In an old, ivy-covered church, tucked behind the Ontario College of Art and Design, ghostly patterns, the only source of light, fly across the walls. Though the pews are packed, the only sound is the humming of ceiling fans as a full house awaits six very different tales of a ghostly, and sometimes ghastly, Toronto.
Gothic Toronto: Writing the City Macabre, held last Wednesday at St George the Martyr, was one of a handful of events at this year’s Luminato to pay homage to the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allen Poe.
Diaspora Dialogues, along with Luminato, gathered six Toronto writers to craft a tale showcasing the darker side of the city. The sinister sextet comprised Nalo Hopkinson, Cherie Dimaline, Andrew Pyper, Tasleem Thawar, Michelle Wan and Ann-Marie MacDonald. The stories ranged from a haunted Native Canadian Centre to a blood-thirsty bridegroom. Diaspora Dialogues president Helen Walsh said her team was looking for six different writers who would have the imagination to bring various neighbourhoods alive, or at least undead.
“We left it wide open. We said we wanted it to be macabre, but they could define that however they wanted,” Walsh said. “We had everything from ghost story to horror story to sad story. They all let their imaginations fly.”
Andrew Pyper chose to his own neighbourhood, Queen West, for the story When You Were Beautiful. He calls Queen West one of the most interesting neighbourhoods in the city and a natural place to situate ghosts.
“There’s a lot of interesting history and cultures of people all colliding: You have the young hipster-types, the drug-addled, various immigrants communities and then you have the new yummy-mommy families,” Pyper said. “The breadth of those communities is unique and for whatever reason, it’s always been a playground for darker elements.”
The setting of Pyper’s story, a polish butcher shop turned trendy restaurant, was inspired by a real shop complete with butcher’s widow.
“When I first moved into the neighbourhood, it was sort of derelict. It was just this empty space in which an old woman lived,” he said. “You’d see her in the window, wearing her dressing gown and her hair all crazy. She was a living ghost that I would see from time to time.”
Pyper said he enjoyed all his colleagues’ stories and likened the experience to ghost stories told around the campfire.
“(With ghost stories) I know there’s going to be a turn,” he said “It’s the fun of waiting for the six different turns.”
The author of Lost Girls and the Killing Circle, he’s currently working on his fifth novel, a book about friendship and a house that may or may not be haunted. Pyper said stories dealing with the paranormal are a primary interest for him, which is why he jumped on board the Gothic Toronto project right away.
“I love ghost stories. The collisions of reality and unreality have always been a preoccupation of mine,” he said.
Part of the fun of writing thrillers, Pyper explained, is that the author can’t just write something that pleasantly motors along. He hopes his new story will be one that will keep readers awake at night.
“There has to be some involvement on the part of the reader beyond a mild curiosity,” he said. “I like the idea of a reader being kind of fucked up by the process.”