The queer-owned shop, Canada’s first horror bookstore, carries a selection of under-represented voices and horror subgenres…
By Stephan Petar
Canada’s first horror bookstore is spooky. But not in the way one would imagine. Walking into Toronto’s Little Ghosts Books, customers will feel watched. A skeleton in the display window peers at the entrance, while ghosts read books or carry tote bags. Natural light floods the space, making it a nightmare for the local vampire population. The black bookcases face outward, with a sliding ladder attached to the main one, which displays rows of books with distorted and jagged fonts along with haunting imagery on their covers. The store also has a coffin-shaped mirror, ghostly photography and a back patio with a 12-foot-tall skeleton.
“I wanted it to be spooky, but I didn’t want it to be a cave,” says owner Chris about designing the shop. “A space can be beautiful and spooky at the same time.”
This is one of many misconceptions that Chris and his business and life partner, Jason, hope to dispel about the horror genre with their store.
Horror is more than guts and Stephen King
The two horror fans opened Little Ghosts Books in 2022, in response to what they saw as the unimpressive horror selections at other bookstores. “There are the big names and the white straight men,” Chris says about the inventory at other stores. “But I read so much by Black, Indigenous and queer authors.”
The horror genre is diverse, but many automatically associate it with blood, guts and graphic violence. While true, the assumption that this represents the full genre leads people to write it off as too scary. “When people say they don’t like horror, I don’t know if that’s true,” Chris shares. He argues that the kind of horror someone might enjoy is likely just not available for them to discover.
Addressing this problem, the shop curates books that diverge from the stereotypical view of the genre. Little Ghosts Books expands the reader’s definition of horror by carrying a wide array of subgenres. It carries supernatural, folklore and psychological horror as well as paranormal romance. Chris and Jason also stock thrillers, mysteries and fantasies, as long as the intention is horror or the book has horror elements.
A popular subgenre of late is folklore, according to Chris. “People want to hear about folklore from different cultures to see what’s scaring them,” he says, noting that Japanese and Indigenous collections in particular are popular.
Horror also introduces new formats that people may not usually encounter, like the novella, which is usually between the length of a short and long story. Chris says the form struggles in other genres but thrives in horror. “It excels because you’re giving someone a little roller coaster to go on,” he explains. “Horror propels the narrative in such a way that people just eat it up.”
The shop also features an array of queer and authors who are Black, Indigenous or People of Colour (BIPOC), giving them space to be discovered. “Most of our job is looking at what small presses have and what our favourite queer authors have coming out.”
Chris also works to amplify these voices by actually publishing them. Shortly after opening, he started Little Ghosts Press as a way to give back to the community. Publishing four books a year, the company’s first release was Demons & Death Drops: An Anthology of Queer Performance Horror. Its latest release is Student Bodies by T.T. Madden.
While patrons of Little Ghosts Books will discover the breadth of authors, subgenres and formats associated with horror, they’ll still find classics. Customers can purchase titles like The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine, and a few spell books as well.
Why do queer people relate to horror?
While the enterprise has a global clientele coming from as far as Sweden, most customers are local and part of the 2SLGBTQI+ community. These individuals not only want to support a local queer business, but gravitate to horror because they resonate with the genre.
The relationship between queer people and horror goes beyond the genre’s campy element. Many identify with the monsters because they feel they share similar experiences. Like the monsters, queer readers tend to feel misunderstood and othered by a society that usually blames, hunts and rejects them. “There is a tragedy to being constantly scapegoated that is so fixated in the genre with the monsters specifically,” Chris explains. “A monster is just something that is too big or too strange for the world, and people attack it. Why would you not resonate with that?”
He also notes that body horror can resonate with the trans community. “Isn’t that the trans experience? To be like my body is out of my control and doing things to me that I did not ask for and cannot stop.”
Whether it is themes of otherness, identity or marginalization, queer people attach themselves to horror because it often mirrors their internal and/or external experiences. It allows the 2SLGBTQI+ community to open up and create meaningful conversations, especially with allies, about how they feel in society.
In the end, horror is more than just guts pouring out of people. It’s a genre that can provide reflection and education.
STEPHAN PETAR is a born and raised Torontonian, known for developing lifestyle, entertainment, travel, historical and 2SLGBTQI+ content. He enjoys wandering the streets of any destination he visits, where he’s guaranteed to discover something new or meet someone who will inspire his next story.
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