Books Bring People Together.

We believe in the power of books to build community, writers to change the world, and reading as a force for good.

The Friendly City Books
Community Connection

a special project of the CREATE Foundation

About Us

Friendly City Books Community Connection, a special project of the CREATE Foundation, is our nonprofit arm to support literacy and literary arts in our community and throughout the region. Through our efforts we seek to support essential civic institutions in our area, improve literacy in our public schools, reduce barriers to book access, recognize and develop talented new writers, and enhance overall quality of life in our community.

  • We seek to bring together people from different walks of life in the Columbus area through book donations, community events, original publications, and outreach activities that promote engagement with literature and fellow community members.

  • Support essential civic institutions in our area

    Improve literacy in our public schools

    Reduce barriers to book access

    Recognize talented new writers

    Enhance overall quality of life in our community

  • We believe books take you places.

    We believe books change lives.

    We believe books bring people together.

Highlights from our first year

Over 3,200 books donated in 2023

Book Donations

We seek to remove barriers which keep readers in our community from getting access to books. In our first six months we’ve donated more than 3,200 books across the region. Here’s a just a few of the places where you can find our donated books: Columbus Municipal School District, Lowndes County School District, Starkville Oktibbeha School District, Columbus Air Force Base, Columbus Lowndes Public Library, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi School for Mathematics & Science, the Columbus-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce’s Educators are Essential Conference, Baptist Memorial Hospital, Columbus Juneteenth Celebration, and Little Free Libraries across the region. Additionally, we donated almost 500 copies of our book Stretch Like Scarlet to children attending the Mississippi Book Festival.

Books in Schools

In our first six months, we donated 1,400 books to local public schools. We invited author Andy Harkness, an award-winning animator with roots in our area, to read his book Wolfboy Is Scared to over 800 public elementary students in the Columbus Municipal School District and the Starkville Oktibbeha School District. We partnered with the Starkville Oktibbeha School District to read and celebrate children’s book One Mississippi with songwriter/author Steve Azar, illustrator Sarah Frances Hardy, and Chief Cyrus Ben of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians to learn about the creation of the new state song, state flag, and the book.

Authors in the Community

Mississippi has long been the native soil of great storytellers. We never miss an excuse to gather with our neighbors and share a good story. As part of our mission, we use books and authors to bring together people from all walks of life to connect and learn from each other. In 2023, Friendly City Books partnered with Mississippi University for Women to bring The Comfort of Crows author Margaret Renkl to the Ina E. Gordy Honors Forum Series and Emotional Labor author Rose Hackman for the Nell Peel Wolfe Lecture. We worked with our neighbors at the Columbus Arts Council to stage a special book talk with  Harrison Scott Key for his new memoir How to Stay Married. We also brought author Nyani Nkrumah to five communities in Mississippi for conversations about her novel Wade in the Water which deals with the aftermath of the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.

Community Read

We’re lucky to be located near two unique public educational institutions – the Mississippi University for Women and the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science – and we joined forces with them to bring MUW’s recommended reading for incoming students beyond the gates of campus to the greater community, along with the  Columbus-Lowndes Public Library and the City of Columbus. We donated over 200 copies of How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith to students, faculty, and local readers.

Podcast Conversations

We want to connect the brightest minds in literature today with rural and remote communities, so we launched the Friendly City Books Podcast to close the gap. In 2023, we featured 20 established and emerging writers for lively and thought-provoking discussions. 

Our Plans for 2024

Writing Workshops

We’ll be working with professional writers in the community to develop a series of creative writing workshops in several different genres and forms to help us build our literary community.

More Book Tours

We’ve already started discussions with groups throughout the state to bring more authors to communities across Mississippi.

Relaunching our Press

With a goal to identify and develop new writers in Mississippi and throughout the South, we’re relaunching the printing arm of Friendly City Books. We have a poetry anthology in production and plan to publish additional books by the end of the year.

Become a Friend

The Friendly City Books Community Connection, a special project of the CREATE Foundation—a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization—relies on contributions from individuals, businesses, and allied organizations to continue its literacy and literary arts programs in Columbus and across Mississippi.

To thank you for helping us, you'll get a choose your own sale day at Friendly City Books! After we confirm receipt of your contribution, we'll email you a voucher for a 20% off discount up to the amount you donated that can be used in store or fore a custom order online.

Contact us.

nonprofit@friendlycitybooks.com
(662) 570-4247