Two Friends Bookstore creates nonprofit to make books more accessible

How it works: Two Friends Community Books will start off with a physical store inside Casa Magnolia, a new arts-focused café in downtown Springdale, in early 2025. Some of the books will be donated, and people will not be required to pay full price to take home a book.

Background: Two Friends Bookstore operates out of Eighth Street Market, making Mexican restaurant Yeyo's El Alma de Mexico its neighbor. Yeyo's owner Rafael Rios is also behind Casa Magnolia, which will have a Yeyo's food truck on the property, according to its website.

Zoom out: Two Friends already has author talks at its store, but the nonprofit status will allow it to apply for grants to help bring in more authors for talks and events. The goal is for the events to include book giveaways.

• "The publishing industry is not necessarily paying attention to the mid-South, and we think that they should be, and this allows us to sort of raise our hand a bit higher," Stuckey-Slaton said.

What's next: Two Friends Community Books will also buy books for rural schools and libraries as funding allows in hopes of cultivating a love of reading among children, Diodati said, noting that they want to aid in access to information during this time when book bans are on the rise.

Go deeper: Northwest Arkansas' literary scene is gaining traction