Nomadic Bookshop hasn’t had its grand opening yet. Still, the shop is already creating buzz. The name is likely familiar to many bibliophiles, who may remember the independent publisher of the same name that specialized in queer and BIPOC titles. And neighbors are thrilled to have a new small business along the 23rd Street stretch.
The Oaklandside visited the bookshop on a recent Wednesday morning, about a month into the store’s soft opening, joining around a dozen others who’d stopped in, curious about the storefront.
“I’m so excited for this space to open,” one young woman said.
Another asked to find the calendar of events.
Others browsed the shelves, inspecting book covers and skimming through the pages of the shop’s diverse titles.
The Uptown area where the bookshop is located is part of the Northlake Project, a public-private partnership whose goal is to increase safety and foot traffic downtown. It’s also home to businesses such as Low Bar, Malibu Burgers, Two Pitchers, Lovely’s, and TODOS Cantina. Nomadic will officially join their ranks with its grand opening on Saturday, Jan. 17.
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The nonprofit bookshop is the project of J.K. Fowler and his husband, Uriel Landa. Fowler founded the Oakland-based independent book publisher of the same name, which closed in the spring of 2023. During its more than a decade-long run, Nomadic Press published over 100 titles, with an emphasis on marginalized writers, and hosted hundreds of community events. Fowler also became executive director of the Bay Area Book Festival in 2024.
Fowler and Landa met in 2023 at the “Ambulante” indie film festival after party in Xalapa, in Veracruz, Mexico, Landa’s home country. At the time, Fowler was living in Xalapa, where he had opened an artists cultural exchange center, and Bundo Cafebrería, a coffee shop and bookstore. The two fell in love, and married in early 2025.
At the bookshop, Fowler curates the book selection, while Landa is in charge of the events, a role that allows him to meet and network with artists and other creatives in Oakland and to start exploring the artistic tapestry of his new home.
“Here in the business, I get to speak with more people. I like practicing my English, so that’s good,” Landa said. “I feel welcome. There are many different communities. We don’t have that in Xalapa,” his hometown in Veracruz, Mexico.
The storefront will not only house the bookshop and community space. It will also serve as the headquarters for a revival of Nomadic Press. The goal for this year, Fowler said, is to publish two to three titles by local authors.
The Nomadic Bookshop in Uptown had its soft opening last month. Credit: courtesy of Uriel Landa
Nomadic wants to help people ‘imagine new worlds
Fowler’s literary sensibilities are on display in the highly personal color-coded system he uses to organize the titles he’s chosen to stock. Rather than using traditional book categories like fiction, nonfiction, or young adult, Fowler created categories such as “Radical Life Stories and Testimonies,” which includes memoirs and essay collections, and “Transformative and Imaginative Worlds,” a big tent for magical realism, weird and haunting speculative narratives, and post-apocalyptic fiction. He estimates that around 75% of the inventory will be new books, and 25% will be used.
“All the books are pushing at the edges, asking, ‘What’s next, given the current climate that we’re in?’ which is a total mess on so many fronts,” Fowler said. “What’s the world that we want to support?”
He said AK Press, an independent publisher specializing in books about anarchism that operated out of Oakland until its move to Chico in 2015, will have a heavy presence in the store.
Nomadic Bookshop
Nomadic Bookshop grand opening
When: Saturday, Jan. 17, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: 326 23rd St
Book recommendations from the owners:
J.K. Fowler:
“Forest Euphoria” by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
“The River Has Roots” by Amal El-Mohtar
“Enshittification” by Cory Doctorow
“Death of the Author” by Nnedi Okorafor
“The Accidentals” by Guadalupe Nettel
Uriel Landa:
“An Optimism” by Cameron Awkward-Rich
“Ancient Algorithms” by Katrine Ogaard Jensen
“An Oral History of Atlantis” by Ed Park
“Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive!” by Melissa Lozada-Oliva
“Great Black Hope” by Rob Franklin
“We’re trying to share some lesser-known small press titles from both local small publishers, and small publishers across the nation,” Fowler said. “Eventually, we want to bring in publishers from Mexico as well.” The bookshop already carries translated titles. The books from Mexican publishers will be in Spanish.
The duo want readers to love the bookshop as a place to find a curated selection of books related to the current political and social climate; they also dream of building a gathering space for artists and the community that supports them.
“The vibe that we’re going for is all about lifting up voices of power, recognizing the inherent resilience, the ability for us to imagine new worlds, to deconstruct the old worlds, to learn the history to inform the way in which we want to build the new world,” Fowler said.
The bookshop held its soft opening on Dec. 1, 2025. During its first month, it had four events. The first one on Dec. 4, celebrated the 2025 winners of the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Literary Awards, which launched in 2021. This month, there will be five events ranging from a poet’s bookshelf series to an open mic to book launches.
The duo is also working with artists from Creative Growth, an Oakland arts nonprofit located a block away from the bookshop that works with artists with developmental disabilities. The shop’s walls will be hung with artwork from the collective just in time for the grand opening, which will feature food by Malibu Burgers, poetry readings by San Francisco artist Tongo Eisen-Martin, music by DJ Nick Johnson, and other surprises.
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