The people at Glad Day Bookshop are business savvy community heroes, no doubt about it!

Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto is the world’s oldest LGBTQ bookstore since the closure of New York City’s Oscar Wilde Bookshop in early 2009. Glad Day started in 1970 and has occupied its current location on Yonge Street since 1981. After several owners and many difficult challenges, the bookstore was purchased by a collective of 22 owners in 1991. The store is a cultural hub, with a variety of readings, public events, community meetings and performances in the upstairs space.

However, they continue to struggle day-to-day to keep their revenue stream alive. The fact is, small bookstore businesses across America have been closing rapidly due to massive competition involving online sales, big box booksellers, e-books and Kindle. Still an appealing and well-loved feature in our urban landscape, many people have little clue as to their struggles or why these favourite haunts disappear.

Glad Day Bookshop has been one of the few to still survive. This is a sign you should trust their strategy. Presently, strategy calls for radical changes, and Glad Day is a radical place! After surveying their customers, Glad Day has learned their role as a hub is of significant importance to Toronto. With a track record of hosting over 700 author and performance appearances since 2012, they’ve got the right formula.

However, this historic community presence needs your help now and has set up an Indiegogo campaign with great rewards. In their own words, they must “move it or lose it!” Glad Day Bookshop has chosen a larger space on Church Street that would accommodate a bookstore and coffee shop by day, and a bar at night. Unlike their current location, this one will be wheelchair accessible, with an accessible washroom as well. It has a patio, wall space for hanging art and definitely a performance space attached.

“The Big Move” has some great rewards for people who make a donation to their cause. Do the right thing and check out their Indiegogo page! 

Let’s all help keep the dream alive. You’ll be Glad you did!

About the Author

SK Dyment has been a cartoonist and illustrator for many years and has been published in over two dozen Canadian indy magazines and journals. SK loves sketching passing interpretations of intriguing people in pen-and-ink, and is often seen attending various activist-oriented events around Toronto. He is also available for quick illustrations of all sorts as well as more serious forms of illustration. SK Dyment maintains a website @ www.graphicrecording.ca