted.”

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