Comics at the Corner: Literacy Lounge

Literacy Lounges are community-curated spaces where residents from all reading levels can engage with comic and graphic novel content. These spaces are similar to the school book fair but are programmed with activities and interactions that promote literacy and reading. Literacy Lounges will be pop-up-style events that are designed by community input. We hope to invite panel discussions, art workshops, interactive read-ins, movie nights, book exchanges, and almost anything else involved with the creative process of creating and reading comics. 

• Set the dates! We are planning on launching our first Literacy Lounge in spring of 2023. 
• Secure the locations
• Build the website and social media pages
• Market to the community
• COLLABORATE COLLABORATE COLLABORATE

We started Comics at the Corner in 2018 as a response to the literacy challenges in our neighborhood. Less than 20% of the residents in Mt. Pleasant are reading proficiently. Providing free comics with Black and Brown main characters to residents in the neighborhood has resulted in thousands of comics going into residents' homes. However, it is not enough to provide comics, if I really want people to improve their lives through reading, we must co-create trusted spaces where there is engagement and ownership. Creating a culture of reading will require moving at the speed of trust. Literacy Lounges seek to do that.