Artist Feature – Jhoanna Belfer of Bel Canto Books
Photo by Nannette Ricaforte Photography
We sat down with our very own Jhoanna Belfer of Bel Canto Books to get to know her and her business a little bit better. Find out what she's been up to with this week's latest Artist Feature.
We sat down with our very own Jhoanna Belfer of Bel Canto Books to get to know her and her business a little bit better. Find out what she's been up to with this week's latest Artist Feature.
Jhoanna Belfer is the founder and owner of Bel Canto Books, an independent bookstore in Long Beach CA. A Filipina-American poet and former hospitality executive, Belfer started hosting pop-up book events in 2018 as a way of connecting her business experience with her lifelong love of reading. She currently serves on the American Booksellers Association's Booksellers Advisory Council and is a founding member of the Burning Issues Book Club.
Tell us a little bit about your vision and what you offer:
Bel Canto Books was born out of my passion for books and my hope to do more for my community and myself. I have always been an avid reader since I was a kid and loved nothing more than spending a whole day in bed reading a good book. After fifteen years in the hospitality industry, I decided to take a break and see if I could start my own business, helping others rekindle a love of reading.
In 2018, I started Bel Canto Books essentially as a side hustle, hosting a monthly popup book club while I kept working full time. I had read The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau (which I highly recommend to every aspiring entrepreneur) and took his advice to start small and test out my idea on a small group of friends and family. As interest grew, I started hosting more events and more bookstore popups, in front of other businesses, at local street fairs, and at the Downtown Long Beach Farmers Market. In the summer of 2019, I decided to take the plunge and quit my job to pursue building the business full time. I lucked out on seeing a social media post from The Hangout, putting a call out for vendors, and jumped at the opportunity (after much debate with my husband and friends --- it's so important to have a good sounding board!).
We moved into the space in November 2019, initially taking up a 10-foot wall along the back of the store where the Market is now. Since I had the popup bookstore model down, I carried over a lot of the things we were doing as a popup to the brick-and-mortar space: handpicking every book that comes into the store, focusing on books by women and people of color, and highlighting a monthly theme like "Native American Heritage Month" or "Women's History Month."
Since the pandemic, our offerings have only expanded, as people have rediscovered a love of reading and come to value the mindfulness, deep concentration, and mental escape that reading provides. We now occupy a larger space right up in front of the store, host four monthly virtual book clubs, and have started to add in-person author events and workshops to our virtual events calendar.
What is the most important thing you want others to know about you and your brand?
Our mission is to build a community of readers who are passionate about art, equity, and collaboration. We are not here to just sell books (although that is what pays the bills); we're here to help folks discover authors and books that they haven't seen before, many from historically underrepresented communities, so that they see themselves and the greater world in a different light, one that hopefully inspires them to act with more intention and kindness.
What inspires you the most when working on Bel Canto?
Hearing folks' excitement when they come into the store, read one of our recommended books, or attend one of our events--so many people don't have access to an independent bookstore, especially one as personally curated as ours which reflects my heritage as a Filipina, an Asian woman, an immigrant--and I love to hear that first gasp when people walk in and say to themselves, Oh, wow, a bookstore! Or seeing a little kid pull a book off the shelf and start reading. Or talking with folks who have traveled from outside of the Long Beach/LA area to find us because they had heard about us on social media. Or logging into one of our virtual book club meetings and having these wonderfully interesting conversations about our current read and what's bringing us joy these days.
Any small business has its ups and downs, especially a startup like ours where we are still learning what works or doesn't, but interacting with our readers and the writers and artists who are generous enough to spend their time with us is so rewarding.
Where is Bel Canto Books headed next?
Our goal for 2022 is to work more collaboratively within our community, whether that is adding another location so that folks in other parts of Long Beach can have a indie bookstore in their neighborhood, working with our local nonprofits and schools to provide greater access to books for young people, or partnering with other groups to host more community events.
The past two years have completely blown away my expectations, and I am honored and thrilled by all the support that our little bookstore has received. I just keep thinking of what more we can do, for our community and for ourselves.
Name one song or band that embodies the book store:
LOL--the first thing that pops into my mind is my personal "hype song," "All I Do Is Win" by DJ Khaled. I love its energy and unapologetic confidence. It's something I play for myself before a big event or meeting to get out of my head and get excited for what's about to happen.
For the bookstore, I don't have a specific song in mind, but I love the instrument-forward music of bands like Gypsy Kings and Ozomatli.
What are you reading right now?
There's a Bookstagram hashtag that invites folks to share what's #LastNowNext in their to-be-read pile, so I'd like to share three books:
- Last: I just finished The Human Zoo by Sabina Murray last night, and it is fantastic! It follows Christina "Ting" Klein, a Filipina American writer who has returned to her aristocratic family's home in the Philippines to work on a new book after breaking up with her American husband. It's set in current times, with a Duterte-like president, corruption and intrigue, and complicated family relations.
- Now: I'm working my way through Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington, which is a heavy, but importantly eye-opening read. We read her other book A Terrible Thing to Waste about environmental racism in our Burning Issues Book Club last year, and I love her writing.
- Next: We just got our copies of the soon-to-debut Bibliophile: Diverse Spines, which is a beautifully illustrated book about books, authors, bookstores, and book influencers from historically underrepresented communities--and we're one of the "beloved bookstores" that are featured in it!
Is there anything else you want to add?
I'm just so grateful to be in such a supportive and collaborative space as The Hangout. It's been the perfect space to test out our bookstore idea and start to build a community and events space focused on reading and the arts. From the incredible visual design of the store, to the wide variety of creative brands highlighted here, to the inviting garden and cafe space, and the wonderfully engaging staff and fellow business owners, it's been an incredibly fulfilling space to call our bookstore home.