Molly Russakoff is a poet and third generation bookseller, who is racking up a long history in the Italian Market community. She co-owned and operated 9th Street Books and Records from 1987 to 1997. In 1999, she renovated an 80 year old bakery and opened Molly's Café, a popular Bella Vista breakfast and lunch spot. When she found that the restaurant business was driving her and her two kids crazy, she decided to give it up for this simpler, more fitting dream.

Molly has been active in the Philadelphia poetry scene for over 25 years. She has read in almost every venue available, edited the Drunken Boat poetry and arts journal with poet Linh Dinh, judged The City Paper's poetry contest, hosted WXPN's Spoken Word radio show, etc. In 1993, she was awarded a Pew Fellowship for poetry.

Before moving to Philadelphia, she studied poetry at Stockton State College, in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, with Stephen Dunn, who went on to win almost every prize a poet can win. In 1977 and '78, she was teaching assistant at The Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics, in Boulder CO, where she worked with and studied under Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Anne Waldman and many other poets and writers. Her work has been published in many literary magazines, including the Paris Review and American Poetry Review. Her self-published chapbook, The Poverty Queen, is available at the store and by mail order.