Little Ghosts Bookstore didn’t open by mistake.
When the team behind 930 Dundas St. W. launched Canada’s first dedicated horror bookshop in April 2022, it was a deliberate answer to something Canadian retail had been ignoring for years: a growing community of readers — queer, diverse, deeply passionate about the genre — who couldn’t find themselves on any bookstore shelf.
Four years later, that answer has grown into something few independent bookstores in this city have managed to become. A small press. A film festival. A screenwriting workshop. Two monthly book clubs. Over 90 author events. A travelling brewery festival. And this month, a joint pop-up with Hopeless Romantic Books inside Union Station, while a CrowdFundr campaign runs in parallel to convert a garage behind the flagship into a dedicated workshop space.
The diverse, queer, BIPOC-authored, small press horror that had been thriving in the U.S. and U.K. for years simply wasn’t making it onto Canadian shelves. Horror-only bookstores existed south of the border. Small presses dedicated to the genre. Major publishers with horror imprints. The ecosystem was there — just not here.
“The lack of diverse stock in horror media in regular bookstores was the core problem,” says Chris, owner of Little Ghosts Books. “There is a lot of work being done by people of colour, queer people, and small press creators in horror, and I was not seeing any of it in Canadian book retail.”
Chris already owned The Sidekick, a comic book store and café in Leslieville, before Little Ghosts existed. He viewed 26 spaces before signing a lease — big front windows, natural light to offset all-black shelving, a back patio for outdoor readings, no knob-and-tube wiring. A Cabbagetown space had beautiful exposed brick and a striking front window. No outdoor space. He passed.
Then he walked into 930 Dundas.
“The real estate agent left and I called her two minutes after she left,” Chris recalls. “If it’s not this, it’s nothing. It’s this one.”
Natural light fills the space past black bookcases lined wall to wall, a sliding ladder running along the main shelf. A coffin-shaped mirror. Ghostly photography. A display window where a skeleton peers out at the street alongside VHS props that tell you exactly what kind of place this is before you’ve reached the door.
Out back, a 12-foot skeleton named R.L. Spine presides over bistro-style red metal tables where customers linger over drinks from the in-house café.
“When people are going to hang out for an hour or two, to be able to give them a drink and say, ‘You’re allowed to linger — please do,’ that has always been important to us,” Chris says. “People want to talk about books. Telling them they’re welcome by offering that is everything.”
Every piece of Little Ghosts merchandise is designed and produced by hand. The store draws visitors from as far as Sweden who put it on their Toronto itinerary before booking their flights.
@littleghostsbooks Did you know that Little Ghosts is running a crowdfund to renovate the back garage into a beautiful workshop and community space? Help this Little Ghost transform a scary space into something wonderful for book clubs, readings, and more! https://crowdfundr.com/littleghostsbooks?ref=sh_2EjtBc_ab_8VcgL7Qoozx8VcgL7Qoozx #littleghostsbooks #booktok #toronto #crowdfund ♬ original sound – LittleGhostsBooks
Chris handles developmental editing for the press, all merchandise design, and every book cover the imprint produces. His husband Jason is writer-in-residence, teaching screenwriting workshops inside the store and publishing through Little Ghosts Press. Kristin brings 15 years of Indigo bookselling experience to the shelves and writes book reviews for the newsletter. Phi commands the events schedule and serves as copy editor for the press.
All decisions are made collectively. It is the team’s stated intention to restructure as a worker cooperative once the startup loan is fully paid off.
“We are the same people this whole time,” Chris says. “Four years, the same team, and it is genuinely lovely. It would not be itself without any single one of us.”
Little Ghosts Press publishes four books a year with a focus on queer horror writers. Its first title was Demons & Death Drops: An Anthology of Queer Performance Horror. Its most recent release is Student Bodies by T.T. Madden.
“Most of our work is looking at what the small presses are doing and what our favourite queer authors have coming,” Chris says. “That’s where the most exciting horror is happening right now.”
Little Ghosts has hosted over 90 book launches and author readings to date, running roughly three events per month — more during Halloween season when publishers cluster their horror releases. Two monthly book clubs run year-round. A monthly Work in Progress Night — now in its second year — gives local writers a space to share work and receive peer feedback. A quarterly Spooky Marketplace brings artisans, craftspeople, and tarot readers into the store at low or no cost. All programming is offered free when possible.
The team also organizes Books and Brews, a travelling festival through Toronto’s brewery community with independent booksellers and small press publishers. Last October marked the inaugural Little Ghosts Fest: two days, six panels, 22 vendors, and a short film festival that packed a room of 200 and immediately outgrew its venue. This year, the film programming is in talks to move to the Revue Cinema. In 2025 alone, Jason led four sold-out five-week screenwriting workshops inside the store — participants are now actively planning to shoot their scripts.
“It is our dream to one day program short films at the festival that were written inside Little Ghosts,” Chris says. “We are touching film very carefully right now. But we are touching it.”
Larger podcasts want to record there. Bigger reading series want to be hosted there. Brokers and outside brands have approached about second locations and scaled partnerships.
“Getting bigger is not necessarily better,” Chris says. “That just means bringing in more that does not fit what we are. The answer to some of those conversations is no, and it is going to stay no.”
Union Station was a different conversation.
Hopeless Romantic Books — Toronto’s first dedicated romance bookstore, which opened its flagship at 1080 Queen St. W. in October 2025 — approached the Little Ghosts team about a joint pop-up in the station’s retail corridor. The two stores already knew each other well. Hopeless Romantic had hosted the launch of Wet Screams, an erotic horror anthology published by Little Ghosts Press.
“They are the brand that most embodies the idea that a rising tide raises all ships,” Chris says. “They came to us and said, ‘This is a great opportunity, but it is also an expensive one. If we split it, it becomes more approachable and far more interesting.’ We did not hesitate. It was exactly the right partnership at exactly the right moment.”
@hopelessromantic_books how we built this is in 5 days if you’re wondering 🔨 @LittleGhostsBooks @hrb.shelly ♬ original sound – Hopeless Romantic Books
Splitting costs across two small businesses made a high-rent, high-traffic location viable where it wouldn’t have been alone. The entire build came together in under a week — Little Ghosts handling furniture and logistics, Hopeless Romantic managing communications. The pop-up opened the week before Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day, and lineups formed at the door on opening day.
January and February are the quietest months on Dundas as Trinity Bellwoods empties out. The Union Station pop-up bridges that gap, running through May 31 and handing momentum back to the flagship just as the Halloween season build begins.
“Union Station could have chosen any bookstore,” Chris says. “They chose to reach out to small businesses. That matters — and it should matter to anyone paying attention to where Toronto retail is heading.”
The pink-and-black storefront sits on the station’s lower retail level in the Front Street Promenade, open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. through May 31. The reaction online was immediate — commenters calling it a “dream crossover” and promising to reroute their daily commutes.
Behind the flagship’s back patio sits a 500-square-foot garage. The landlord has granted full permission to convert it into a dedicated workshop space at no additional rental cost — the expansion Little Ghosts has needed without a move, a second location, or any compromise on what the flagship is.
As programming has grown, the team has been forced to choose between running events and functioning as a retail space — customers arriving to browse shelves blocked by event seating. The workshop resolves that entirely, creating a dedicated space for larger book launches, zine-making circles, screenwriting sessions, and community studio rentals without ever closing the store floor.
The CrowdFundr campaign has raised $18,889 of its $75,000 goal with five days remaining. Crowdfundr’s keep-it-all model means every dollar goes toward the build regardless of the final total. Backer rewards include handmade ceramic ghost wall plaques to be permanently installed in the store, a limited-edition Little Ghosts Forever T-shirt, and — at the $10,000 level — the right to name the workshop space itself.
“It makes us feel like we are giving something back to the people who are giving something to us,” Chris says. “That exchange is how Little Ghosts has always worked.”
“We love our space,” Chris says. “It has just gotten a little tight. We did not want to move. We would rather build.”
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Four years. A bookstore that became a press, a festival, a film program, and a community — and now a pop-up in Canada’s busiest transit hub, with a dedicated workshop on the way.
“A good story will haunt you,” reads the Little Ghosts tagline.
Four years in, so does the bookshop.
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BY THE NUMBERS
- 4 years since Little Ghosts Books opened at 930 Dundas St. W.
- 4 people on the Little Ghosts team
- 4 books published annually by Little Ghosts Press
- 4 sold-out five-week screenwriting workshops in 2025
- 90+ author events and book launches hosted to date
- 3 author signings per month on average (more during Halloween season)
- 2 monthly book clubs running year-round
- 2 years of the monthly Work in Progress Night for authors
- 1 annual horror festival — Little Ghosts Fest, launched October 2025
- 22 vendors at the inaugural Little Ghosts Fest
- 200 capacity at the Little Ghosts Fest short film festival — sold out
- 500 sq ft garage being converted into a dedicated workshop space
- $18,889 raised on CrowdFundr toward a $75,000 workshop renovation goal
- May 31, 2026 — final day of the Union Station pop-up
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Little Ghosts Books is at 930 Dundas St. W., Toronto, open daily. The Union Station pop-up runs through May 31, 2026 at the Front Street Promenade, open daily 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. Support the workshop campaign at crowdfundr.com/littleghostsbooks. Follow @littleghostsbooks on Instagram.
Dustin Fuhs is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of 6ix Retail, Toronto’s premier source for retail and hospitality industry news. As the former Editor-in-Chief of Retail Insider, Canada’s most-read retail trade publication, Dustin brings over two decades of expertise spanning retail, marketing, entertainment and hospitality sectors. His experience includes roles with industry giants such as The Walt Disney Company, The Hockey Hall of Fame, The Canadian Opera Company, Starbucks Canada and Blockbuster.
Recognized as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024, 2025 and 2026, Dustin delivers insider perspectives on Toronto’s evolving retail landscape, from emerging brands to established players reshaping the city’s commercial districts.