February 2026.

We fell in Love (with having Big Plans).

Let’s address the big news first and foremost-
Horror x Romance have collided in the Pink x Black collaboration Bookstore Pop-Up in Toronto’s Union Station! Running from Feb. 7th- May 31st, this space combines the two genres that have been historically marginalized in the literature space to bring you a selection like no other store. And.. it’s pretty.
I want to give some cookies where they’re due. Union Station could have likely had any bookstore they chose, and they chose to reach out and have small businesses. Even though it was still very expensive, splitting it across the two stores made it (KIND OF) an accessible task in costs of stock, build, rent, staffing. Hopeless Romantic team were generous in managing communications, Little Ghosts team handled furniture pickups and errands. The experience in real time of “many hands make light work” of this build out made it possible to get open in A Fucking WEEK. Never have I done such a crazy timeline, and it is hugely in thanks to everyone who helped out in what was a whirlwind setup. I haven’t had that much support in the setup faze… ever. Never ever. My black little heart has grown three sizes.
And thank you, thank you, to the feral readers who LINED UP DOWN UNION and waited hours for us to open the door for the first time. I designed a limited run tote and it was gone in 40 minutes. We got in a little trouble for causing a ruckus. Thank you for that ruckus. May the book readers of the world cause more stirs about indie genre literature for all of the years the Earth spins. I tell you that you rock all the time, and I’m here to tell you again. You rock. You’re keeping books alive. We are Eternally, Dearly, grateful to you, you Little Ghosts, for haunting the new bookstore and posting and reviewing and as always going Beyond.

ON WRITING… with Jay!
Co-writing & Collaboration.

I unfortunately had more failures than successes in the collaborative arts, but there were some triumphs, and I think I learned a thing or two along the way. My very first attempt was co-writing a script I would direct. I was in my early twenties, and there was a not-very-seasoned-but-more-seasoned-than-me writer/director who wanted to get the ball rolling on projects. I was living with seven dudes at the time, who all worked in production, and we had a decent amount of equipment including a RedOne camera I sold ten years ago and fully paid off ten days ago. It was more of a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” relationship, which, in hindsight, is a pretty essential way to get started- but requires the right backscratcher. This guy was not it.

Despite having similar interests, our attitudes couldn’t have been any less aligned. He was more aggressive in his pursuits and insisted we use the “save the cat” template to write each version of the script independently, then fuse them later. Terrible idea. I was in no way comfortable with this and he just pressed hard that his script was more on point. If I ever disagreed, he’d hark, “Explain it to me. Go into detail how mine isn’t superior.” It sucked. I could feel his aggression throughout the process. He was hoping to steamroll a less experienced writer to get what he wanted and use our resources. The table read was embarrassing.

There were a few more co-written script attempts after that, and while some fizzled out, some went on to completion. Despite not being produced, some scripts that are sitting on a digital shelf I still consider very good and have merit to exist. “The Faker,” co-written with James LeSage, is a rad autobiographical dramedy about stand-up comedy. Jon Cranmer and I would be celebrating our 10th Emmy if the “Two Dudes in Space and Time” pilot were ever produced.

So, what attributes were present for the successfully finished projects versus those that died on the vine? Well, there are way too many variables to count, and a lot of them are naturally stumbled upon rather than deliberately calculated. James and Jon are dear friends first and foremost, so a lot of the camaraderie and shorthand was baked in. So genuinely liking the person you’re working with is going to get you the majority of the way there. The other discernible characteristics necessary to foster a healthy working relationship are trust and humility.

Writing is a very vulnerable process. You are mining internal thoughts and experiences and materializing them for others to judge. It is totally natural for criticism to instigate defensive maneuvers. It’s a personal craft, and the first region of our brain to respond when criticized is the highly sensitive amygdala, aka our “lizard brain.” It’s a more primordial part of our limbic system, and it does a lot of things, but for the sake of this article, it reacts to immediate threats. And since we’re highly complex and emotional organisms surrounded in an ever-changing landscape, having your art reviewed is just as significant as being stalked by a sabertooth tiger. Remaining calm and patient when your ideas are on the immediate chopping block is a must. You are not working independently; you are facilitating skills you’ve honed independently for a new project. When your idea is being critiqued in real time, this is when you have to take a breath, fight your instincts, and let your lizard brain cool down so better angels can prevail. It’s also important to show that same compassion to your writing partner. There is a human on the other side of this partnership. They have the same emotional connection to their ideas as you do to yours. Productivity and sympathy are not mutually exclusive. Ask a question or two about their approach and what they would like to see come from their input. It’s really easy to fall into a defensive spiral, but benevolence yields more fertile creative soil. You’re in service to the art, not yourself.

And here’s where the trust comes in. Working on an artistic collaboration is a trust fall exercise. Some parts will be invisible. You have to have some faith that this piece is not entirely yours. Something that wasn’t conjured and vetted through your psyche is going to exist with your name on it. Scary! But that’s okay. You get to see yourself, your collaborator, and your partnership on display. And that’s something special. It’s a testament to your ability to communicate, to share ideas, and connect with humanity. It’s a leap, but if you find the right folks, you might fly.

Write on weary travellers.

Check out Spine of the Land, a graphic novel co-written by Jay and A. Shay this October from Deadsky Press!

KRISTIN’S KOZY CORNER…
Your Relationship… with Books!

Hello lovely newsletter readers! How’s everyone holding up? I know it’s been rough, and for my GTA ghosts winter has felt extra cruel this year. Hell, I live on a major bus route and they literally just cleared away the snowbanks; I’m having nightmare flashbacks to the tiny sidestreet I used to live on. I don’t think we ever saw a plow, we were the street that city planning forgot. Anyway, enough urban infrastructure whining- we can do that year round! So instead let us rejoice; we have passed the mid-winter mark and are slowly making our way to spring, glorious spring! I want to thank all you lovely ghosts for braving the grim and the grey and visiting us at the store - we always love to see your beautiful faces, it helps lessen the gloom and quiet of this part of the year.

And even though this is usually the quietest part of any retailer’s year, we thought we’d flip the script this year and give ourselves lots (too much?) to do! So we decided to open a pop-up at Union Station with our friends from Hopeless Romantic Books, and we launched a CrowdFundr for our upcoming renovation project! We have to fill the hours somehow!
The pop-up came together VERY quickly (literally a matter of days), and we couldn’t be prouder of how it looks, as well as the response - wow you blew our socks off! To everyone that’s come to visit, that’s been able to visit us for the first time and so on, it’s been SO GREAT! Opening day was non-stop (I have blurry memories of happy bookbuyers everywhere), and it’s been wonderfully busy ever since. We’re there until the end of May so you’ve lots of time to check it out!
As for the reno project; well that is a gift to you, our wonderful community, as well as to ourselves. If we can find the way, we’re going to renovate the garage off of our back patio and build a beautiful event and workshop space! It will allow us to do so much more for, and with our community and customers and we’re really, really excited! So - brace for shameless plea for money - if you’re able to contribute (any amount, honestly, we mean that), that would be amazing, if not please just share widely! Thank you!! We love you all and we want to make Little Ghosts even more a home for all of our ghostly peeps than it already is.

Now, having just passed that day of love and all of its heart shaped blandishments, I’m curious as to your relationship with books. Do you think of them as friends, as an obligation, as a need, as an obsession; or all of the above? Or something I didn’t even list. I know that throughout our lives we often change our relationship with books; some of us seem to come out the womb in love with the printed word (raises hand), others struggle or develop an adversarial relationship due to being forced to read at school (one of my brothers), while some just find it okay. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll always feel that way; my brother hated reading, hated it with a passion for years, and then (I’m not making this up) someone gave him a Stephen King novel and uncle Stevie just connected with something in his brain. While not a voracious reader like his big sister, he reads for pleasure and for education to this day. I know people that get burnt out on reading because of schooling; they just can’t stomach cracking open another book no matter how much they love them. And some people just never find their way to books, and I admit that makes me sad, because books have been my comfort, my refuge, my teacher and my window on the world. I’ve dated people because of books, I’ve made lifelong friends because of books and I’ve - for over two decades - made my living because of books. I cannot imagine my world, my existence without them. Which is why during the first year of the pandemic, after I’d lost my job, when I was home alone with little to no social interactions but surrounded by my beloved books I was DEVASTATED to discover my brain refused to process the printed word. Not new books, comfort reads, fiction or non-fiction; for more than a year I did not read, and it just about broke me. Luckily I found my way back (thank you brain), and my lifelong co-dependent relationship with them continues! Maybe co-dependent is too harsh, a love affair that shall never end is perhaps a better description, because I do love them, and the joy they bring to my life is almost indescribable.

Speaking of books: Kristin, aren’t you going to talk to us about any books? Yes, of course I am, although only a few this month, because as I mentioned above we’ve been BUSY. Here are some of the books I’ve read/am reading of late…

Pedro The Vast by Simon Lopez Trujillo: This tense, dark, weird fungal horror (that just went out with our subscriptions), is for you cosmic horror readers, for those of you that love different voices (this is a translation), and for those of you that cheer when the natural world fights back against man. This novella packs a punch!

The Girl In Red by Christina Henry: A post-apocalyptic take on Little Red Riding Hood by Christina Henry, who is one of the best when it comes to reimaging fairy tales and legends (you’ll want to read Alice), along with her other delightfully creepy horror novels. This follows Red, who is desperately trying to get to the safety of her Grandma’s house in the woods. The world as she knew it a mere three months ago is no more; before the Crisis, before the quarantine camps and literal and figurative coyotes and wolves in the wood, before she had to commit acts she never thought herself capable of. But is there something worse than the men and beasts in these woods?

Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M. Nascosta: I had to include at least one spicy book! A book I never thought I’d actually enjoy, turned out to be a surprise. The tale of Violet, a 20s something post-grad desperate to pay off her student loans, and a client that seems to be crushing on her as hard as she is on him? Spicy and smutty yes, (be prepared to read about a LOT of Minotaur peen), but also a realistic (within monster smut boundaries) relationship? The conflict doesn’t take a Hallmark turn of gross misunderstanding, they actually talk things through fairly reasonably? It was unexpected to be sure. I enjoyed this far more than I expected; it’s also a fairly easy read so perfect for a bit of afternoon entertainment.

That’s all for this month my ghosts, I promise to have many more books to discuss next month! Thanks as always for being wonderful, read when you can, and breathe some fresh air- it helps.

MARCH EVENTS… with Phi!
All the reasons to hit the Little Ghosts Flagship location.

• Sunday, March 1st, 1-3pm… Signing: “MAN VS BEAR” by John Davies

  • From the twisted mind behind Hobo with a Shotgun and Kids vs. Aliens comes Man vs. Bear—a blood-soaked, no-mercy nightmare of metal and mauling. Mitch Jamison, lead guitarist for the toxic sleaze-metal outfit Psycho Dave and the Flying Monkeys, ditches the tour bus for a remote cabin after his psycho frontman forces him to dump the only woman he ever loved. One drunken swerve later, he flattens a bear cub on a dark forest road. Mama—five hundred pounds of blind, raging grief—smells the blood and starts hunting. No escape. No redemption. Just claws, teeth, and a final solo played on shredded flesh. By sunrise, the only thing left will be blood on the fretboard.

• RESCHEDULED: Friday, March 13th, 6-8pm… ZINE LAUNCH: Friday the Flirteenth!

  • A local zine filled with flirty, squelchy, campy, deliciously monstrous horror smut produced by Little Ghosts Books! Get your copy, and maybe even meet some authors on site.

• Saturday, March 14th & Sunday, March 15th, 10am-7pm… BOO DAY BOOK EXCHANGE!

  • Happy Boo Day Little Ghosts! We just turned four!

  • Looking to find a new home for some of your books? Maybe you didn’t vibe with a particular one, or maybe you loved it but it’s time to make room for new books! In either case, bring a book and leave with a book! Swing by the shop at any point over the weekend and browse our Boo Day Book Exchange table!

  • Tarot? Vendors? More to be announced soon!

• Friday, March 20th, 6-8pm… Little Ghosts Book Club Presents: “Green Fuse Burning” by Tiffany Morris

  • The debut novella from the Elgin Award winning author of Elegies of Rotting Stars. After the death of her estranged father, artist Rita struggles with grief and regret. There was so much she wanted to ask him-about his childhood, their family, and the Mi’kmaq language and culture from which Rita feels disconnected. But when Rita’s girlfriend Molly forges an artist’s residency application on her behalf, winning Rita a week to paint at an isolated cabin, Rita is both furious and intrigued. The residency is located where her father grew up. On the first night at the cabin, Rita wakes to strange sounds. Was that a body being dragged through the woods? When she questions the locals about the cabin’s history, they are suspicious and unhelpful. Ignoring her unease, Rita gives in to dark visions that emanate from the forest’s lake and the surrounding swamp. She feels its pull, channelling that energy into art like she’s never painted before. But the uncanny visions become more insistent, more intrusive, and Rita discovers that in the swamp’s decay the end of one life is sometimes the beginning of another.

• Sunday, March 22nd, 1-3pm… Signing: “Women of Sorrow and Blood” by Dianna Gunn

  • When 18-year-old Alma is invited to live with Nightfather and pursue the Pleasures of Power, she’s determined to win his affection and ultimate gift: eternal life.

    Yet life in the House of Night is not what she expected. Nightfather spends all of his time alone with Nightmother, leaving his second wife to rule with an iron fist. The servants brought from Alma’s home are hollowed out versions of their former selves. Others—including Alma’s own mentor—have disappeared entirely.

    Alma buries her suspicions and throws herself into attending to the Daughter of Night, an extraordinary woman who requires special care.

    When Nightfather calls upon Alma at last, she begins to see that his eternity is not a reward but a trap—and that it is not him, but the woman he calls his daughter, that her heart longs for. But tragedy lurks in every corner, and sometimes the only escape is death.

• Friday, March 27th, 6-8pm… QUEER FEARS! A Little Gay Book Club Presents: “Persona” by Aoife Josie Clements

  • A feral shut-in discovers a disturbing internet porn video of what seems to be herself. A seance of coked-up artists summons unearthly forces in a studio apartment. The staircase of an exurban marketing company descends endlessly beneath the earth.

    In Aoife Josie Clements’ electric, nightmarish, intricately layered novel, the impossibility of goodness crowds in upon two young trans women barely surviving on sex work and zero-hours contracts. Below the familiar evils of capitalism and the bottomless depths of internet culture, a darker horror awaits. What curse follows these women? What are they escaping? What are they running towards?

• Saturday, March 28th… Books & Brews @ Hamilton 12-5pm !

  • Book lovers! Join us at Collective Arts for the return of BOOKS & BREWS, a book fair for adults. Meet local small presses and booksellers who know indie Canadian literature best. Browse the stacks and imbibe with both non alcoholic and boozy options from one of our favourite local breweries. Bring your friends and make a whole afternoon of it in Collective Arts’ big beautiful space.

• Sunday, Match 29th, 1-3pm… Signing: “Sweetside Motel” by E.L. Chen

  • With the pandemic sweeping the globe, Sarah Ng makes a desperate escape from Toronto to start a new life. But when her car breaks down in Sweetside, an isolated country town, she is forced to quarantine with two charming but disquieting brothers who run the local urban legend: a decaying roadside inn nicknamed the “Suicide Motel”. Trapped between the threat of xenophobic violence and her dark past, she must convince the brothers to help her escape. But how can she know who to trust when everyone, including herself, has their ghosts?

… and now… A POEM!

Sad Poet By-Line.

I told myself:
I would never sound like every other
sad poet,
writing about broken hearts.

but here I am with a pen in my hand
and smoke on my lips…

I wish I could forget your name;

wash the taste of you from my lips;
a Nicotine Head Rush
and the bittersweet
longing for one more kiss.

I used to dance
to so many more songs
than I do now;
I used to sing along;
write poems that used all of your
favorite words;

I used to—

I used to breathe you in.

I cannot get used to breathing you out.

Retail Therapy:
xiii. Uncertainty

Look before you leap is generally good advice, but after over a decade of small business ownership I can say with pretty heady confidence: Nothing is Promised. That makes me sound like some kind of old man Doomsayer, but it’s true. I ran two spaces during COVID. I am running retail now, as shipping costs and material costs skyrocket, as tariffs change according to the whims of an angry orange fart-machine, as weather reports are being given with an emergency-level kind of insistence, as corporations offer everything more cheaply and conveniently than ever, as AI generates more content than any human person can to the tune of AI bots consuming said content and tanking any semblance of marketing algorithm… All this to say. Sometimes you take a leap, having looked and looked and looked and then the puddle is actually a sinkhole, or the lake was filled with tiny piraña, or what you thought was a fluffy cloud was actually a spray of acid. It happens. Solely blaming your own planning/eyeballs and capacity is to misunderstand the topsy-turvy modern necrocapitalist landscape.

So is everything a leap of pure blind faith? Yes and no. When I can’t trust the economic landscape around me, I tend to trust my community. I turn to other compassionate people who understand what I do- not always better than I do, but differently. This week we opened a collab space with Hopeless Romantic Books inside Toronto’s Union Station- think NYC’s Grand Central but smaller. More retail seems like a dubious choice during the very real affordability crisis we are all in at this moment. Kristin and I asked everyone who would talk to us who ran a spot inside the location, and pretty universally they said that being here was absolutely worth it. To me personally, the visibility alone paired with the opportunity to work closely with other book people doing a same-but-different genre space would be worth the effort. Already, I can say we are learning from each other. In uncertain times, we have to believe that high water raises all ships. This is the method by which I am leaping.

In the middle of all this, we are running our very first fundraiser. It seems crazy, and is scarier to me than bigger jumps that I have failed at before, because it does require us in some small part to be caught. The Little Ghosts space was built small because I was uncertain about how it would be received. I knew that I wanted to see a more diverse, more robust, gayer horror selection in bookstores. I knew that I wanted to meet people who believed in human-made art, practical effects, literature as catharsis for marginalization and very real political horrors…. etc etc etc. But there was always a chance that I was in the minority here, so I made a space that I could manage on my own if sales were slow and I was joined by just a few dedicated souls who could see this vision. Readers, I was wrong. Little Ghosts, in every way, surpasses my expectations. We extend what we offer in stages according to what I can afford out-of-pocket, and when an activity is high effort and no pay, I give my time and energy because the staff should only have to agree to labour that pays their bills. We have rolled out workshops, signings, artist markets, and even a weekend festival with a Horror Short Film portion, and y’all are feral for it. I have watched not one but three horror bookshops open in the four years we’ve been here, chatting with them by video call and cheering them on when I can. It’s beautiful to witness and heartening to be a part of and I am one man paying off the loan I took on to start it and now to expand our space to accommodate all our programming… I need help. I leapt, and I stumbled, because I didn’t build it big enough for y’all! Small piraña.

So, Little Ghosts… if you believe in what we do, have enjoyed our programming, and want to support us building an expanded workshop space to keep hosting our community. Now is the time! We are attempting to Look Before we Leap and not take on additional loans or move into a more expensive space, but expand where we are do to what’s been working (sometimes poorly, because we just can’t fit everyone). You can read all about it on our Crowdfundr page. If we don’t hit our goal, we will need to build in pieces, but we are hoping not to have to do that. Only 13 days left on our counter! If you donate, you can get some pretty cool fundraiser exclusive donation gifts, designed in house as always by yours truly. And of course, thank you, always always.

Back the Little Ghosts Workshop Campaign!

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