Before beginning the article proper, I feel obligated to turn your attention to a recent scandal much more important than whatever the hell Tiger Woods is up to. Canadian science fiction writer Dr. Peter Watts was recently beaten, pepper-sprayed, and arrested at the Canada-U.S. border by U.S. border guards when he was crossing back into Canada. The U.S. border patrol decided to search his car, and when he asked why, they considered this provocation enough for the use of force. As if that wasn’t enough, Dr. Watts was then slapped with the charge of “assaulting a federal officer” and now faces up to two years in the American prison system. His friends in the science fiction community are currently gathering support for his legal defense, and if you would like to make a contribution, Bakka-Phoenix Books is collecting donations.  For more information on the Peter Watts case, please read Cory Doctorow’s post on BoingBoing.
Now, the feature presentation...

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A few years ago, my family home was under renovation, and I got to talking with our contractor, Tyson. As it turned out, we were both into science fiction.
“Have you ever been to Bakka-Phoenix?” he asked.
“Bakka wha...?”
“Bakka-Phoenix. Best independent bookstore in Toronto. It specializes in genre fiction. They’re located at 697 Queen Street West. Their phone number is 416-963-9993, and their website is bakkaphoenixbooks.com. You should check it out.”

Alright, so maybe those weren’t his exact words, but that was what he meant to say.
Fast-forward to December 12th, 2009:

One store, a bastion of dignity, in fair Toronto where we lay our scene. It’s a frigid winter afternoon, though SB editor Curran tells me this is nothing compared to Edmonton. He proceeds to insult my manliness and the thinness of my baby-soft, well moisturized skin. SB’s photographer, Matt, dashes gallantly about, snapping photos of the shelves packed with colourful book spines for this article’s cover, navigating the bustle of regular customers and newcomers at Bakka-Phoenix’s Christmas gathering. There’s free food and drinks. Curran and I munch on cookies and watch Matt work.  Local author Paul Chafe signs books at the back of the store.

When things finally begin to calm down and the crowd has thinned out, store manager Chris Szego leads me into the back room, which could easily double as a meat freezer. We clear books and winter apparel off two chairs and the interview begins.

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But first! A little bit about Chris. Chris Szego was a regular customer of Bakka-Phoenix before being hired as the manager in 2000. Her interest in genre fiction began as a childhood obsession with fairy tales. Chris is also a writer. She has published genre and non-genre fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. She writes a regular column for The Cultural Gutter on romance novels, because the fantasy and science fiction column was taken. She writes regularly for the Canadian Booksellers Association. She has also written for Gardening Life, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, and a number of other publications. In 2008 she won the Toronto Star short story award, which funded a lovely vacation to Italy. You can read her winning story “Cry Wolf.”

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[My interview skills being unmatched in the realm of reporting, I begin by stating an obvious fact advertised on the Bakka-Phoenix website.]

Me: So, Bakka Phoenix is Canada’s oldest Science Fiction bookstore.

Chris: That’s very true.

[When my statement yields the obvious answer, I move onto a figure from my Wikipedia research.]

Me: Yeah, since... What is it... since nineteen-seventy...?

Chris: 1972. Yes. In fact, there aren’t even all that many left. As far as I’m aware I think that the White Dwarf is still out in Vancouver, but the other ones... Nebula in Montreal is gone, and there was House of Speculative Fiction. That’s gone. But we’ve been around since 1972, and it’s changed hands three times. In 1980, it was purchased from the original owner [Charles McKee] by John Rose, who owned it from 1980 until 2003 when it changed hands and Ben Freiman [the current owner] came on. That was when we added the “Phoenix” so that it is “Bakka-Phoenix Books,” and that was something new, something reborn. But we have been continuously in operation. We are probably one of the oldest in North America, although that I’m not entirely certain about, so... but I do know we are the oldest in Canada.

Me: Cool. And there have been a number of big Canadian sf writers here who... [...who have worked at Bakka-Phoenix.  I articulate this inarticulately.]

Chris: [Chuckles] We used to joke with John, the former owner, that for someone who had no desire to write, he was sending out into the world a... you know, his army of minions, science fiction minions, to spread the word of John everywhere because, you know, Rob Sawyer, Tanya Huff, Fiona Patton, Michelle Sagara, Cory Doctorow, Nalo Hopkinson, Karina Sumner-Smith, Leah Bobet, yeah, it just goes on and on. And... you know, did I mention Cory Doctorow? He’s someone that people may have heard of: a young up-start named Cory Doctorow [sf writer and co-editor of Boing Boing.] Yeah, so lots of people have, and it’s partly because writers are often drawn to bookstore work. Frankly, I think that for many people who want to make a living writing fiction, it should be required. It should be like a class you have to take. This is the year you spend working in the bookstore.

Me: I still have to take that class.

[We laugh at my dazzling wit and subtle plea for paid employment. In the background, Karina Sumner-Smith’s cell phone begins to ring in her purse.]

Chris: It’s a good class! If nothing else, it teaches you about the book as product. Which, while not soulless and heartless, particularly not in an independent setting, it is also fact, and you need to be aware of that, as your book isn’t... As a writer your book is your baby, it’s your precious [obligatory Lord of the Rings reference], you’ve spent the blood, sweat and tears etcetera, etcetera. It has meant everything to you for so long. It is, however, one book on a shelf, you know? And there’s a hundred other books on that shelf and five-hundred more on the bay and sixty bays in the store. And just learning that, and learning to be comfortable with large stacks of books, and with the process of publishing, of getting the hardcover into paperback, length of time between books by certain authors, length of time between books by the same author, at certain publishers versus other publishers -- just the cycles of the publishing industry. You just begin to absorb them in the same way you absorb the cycles of the academic year just by being a student. You don’t have to study that. You just get it. And I think that’s really valuable. I think more writers need to know that. It would certainly save them on some of the heartbreak of “Oh my God!  Why is my first book not an instant bestseller!?!”

[The backroom door opens behind me. Someone enters the scene. Cue foreboding music.]

Someone: Sorry, Chris! For parking, they say they’re only supposed to park for three hours? Do they need to try to find another parking spot?

Chris: No, they can stay in the same spot. They just need to get a new ticket.

Someone: O.K. Thank you!

Me: I’ll cut that out, don’t worry.

[Laughter.]

Chris: Ah, the glamour!

Me: Yes, the glamour. So, as you mentioned, Bakka’s of course an independent bookstore. What do you feel about the current environment for independent booksellers right now, and the future of independent bookstores?

Chris: That’s a good one. [For the record, I only ask good questions.] It’s one of those either-or’s. [Karina’s phone starts to ring again.] On the one hand, it is a really good time for independent bookstores, largely in the sense that the ones that were not well run are dead now. They were culled. [The following may disturb some readers. Reader discretion is advised.] When Chapters first came on the scene, a lot of independent bookstores got chewed up and spit up. When Indigo came on the scene and the two of them went directly head-to-head competing with one another, bookstores dropped like flies. It was a horrible time. I actually left Chapters for an independent [Bakka] when Indigo was just starting up.

[Someone Else enters.]

Someone Else: Knock knock! Hi!

[Oh, it’s Paul Chafe. The sub-plot thickens.]

Paul: Hey, I’m just looking for my coat.

Chris: I hung your coat around the corner. At the end of that coat rack.

Paul: Right on. I just have to move the car.

Chris: Oh, you don’t have to move the car. Just get a new ticket. You’re not on the north side, are you? You’re on our side of the street?

Paul: Yes. We have the perfect parking place actually. It’s right in front of the store.

Chris: Then all you need is a new ticket. You don’t have to move the car.

Paul: Right on. Just have to find some change... Where’s my change? Here we go. Cheers!

[Exit Paul Chafe.]

Chris: Um... independent bookstores.

Me: Yes.

Chris: Yes. Tough times. Lots of wonderful independent bookstores disappeared, because they are often a labour of love. You don’t make a lot of money. You do not go into bookselling to make a lot of money. In the same way, you don’t go into a career writing fiction, particularly... well, actually, not particularly genre fiction, but you don’t go into it expecting to make a lot of money. You do it because you love it and if you make a lot of money that’s a nice bonus. However, after... well, the first big blow was the advent of GST [Goods and Service Tax for all you non-Canadian readers] to books, because when they brought in the GST they always swore that it wouldn’t apply to books and then suddenly it did. Right at the end. That caused a huge drop in... for instance, with Bakka-Phoenix it caused a huge drop in our used book sales. Like, huge. Eighty-five percent vanished pretty much overnight. [Karina’s phone starts to ring again.] Then came Chapters, the rise of the big box store, then came Indigo, and it was bloody in Toronto, the in-fighting. They would open stores directly across the street from one another and kill every independent in a kilometre radius, because nobody could afford to discount everything forty percent. And then Indigo emerged triumphant and swallowed Chapters and things levelled off. Then Amazon came online and there was another big, uh... readjustment. But in many ways it has stabilized, which means that many of the bookstores that are still here are here, and they do so by specializing. You can find way more books on Amazon than you can find in my store, but you can’t talk to anybody about them. You can read online reviews, but let’s face it, an Amazon review is worth only what you choose to let it be worth. You know, people write “This book sucks,” and they spell book “B-U-K” and sucks “S-U-X,” and you know this is something you don’t need to pay attention to. You can’t ask the friendly staff person. You can in the sense of the algorithm that they program. You can get suggestions for “if you liked x, y, and z you might also like 1, 2, and 3,” but that’s based on math rather than language, and books are all about language.  People come to us looking for recommendations all the time, and speaking of math, we do try to triangulate to get a sense of other things that they have liked.

Me: Yes, I’m familiar with the “pick three books” system at Bakka, or “pick three authors.”

Chris: Yes, I shouldn’t downplay the math entirely, but it’s also not random, and human beings are still good for that. Also, it fosters a sense of community, which, in a city, is easier to do then... If you live out in a small town in the middle of nowhere you might not have access to these books anywhere now, except online. And for that I think it’s great.

[Enter Karina.]

Chris: [To Karina.] You’ve been chiming like crazy.

Karina: I’m sorry.

Me: Karina, how dare you.

[The cell phone is beaten. Its cries are silenced. Exit Karina, stage left.]

Chris: But in Toronto, you have access to pretty much any kind of bookstore you want. You want all business books, we’ve got that, you want science fiction, we’ve got that, you want mystery, psychology, feminist literature, all of that, we have it. Again, we’re a large urban center, so it’s made possible that way. But you’ll notice, the independent bookstores, they pick one thing that they do well and then they do it. So yeah, as I said earlier, if you’re still around, it’s likely because you’re good at what you do, and if you are good at what you do, you will likely be around for quite some time. I hope.

Me: And speaking of being around: the move.

Chris: Yes, exciting! We moved into this location on Queen West... it’ll be five years ago in February since we moved. It was a hellish process. We had a very short period of time in which to find a location, grab it, and move into it. It was not without excitement, but it was also a huge amount of work.  Really frightening.  And I swore that the next time we moved, just the notion of moving would be a sign from the gods that I needed a new job. And instead I’m really looking forward to this. We will be moving in the spring to 84 Harbord St. It is the north-west corner of Harbord and Spadina. We will have at least twice as much space. Possibly more. And one of the things I’m really excited about, and Ben is, and all of the staff is, is that some of our space will be dedicated to... space, so that we can actually begin to have a formal physical community in the same way that we have a mental and emotional community.

Me: Chairs!

Chris: We will have chairs! We’ve already had one gaming group approach us saying they would like to have their gaming club there. That will be once a month. We would like to have a place that a writer’s group could meet. That a book club could meet. And our new space will offer that. So yeah, it’s exciting.

[Exeunt.]

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The new Bakka-Phoenix will open sometime in the Spring of 2010 at 84 Harbord Street. It will have two floors (the current location has one). Plus it will be a five minute walk from Spadina subway station.  Keep updated via the Bakka-Phoenix blog.