Visitors inside Petals & Pages crowded around rectangular white tables and flipped through fresh paperback pages that sat near pink floral arrangements. Against the store's back wall, a long line of people waited to purchase books, fresh flowers and botanical-themed pastries on the shop's opening day.
Stepping out from the crowd, Regan King held a stack of books in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. She gently placed the flowers down and then plopped volumes one through four of Alice Oseman's "Heartstopper" graphic novel series on a back table. She'd been considering buying them for a while since watching the popular coming-of-age Netflix series.
Inside of an Englewood garden store is a new queer- , woman-owned bookstore and flower shop, Petals & Pages, a curated feminine-forward gathering space for local writers, flower enthusiasts, avid readers and locals like King who heard about the opening through Instagram and decided to come with a friend.
"I decided that if I was going to get them from anywhere I would rather get it from somewhere local and a place that supports LGBTQ and trans rights," King said. "And then I saw that you get a free bouquet if you bought four books so I was like, might as well!"
Each fresh floral arrangement sold comes with a poem written by a local poet, with a percentage of proceeds going to local writing and community groups such as queer-owned Colorado publisher Beyond The Veil and national non-profit PEN America. On opening day, visitors were also offered a free bouquet of flowers with the purchase of four books.
Petals & Pages will be Dylah Ray's second small business in the last year, the first being the sister company Botanical Bakery of Denver which opened in 2022 which produces botanically themed baked goods such as their signature lavender shortbread pansy flower cookie.
"I use community organizing in my business strategy," Ray said. "What small businesses are really meant to do is build and grow community in terms of connection and providing a service or resource that wasn't already there. When you support your community and your community supports you, not only is that the right thing for everyone, but it's also a good business model of having each other's backs."
Ray has a background in politics and community organizing, working as a training director for Elizabeth Warren's 2020 presidential campaign and as an organizer for former President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns. She moved back to Denver and opened her botanical bakery inside of Birdsall & Co., a garden store owned by mother-daughter duo Annie and Morgan Huston, Ray's best friend and college roommate.
Aside from the popular baked goods, the bakery hosts monthly open mic nights, live music, yoga, cookie decorating classes and botanical paint and sips. Ray decided that opening a bookstore and flower shop would be a good next step.
"One of the amazing things that has grown out of this is a really strong community of writers, poets, women and queer writers," Ray said, who is also a poet herself. "It really became clear that this was becoming a safe space where we could share our work, get feedback from each other, do poetry readings and book exchanges."
Ray came up with the idea of selling flower arrangements featuring local poets as a way of packaging functional literature with the beauty of flowers while helping local writers gain more exposure.
"It's a hard time to be an artist so we have to have creative ways to promote each other's work," Ray said. "A lot of people would like to bring flowers to someone, or have flowers for themselves, and it makes it even more meaningful that they're supporting a local poet."
Community interest was so strong in this project that Ray eventually asked her friend and now store manager, Emily Long, to help her get the vision up and running. Long met Ray at a launch party hosted at the bakery for Beyond the Veil's "We Apologize For The Inconvenience: Queer & Trans Voices" anthology which was published earlier this year to benefit Club Q victims.
Long will be in charge of book selling, curation, clubs and other events for the bookstore and flower shop.
"We want a more diverse representation than we are seeing in other major bookstores," Long said. "Specifically with the focus on queer stories, stories by people of color and trans folks."
Opening day featured curated tables of books on different subjects such as "Sapphic Love Stories," "Coming Out & Coming Of Age," "Trans Rights Are Human Rights" and "Local Poets We Adore."
One of those local poets is Sami Helgeson, who first met Ray at an open mic hosted at the bakery and who will have her 2020 self-published poetry book, "To Feel" available at the bookstore.
"[Ray] asked if she would be able to have my book here," Helgeson said. "I have it in like a couple small bookstores in my hometown in Wisconsin but that's it. Having the opportunity to get it into the hands of people I don't know personally feels really magical."
For writers like Helgeson, having spaces to meet like-minded people is important for the fabric of Denver.
"There are very few places that I've been to in Denver where I walk in and feel comfortable and inspired to write or talk to a stranger or do all these things that I think a space like this really cultivates," Helgeson said. "When [Ray] mentioned opening a bookstore it's just like 'oh my God, this is so exciting. Flowers, books.' I feel like there's nothing quite like it."
Throughout the store are pink walls, flower arrangements, products from other women-owned businesses, stone garden fountains and lots of literature to choose from. It's curated to celebrate beauty, embrace femininity and create an atmosphere that's relaxing for all visitors. It's businesses like this that draw in people like Nancy Viera.
"That sounds like my type of place," Viera said when she first heard about Petals & Pages from an Instagram post shared by a close friend.
Viera is an author herself, an avid reader and also hosts Tattered Cover's "City Silhouettes," a showcase of local writers and artists from Denver.
"As soon as we were walking in this space, I could smell roses," Viera said. "I felt immediately happy and my day was just washed off of me with the smell. I've had to be in that super masculine energy that I often don't think about the little things that I could be doing that make me feel more feminine. When something like this pops up, I'm immediately drawn to it because I don't see a lot of that."
"I did get a lot of guidance from more experienced people saying that I would be potentially excluding a large percentage of the population," Ray said. "But what I've seen on the bakery side of things is that people want that kind of space. Everyone is welcome, but having a space that is owned and run by people you can relate to is helpful for a lot of people who have been historically left out of those spaces."
Local poet Becca Downs moved to Denver about a year and a half ago and lives in the Athmar Park neighborhood. She met Ray at the bakery's monthly open mics.
"I think any space that feels comfortable and welcoming for any group of people is necessary for a community," Downs said. "People who are interested in feminine spaces, plants, baked goods and all these wonderful things, I think it's nice because it's not just a store, it's like a community building space."
"It just feels like one of those places you can go hangout for a while, be distracted and not think about life," Viera said.
For Long, the bookstore and flower shop's success will be dependent on its collaborations moving forward with Denver's queer and creative communities.
"I think for queer and trans folks the world can be pretty brutal and ugly," Long said. "Some pink flowers and nice books that feel like a warm hug from a friend are an antidote. We deserve pretty things too."
