Blackbird Bookstore is exactly how an independent bookstore located a couple of blocks from the Pacific Ocean should look. It nods both to its indoor/ outdoor aspects. Inside is all Cali Cabin chic and wooded out coziness. Opened by now local Kathryn Grantham, formerly the owner of feminist orientated Bluestockings in NYC, this is a bookstore driven by curiosity: all titles face out, are regularly swapped around, and are tightly curated around themes and inclusivity. Blackbird feels like a bookstore driven by two really key approaches for If Lost: curiosity and community. When we're there we snuggle into the tree house with our new finds, or take our purchase to go with coffee from another female-founded business @troublecoffeeco next door. One of our enduring local favorites.⁠

Established in San Francisco's Ocean Beach and founded by Buffy Maguire, Lady Falcon Coffee Club is more than perfectly crafted coffee. Their name is a nod to The Falcon Ladies Bicycle Club, an Ocean Beach based women's cycling club established in the late 1800s. In a time when women were still bound by corsets and petticoats, archaic voting laws and a slew of other restrictions, a bicycle meant freedom...liberation. Maguire has taken this same energy, intention, and style and infused it into every ounce of her business. "Our coffee harnesses that spirit of originality, as we handcraft our coffee the old fashioned way and with our own unique style—in our own way, in our own day."⁠

.⁠

"FRIENDS is a Brooklyn-based coworking community and the work home to 35 creatives — designers, filmmakers, writers, illustrators, developers, photographers, and people doing generally awesome (creative) work." FRIENDS is one of many projects created by designer and creative extraordinaire Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka @swissmiss). In addition to this inclusive and collaborative workspace, Eisenberg is also the founder of our favorite lecture series Creative Mornings! She also founded temporary tattoo company Tattly and (beautiful) to-do app Teux Deux.

Co-founded by Jen Messier, Prospect Heights’ Brooklyn Brainery offers accessible, community-driven education designed to bring people together. Handling everything from marketing, sign-ups, and materials, the space allows educators the freedom to focus on teaching their unique courses (a collection that ranges “from physics and Australian desserts, to HTML and shorthand — and just about every nook and cranny in between.”) Taking a crowd-sourced approach to the project, every course and topic at Brooklyn Brainery is dreamed up and administered by the Brooklyn community. Not local? No problem. Via Dabbler, the community now offers a well-curated electronic sampling of their offerings. Each month you’ll receive an email package that’ll help you “discover a new hobby, gain a new skill, do a fun project, or learn something just plain useful.”

Located in an adorable studio in NYC's SoHo, Craft Jam was founded on the principle that in creating something, we're opening ourselves up to a unique zest for life, that in devoting ourselves to a craft we're fostering a glow and a purpose that far exceeds our final product. Nora Aboustiet created Craft Jam because she wanted to develop a space where creativity was available to all people, regardless of background or prior experience. A serial entrepreneur, this is Nora's third venture in creating creative spaces.

⁠

When multidisciplinary artist, mother, wife, DIY organizer and curator, Chelsea Ragan first came to Black Mountain North Carolina to pursue the visual arts in the “birthplace of avant-garde” she was struck with “divine inspiration”. She wanted to start a new school for creatives based on John Dewey’s holistic principles of education, an ode to the (now closed) Black Mountain School. In 2015, her hopes and dreams converged as 18 artists from various backgrounds gathered on the Lake Eden Campus of Black Mountain College to develop the initial plan for The School of the Alternative. Today, the school operates as a non-profit and aims to “provide a passion-driven model of education that encourages greater possibilities for thought, creation, and collective action.” ⁠

Brooklyn-based New Women Space is a community-led event space centered on gender equity, creative expression, and celebration of identity. Their mission: to offer a safe, common ground meeting space where women, femme, queer, transgender and gender non-conforming individuals can come together to form connections, create economic opportunity and inspire possibility.⁠ Formed, initially as a 30-day pop-up in response to the 2016 presidential election results (you remember what went down), the initiative soon gained traction and support from the broader community and New Women Space was born. At its core, NWS aims to take a proactive approach in amplifying the voices of marginalized members of the community.⁠ Recently switching hands from its original founders, new leaders Eva Woolridge and Sage Youngblood "usher in a new, fresh and dynamic era. Maintaining the principals by which New Women Space was founded and growing it to meet the new challenges of today with their own look and feel applied to the whole of the space." ⁠

⁠

As we’re starting to plan which summer festivals we want to attend (Port Eliot Festival we’ll miss you) maybe the highest on our list is The Good Life Experience. Co-founded by Cerys Matthews because she “wanted something for people like me, curious types, where it’s what you’re doing with your hands and what you’re doing with your brain that matters”, this has all the components of our idyllic summer: camping, workshops, music, the great outdoors, books... Does it matter if the sun shines? What's that song lyric, 'as long as we're together, who cares about the weather?'⁠

⁠

Founded in 2013 by Marie Muscardini, San Francisco Bay Area’s Handcraft Studio School was developed to preserve the art of crafting by hand. In the seven years since its conception, the studio has created a thriving community of artists, makers, students and teachers to offer a wide variety of workshops, from woodcarving and ceramics to flower arranging and calligraphy. Muscardini’s goal was to bring her passions together, creating a special environment where artists could share their knowledge and enthusiasm with the local community. In a time when it can feel difficult to disconnect (from the online-versions of ourselves) and engage (with our creativity and communities) Handcraft Studio is creating the necessary infrastructure to allow such a shift.

Founded by award-winning digital entrepreneur and tech ethicist, Tanya Goodin, It's Time to Log Off is “The Home of Digital Wellbeing". In addition to their podcast, which aims to help listeners understand and address the deeper implications of their tech addictions or over-use, It's Time to Log Off also offers tech-free retreats which place things like Nature, Play, Good Food and Fun at the center of their approach. More than just encouraging people to look critically at their relationship to tech, It's Time to Log Off aims to get people looking UP, at their surroundings, their loved ones, their lives, helping people make the shift from mindless scrolling to mindful connection.⁠

When Virginia Johnson set out to create a space for quilters, crafters and makers, in 2011, her inspiration was simple: "We love making things. And we want you to love making things."⁠ In a world that continues to lose touch with handcrafted creativity, Gather Here offers the community a space to do just that. In addition to bringing us out of our heads and homes and into the physical world, Gather Here also hosts and promotes a number of charity drives and local maker markets, bringing the community closer to causes and projects that matter.⁠⁠

⁠

Located in Portland's Vegan Mini Mall (yes, this mythical-sounding place is, in fact, real) Herbivore Clothing Co has always been more than just a shop. Founded in 2002 by Michelle Schwegmann and her partner, Josh, Herbivore got its start as a modest operation with a simple purpose: "We wanted good looking clothes, ethically made, that would show the world we believed animals deserved respect, love, and to be free from harm. We wanted to spread the word about living cruelty-free." With designs featuring phrases like "Eat Like You Give A Damn", "I'm Vegan and I Love You" and "Humane Meat Is Yuppie Bullshit" their messages act as catalysts for reflection and, in our experience, are great conversation starters, as well!

⁠In time, Herbivore grew on a much grander scale. From hosting events, speaking at veg-fests, donating time to sanctuaries and co-founding an animal rights conference, Herbivore has made a name as a company with a conscience. In addition to the work they've done to further the animal rights movement, they've also donated time and funds to human rights and social justice movements, believing that dismantling oppression, at every level, is the only way forward.⁠ "Our approach has always been to show veganism as a positive choice that gives you back so much more than you give up. Compassion Is Invincible!"⁠

⁠

When NYT's Best Selling author Krista Tippett first developed On Being (previously titled "Speaking of Faith") her goal was simple: she wanted to know what it might look like if we regarded the intangible, religious and spiritual aspects of our lives with as much consideration as we did the more concrete concepts, like politics and economics.⁠ Addressing questions like: "What does it mean to be human? How do we want to live? And who will we be to each other?" On Being offers weekly discoveries into the vastness of our lives and all of the accompanying complexities. ⁠In 2014, the year after she took On Being into independent production, President Obama awarded Krista the National Humanities Medal at the White House for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence.”⁠ You can now stream the podcast On Being on all major platforms.⁠

More than a coworking space, Impact Hub Oakland serves as a radically inclusive entrepreneurial community founded on values ranging from Authenticity and Inspiration to Reciprocity and Respect. Impact Hub's Co-Founder and CEO, Konda Mason, is no stranger to living and working according to the values of her space. In addition to her work with Impact Hub, Mason is also "a co-creator and co-facilitator of The Well Being In Business Lab–Oakland, a project of business leaders deepening their commitment to inner transformation and using their business for more positive impact." Mason is also a certified yoga teacher, permaculture designer, and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker. Her expertise and insight remain a driving force in the mission and direction of Impact Hub Oakland.

In April of 2019, on National Indie Bookstore day, Noelle Santos opened the first independent bookstore serving the Bronx: The Lit Bar. The inspiration for Santos came in 2014, when she joined with 3000 other protestors to protect the only surviving bookstore in town, Barnes and Noble. Through her work, she discovered that, even if this store survived, the Bronx would still be grossly underserved. Barnes and Noble closed its doors in 2016 and Santos was called to action. The Lit Bar now exists to serve the 1.4 million people in the borough. Her mission? “To create a haven that inspires reading, encourages healthy social interaction, highlights diverse voices, and increases intellectual visibility in the Bronx.” ⁠Outside the front door is a mural of a young girl that reads “Reach the world, but touch the hood first.”⁠

Founded by Zenat Begum, Playground is an anti-gentrification coffee shop (yep, you read that right), community space, 501(c)3, radio platform and sustainable cafe located in BedStudy, Brooklyn. Playground Annex, an extension of Playground Coffee Shop, is a retail space that prioritizes work from Black, Brown, Queer and POC artists, authors and organizations. Developed to amplify marginalized voices and create space for meaningful community engagement, Playground is truly much larger than the sum of its parts. Begum (the ambitious, driving force behind Playground) recognized early on that a space should represent and welcome the community it is situated within. “A coffee shop is the initial symbol of gentrification.” Begum explained in a recent Westwood interview, “You see a coffee shop and it gives everyone else the ‘go’ to fuck shit up. Things become more expensive, inaccessible, and even shunning to a community that has always lived there.” Begum has worked tirelessly to combat this shift, including organizing a Playground Youth initiative, to ensure that the leaders of tomorrow are supported in their rise.⁠

We love independent bookstores (if you couldn’t tell). And not just because they sell books (which is, in and of itself, very exciting) but because these spaces, with their energy and ideas all converging in one place, simply inspire us to generate, create and connect. Sarah McNally, founder of independent bookseller McNally Jackson, understands this value, firsthand. In a recent NYT article, McNally spoke of her need to ‘try and create places fully devoted to the life of the mind.’ And over the last 15 years, that’s exactly what she’s done. Head here to seek out inspiration, or to simply get lost in the magic.

From live television and best-selling cookbooks to curated clothing lines and leisurely climbs up Mount Kilimanjaro, the talents of British TV presenter and radio host Fearne Cotton seems to know no bounds. Her podcast, Happy Place (inspired by her very own book) aims, simply, to bring listeners a daily dose of joy. Featuring inspiring interviews with guests ranging from Jada Pinkett Smith and Elizabeth Day, to Hillary Clinton and Hozier, Happy Place is as eclectic as it is uplifting. For your daily dose of happiness, be sure to listen to this podcast.

Last summer Fearne also created the Happy Place Festival—like a live version of her podcast but over a weekend—we're hoping it returns this year (can someone confirm this?). And if that isn't enough, recently Fearne launched #TheGreatCreate to get us crafting together and feeling good and which we'll do another post about soon because it's just such a great initiative and we don't want you to miss it. For now though head to that podcast and enjoy conversations to get you thinking about wellbeing differently.