Meet the Founders
Meet Ayumi + Clement
Ayumi works for a trade union in Scotland. She’s French and Japanese and has lived in Scotland for over a decade. Clement is an editor and film critic. Hailing from New Jersey, he came to Scotland post-COVID to attend graduate school and now lives here.
Ayumi and Clement decided to start Feminist Book Club Edinburgh on a September afternoon in the basement of the Glasgow Tim Horton’s — where all great ideas begin. They both wanted to find a progressive community in Edinburgh that celebrated the achievements of women, explored feminist concepts, and read interesting books. Seeing that there was not currently any ongoing feminist book club in the city, they decided to start one themselves! Ayumi frequently comments that it’s ironic that she would not have started a feminist book club were it not for a man having the idea first.
The book club launched in November 2023. Together, Ayumi and Clement grew the community month after month. They don’t love all the books they read for the club, but they love seeing wonderful people — some new, some returning — every month and talking about literature and feminism. They got married in June 2024, the day before their book club meeting that month.
Meet the Mascot
Meet Minnie
All good clubs have a mascot — someone that inspires, someone cute, someone that loves whipped cream more than her own family. Minnie cannot read, she cannot write, and she cannot speak English, but she is a devoted feminist. Without her relentless love and support and hunger for chicken, Ayumi and Clement might never have launched Feminist Book Club Edinburgh in the first place. Minnie might not have a credit card, and maybe she doesn’t know who Audre Lorde is, but she runs the world in her parents’ apartment and bullies them into giving her cheese. And there’s nothing more Girlboss than that.