First Look: Fortitude Valley’s Cursive Knives Is Carving a Niche for Itself

No, it’s not a knife shop.

But with a name like Cursive Knives, it’s easy to see how passersby have been confused. Instead, the Ann Street storefront is the latest addition to the Valley’s creative scene – a neighbourhood bookshop with space for locals to gather for workshops, book clubs, crafts and literary chat.

Cursive Knives is the bricks-and-mortar incarnation and “logical extension” of a four-year-old online community of readers and writers run by London-born writer, editor and book lover Terri-Jane Dow.

The bookshop opened in late December, just before Christmas. Its name is a nod to Sylvia Plath, via a Bikini Kill lyric from Bloody Ice Cream.

 “[The song] is about girl poets supposedly always being depressed and suicidal, and that actually not being true at all,” says Dow, who also co-manages singer Florence Welch’s Between Two Books book club.

Dow has taken great pleasure in selecting each title for the shop. The uncluttered shelves make for easy browsing through an extensive selection of literary fiction and a smaller clutch of art and design books, non-fiction, poetry and short story collections.

Dow’s curation leans heavily towards Booker- and Stella-listees, translations (Han Kang’s The Vegetarian has sold out twice this month) and her beloved “weird girl” lit.

“Everyone tells me I’m mad not to stock romantasy; that that’s the only thing selling. But I can’t even try to compete with the big guys on price, and that’s not what I’m here for. Plus, it’s clearly not true,” says Dow.

Instead, Cursive Knives is platforming local and indie publishers like Adelaide’s Pink Shorts and Silver Press from the UK, as well as works by people of colour, queer authors and female writers. And, while it’s still early days, things are going well.

 “I sold out of the initial 1600 books much sooner than I expected, and I’ve already had people who have been in five, six times and bought something every time,” says Dow. “I’ve been overwhelmed with how welcoming it’s been.”

With the current trend back towards analogue media, she’s quietly confident that “we’ll see the start of a big bookshop boom.” Alongside Cursive Knives, a handful of independent bookstores like Fiction Over Reality, Sweet Chapter and The Book Bouquet have popped up in Brisbane in the past few months. And as book lovers, we can only hope Dow and her contemporaries are onto something.

Cursive Knives

969 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley

No phone

Hours:

Tue to Fri 10am–5pm

Sat & Sun 11am–4pm

cursiveknives.com/

@cursiveknives