Looking for your next spooky read? Now you can browse a brand new bookstore that specializes in the genre! The Twisted Spine, an independent bookstore focused on horror and “dark literature” just opened up in Brooklyn, New York, earlier this month. I made sure to visit during opening week so I could tell you all about it.
Genre specialty bookstores seem to be growing in popularity. In fact, The Ripped Bodice, a romance bookstore that first opened in Los Angeles in 2016, expanded to a second location in Brooklyn just a couple of years ago and saw a similarly enthusiastic welcome to The Twisted Spine. In many ways, I think these highly curated and specialized indie stores are a reaction against the over-saturation of the book market and the algorithm-driven chaos of Amazon and other online retailers. Horror as a genre is also having a real boom right now—as it so often does in times of uncertainty and rapid change, since it reflects the anxieties of a society. Now is really the perfect time for a horror specialty bookstore, as Twisted Spine owners Lauren Komer and Jason Mellow clearly saw.
Opening an independent bookstore is no easy feat. In order to build up some capital and get the word out, The Twisted Spine started out last year as just an occasional pop-up with an online presence. I first met the team at the Brooklyn Book Festival last September, where they had a table with an excellent selection of horror books and were handing out stickers with their logo. They also had a table at a local “halfway to Halloween” gothic market at No Filter Coffee Shop in May. As they set their sights on opening up a brick-and-mortar location before the end of 2025, The Twisted Spine launched a Kickstarter campaign, with rewards ranging from a digital copy of an exclusively commissioned short story to getting your name engraved on a tombstone in their courtyard. The Kickstarter raised over $40k, giving them a great head start on the expenses of building out their new space, stocking up on books, and hiring staff.
The Twisted Spine’s physical store, located at 306 Grand Street in Williamsburg, officially opened on September 6. Excited customers lined up down the block and nearly picked the shelves clean. I didn’t make it to the store on opening weekend, but I did go to their very first author event, a launch party for Clay McCleod Chapman’s new short story collection Acquired Taste, on September 9. The event was packed, with nearly a hundred attendees squeezed into the modest space, but they managed to leave a small aisle in which Chapman gave a brilliant performance of several of the stories from his collection. Afterwards, the signing line stretched the length of the store, giving fans plenty of time to browse the shelves and pick out a few additional books to buy as they made their way to the front.
The Twisted Spine fully leans into the spooky aesthetic, with plush, black armchairs, a gloomy painting of a storm-lashed ship above and electric fireplace, ornamentally carved shelves in dark-washed wood, and a gorgeous stamped-tin ceiling. On the shelves, the books are organized in a unique arrangement based on horror tropes, niches, and subgenres. There’s a shelf for “Haunted Houses,” “Cosmic,” and “Creature Corner,” as well as for crossovers with other genres like science fiction, fantasy, and romance. Tables in the center spotlight books by queer and underrepresented authors. While this subjective shelving style may make it a bit more challenging to find a particular title, it does make it easy to discover new reads based on what vibe you’re in the mood for and the similar books nearby. This goes back to the emphasis on curation that these genre bookstores excel in. While I might debate some of the specific shelving choices (personally, I think putting both Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and Brynne Weaver’s Butcher & Blackbird series on the “Romance” shelf conflates two very different meanings of the word…), I love that this encourages shoppers to come in with an open mind, engage with the booksellers, and potentially pick up something they’ve never heard of.
More than just a bookstore, though, The Twisted Spine clearly prioritizes being a space for community. With a large cafe and wine bar at the center of the store, customers are encouraged to sit down and linger. I haven’t yet had a chance to taste their offerings, but I saw that the menu includes a “Mary Shelley” coffee drink and a pastry called a “zombie pie.” There’s seating around the bar as well as plenty of tables and chairs outside in their courtyard. And if their first couple of weeks are anything to go by, the store will have a robust calendar of events. Prior to opening the physical space, The Twisted Spine has been hosting a movie night series (that I believe they plan to continue) called Dark Sparks, in which they screen films that have inspired particular authors. There will also, of course, be book launch events like the one I attended for Clay McLeod Chapman. And their first off-site author panel event, an “Extra Spooky Monday the 13th Celebration” on October 13 with a whole slate of Tor authors including Mira Grant, Chuck Tingle, Cassandra Khaw, and P. Djeli Clark, sold out in a matter of hours. I’m excited to see what other events they do in the future.
If you love not just horror novels but the whole community of people around them and you’re in the NYC area, definitely check out The Twisted Spine! Then come back and tell me what you think (and what you bought!) in the comments. Reading horror, supporting indie bookstores, and building community are three of my very favorite things, so I’m thrilled to have a place like The Twisted Spine in my borough!