THE FINAL CHAPTER
Find the city’s scariest reads at Little Ghosts, Trinity Bellwoods’s newest booookstore
I follow some really amazing diverse voices who were releasing some wild books from small presses, but I couldn’t find them anywhere in a physical store.
CHRIS KRAWCZYK
While other kids were reading children’s books, Chris Krawczyk was already devouring adult horror novels. It all started with a gift of Clive Barker’s “Books of Blood” series — and Chris’s descent into darkness was complete. “My friend’s advice to me was, ‘Keep the strange and unusual close to your heart; they make life worth living,’ ” Chris says. “I really took that to heart.”
Chris also loves comics and, in 2015, opened the shop/café the Sidekick Comics in Leslieville. But Chris’s heart still belonged to horror.
“I follow some really amazing diverse voices who were releasing some wild books from small presses, but I couldn’t find them anywhere in a physical store,” Chris says. “I could get things off Amazon, but I wanted to shop locally and ethically. Eventually, I had a long list of publishers and books, and it seemed like what I had was a catalogue for a shop.”
Along with husband and coowner Jason Krawczyk, Chris opened Little Ghosts, at 930 Dundas St. W., Canada’s first bookstore/café dedicated to horror, in April. “A good story will haunt you” is emblazoned across one brick wall. “It’s a welcoming environment providing unimaginable horrors, like a warm nostalgic hug from a xenomorph,” Jason says. “And there’s also coffee!”
Little Ghosts carries everything from body-horror novels and thrillers to creature features, as well as non-fiction covering serial killers, alien abduction and historical funeral practices.
Why is the horror genre so beloved by so many? “I like the way it puts a face or a force to feelings of terror, unease, anxiety and dread,” Chris says. “Imagine your problems were a ghost, a monster, a serial killer — that the thing stealing your power could be punched or séanced or set on fire. That you could kill it, that you could triumph. Horror is cathartic.”
Horror can also serve as an allegory for many issues, whether it’s racism (as in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”) or homophobia (as in “The Route of Ice & Salt,” a gay retelling of “Dracula”). The Krawczyks prioritize diversity when curating their selection. “While we have some classics (by the likes of Octavia Butler, Tananarive Due and Koji Suzuki), we are looking to bring to the forefront underrepresented authors who haven’t had access to broader distribution or don’t often see their books in stores,” Chris says. “Folks are doing amazing work presenting those ideas in new and terrifying ways.” Some of their recent favourites include the independently published anthologies “The Book of Queer Saints” and “Your Body Is Not Your Body” (proceeds from the latter go to an organization for trans youth in Texas).
Little Ghosts also hosts author signings and book launches and is debuting a subscription service in June, for which folks can sign up online for a new book every month or quarter, or for a yearly box with merch and discount codes for the online store. The Krawczyks even hope to release horror books of their own someday. “Little Ghosts can be a bookstore and a publishing house, right?” Jason says. “We’ll need to learn the finer points of publishing and clear some of our current plates, but it’s equal parts exciting and terrifying. Just like the store.”