Written by Emma Pei Yin

Some people grow up surrounded by friends. Others grow up surrounded by books. For Jing Xuan Teo, better known simply as Xuan, and co-founder of Amplify Bookstore, it was definitely the latter. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, she says, so I spent most of my time reading. What started as a quiet childhood habit eventually turned into something much bigger: a bookstore built around community, representation and the kind of stories that make people feel seen.

Originally from Singapore and now deeply rooted in Melbourne’s book world, Xuan speaks with the honesty of someone who’s put in the quiet, often unseen work of turning an idea into something real. Amplify Bookstore, the online (and now physical) home she’s built with co-founder Marina Sano, centres POC authors not as a seasonal feature, but as the foundation. Here, diversity is not a selling point—it’s the architecture.

When asked what it meant to be shortlisted for Young Bookseller of the Year, Xuan answers: It feels good to be nominated. We’ve felt quite isolated at times, often overlooked by the industry. Maybe it’s because we speak up about racism. Maybe it’s because we’re young women in a field full of legacy booksellers. Who knows.

The implication is clear: recognition is hard-won, especially when you refuse to make yourself smaller for comfort’s sake.

But Xuan doesn’t dwell on bitterness. She adds that she and Marina have already booked tickets to Movie World—since the awards are in Brisbane, it felt like the perfect excuse for a bit of fun. I’ve been really craving a thrill, she says. It’ll double as their first official Amplify Bookstore team outing, a small moment of celebration in the middle of a job that rarely slows down.

Before Amplify, Xuan never questioned whether she belonged in a bookstore. They’ve always been my safe space, she says. But once you start curating shelves yourself—once you begin to notice who isn’t there—it becomes impossible to unsee the absences. I notice instantly when a bookstore doesn’t have a diverse selection, and it gives me the ick.

That quiet dissonance becomes a call to action. For readers who’ve never seen their names, their foods, their histories between the pages of a book, Amplify offers something deeply rare: validation.

It’s funny, Xuan reflects, I never attached my passport to my identity before moving. But migration, especially at sixteen, does something to you. It stretches and splits your sense of self. It makes you a bridge between worlds. During COVID, that distance ached. And it was books—specifically How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee—that mended it. I cried for days, she recalls. That feeling of belonging. . . really shaped the way we approach Amplify.

What emerges most powerfully in conversation with Xuan is the sense of responsibility. We take our job as cultural gatekeepers incredibly seriously, she says, not with self-importance but clarity. Publishers make the books, but it’s booksellers who have the power to put lesser-known titles into readers’ hands.

That power, wielded with intention, becomes political. But it’s also intimate. Amplify is a space where POC customers visibly exhale, relax, linger longer. It’s a space where recommendations are not just transactional but relational. You learn so much about a person through what they love to read, she says. Sometimes a book just isn’t for you but you can see its value in the culture and canon. With these stories, we often ask ourselves to draw up a customer persona for the book so we can help it find the perfect reader for it.

This is the work that rarely gets seen. The cataloguing, the boxes of shipments, the social media content, the curatorial precision. It’s truly like laundry. Just when you think it’s over, a new shipment arrives, she jokes. There’s no degree for opening a bookstore. Xuan and Marina taught themselves, often navigating an industry whose doors remained closed, or only partially open.

We always say Amplify’s goal is obsolescence, Xuan says. One day, they hope, Australian publishing will reflect the country it claims to serve. One day, diversity won’t need a dedicated shelf. Until then, Amplify holds the line.

Bookselling in Australia is not for the faint of heart. Between the slim margins, the undercurrent of casual racism and the glacial pace of institutional change, it can feel like an uphill battle just to be seen and heard. 

What keeps me going, she says, are the stories from customers who are so excited to have found us. Sometimes, it’s a particular joy—the thrill of pressing Kindred by Octavia Butler into someone’s hands. I love helping others discover her work, she says. She’s such an important part of the literary canon, yet so often overlooked.

In the end, this is what Amplify offers: discovery. Not just of books, but of self, of others, of what the world could be if we dared to read more widely, more honestly, more curiously. Amplify is not just a bookstore. It is a reclamation. It is a library of belonging. It’s a home away from home for so many of us. 

To learn more about Xuan, Marina and Amplify, visit: https://amplifybookstore.com/

SHE LEADS is a newly branded series which aims at uplifting and empowering Asian Australian women in business, creative and other different sectors.

mages provided.