Established in 1970, Glad Day Bookshop is the world’s oldest LGBTQ bookstore and Toronto’s oldest surviving bookstore. In 2012, a group of 23 community members pooled their funds and bought Glad Day Bookshop to save it from closing.
Since 2012, Glad Day Bookshop book sales have increased by 30% (bucking the North American trend that saw book sales drop 25% in the same period). However, revenue streams like DVDs, erotic photo books and magazines have still been dropping while the cost of doing business continues to rise. We have been going into debt every year, so our choice is clear:
We need to move it or lose it!
Our best strategy for survival is adding new revenues streams like food and drink – which means a larger space. We’ve picked out a great spot on Church Street that would allow us to be a bookstore & coffee shop during the day and a bar at night. It is wheelchair accessible, with an accessible washroom. It has a cute patio, a small space for performances and walls for art.
We will be a space where everyone feels welcome, sexy and celebrated. We will be a queer-owned, indie place on Church Street. We will amplify the love, creativity, sexuality, diversity & liberation that Glad Day Bookshop is known for.
It’s not going to be easy – but it’s going to be fabulous.
And we can do it together.
In the last 4 years, Glad Day Bookshop has hosted over 700 author & performer appearances at over 160 events. We’ve been able to pay over $27,000 to authors & artists for their participation at events. We have had over 125 volunteers log in over 14,000 hours making us an important cultural and community hub; with more funds and more space we can expand the vital role we play in many people’s lives.
In 2013, we launched an online bookstore, which has over 1800 titles, including eBooks.
In 2015, we launched the Naked Heart Festival, which is already the largest and most diverse LGBTQ literary festival in the world.
How much money do you actually need?
We actually need over $200,000 for this move. It will cost over $120,000 for the equipment, materials, supplies, renos and licensing to set up this coffee shop and bar. It will cost over $30,000 for first and last month’s rent. The other $50,000 would be needed for other set-up costs, paying off some bookstore debt and having a prudent fiscal buffer
How do I donate?
Click here to check out the store’s IndieGoGo Campaign. The store is also seeking Angel Investors.
An Angel Investor is someone who is willing to lend us money at low or no interest rate. You can email erickson@gladdaybookshop.com for more information.
Hey, all. Author J.M. Frey here. I want to tell you why Glad Day Matters.
At age 15, we went on a field trip to Toronto, and one of the “cultural areas” our little group from rural Ontario was allowed to explore was The Village. At that age I’d heard the terms “gay” and “lesbian” before, but not “Bisexual”. I know ‘gay stuff’ was out there, but not anywhere that I could access.
I remember dragging some schoolmates up the narrow stairs to the store. They immediately zoned in on the magazine rack, where The Advocate, Now, and other such magazines (along with Playboys, Playgirls, and other titillating titles) were also shelved, enjoying the flirtation with naughtiness. I was pulled to the fiction section, however, and though I hadn’t got it in my head yet then that I wanted to be a writer, the sheer number of titles blew my mind. There was ‘queer stuff’ out there, and I could get it if I wanted to. I could get it here.
I wasn’t brave enough to buy anything that day, not in front of my classmates, but I never forgot where that store was. It was ingrained into my internal map of the city.
I visited the city again many times over the years, and never managed to make it back to the store because of the people I was with or the timeline I was on.
But the day after I moved to the city for my MA, I hopped on the subway to see if Glad Day was still where I remembered it being – this shrine to queerness that I had surrounded with a halo glow in my memory. And it was!
I don’t remember what I bought that day, but I remember thinking how pleased I was. I had come out as bi to my parents and a few friends by then, though I hadn’t really done so openly or publicly. And it meant so much to me to have a place, to have an anchor for my evolution and validation as a queer woman. I could shop there, and chat there, and read there, and find out about events there, without worrying that people would look at me funny or demand to know why this or that site was in my browser history.
Glad Day became my touchstone, the place I dropped in every time I passed by. I didn’t always have enough money to buy a book, but the cashiers and the patrons always made me feel welcome anyway, never hurried me along, and were always happy to chat, recommend books or films, or events, and were so kind to a self-conscious queer girl who wasn’t sure how to own the sexuality or identity she claimed.
So of course, Glad Day was one of the first places I celebrated my own book’s publication. I emailed them as soon as Triptych was available to order. I did a reading there, in their brand new event space. Only six people showed up, and eventually we just moved across the street to Bar Volo, but I didn’t care. I was on Cloud Nine. I had held an event at Glad Day! It was a milestone for me. It meant something.
That this place, this shrine, this hub of community and affection, respected me and recognized me as an author. This meant the world to me. It made my work valid, even in ways that my Lambda Literary Award nominations couldn’t touch.
Since then I’ve participated in several other events at Glad Day, including the Naked Heart festival. And I still always drop in to the store for a purchase, or at least a chat, when I am lucky enough to be in the neighborhood.
This move is an incredible opportunity for Glad Day to finally become not only fully accessible, but also to physically become the fully realized community hub it has always been in spirit. I cannot wait to have tea or raise a pint there, to buy books, browse magazines, chat with the owners, and also sit and write, or read, or chat with my neighbors on the patio, to celebrate local author’s books at launch parties and awards nights, and to be exposed to new and wonderful music-makers, filmmakers, writers, and creators.
Glad Day is the oldest surviving queer bookstore on the planet. But it has always been the beating heart and spinning brain of the queer community here in Toronto.
It’s time to make the move, to become accessible and a safe space for all, and to really celebrate what it means to have a queer voice, and shout with it from the rooftops.
We are here. We have always been here. We are not going away. Our voices deserve to be heard.
And at Glad Day, they are.
@diversityinya @lgbt-ya @lgbtqreads @lgbtposts @pride-and-freedom