about
The purpose of the bookstore is to supply you with stories to both lose and find yourself in. The space also facilitates a library and a community initiative to get books into the hands of organizations, schools, etc. that need.
We carry immersive fiction, fantasy and sci-fi and non-fiction that will give you can relate to, learn from, and give you language for your experiences. We also have a wide variety of kids books that are diverse, inclusive, and empowering.
We connect schools and programs with the resources and education they need to create more inclusive libraries.
Meghan Malcolm | she/they | Creator of Willow Press
meghan malcolm | they/she
I believe in the power of fantasy. The respite of escape through imagination. The validation of seeing yourself in a character.
The development of understanding others.
Willow is focused on revitalizing the fantasy genre + connecting people with stories and education that they can find and lose themselves in. I’m disenchanted with the ostentatious protagonists and overdone narratives that saturate the genre. I also don’t think the fantastical is just reserved for elves, dragons, and other worlds at war.
Magic can be found in our world. It’s in the grit of a matriarch, the mystical nature of a misfit, or the transfiguration caused by love. Resiliency: an acquired power.
Willow is author-owned. Writing fantasy is very personal to me because, growing up, fantasy was my reprieve. I filled notebooks, got hooked on comics, and had my first moments of validation as a queer person watching nerdy TV series. I retreated to imagined worlds and made fictional friends.
I lost and found myself in made-up worlds.
The name of the press is inspired by the character Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watched the series through some very formative years and I always felt a strong connection to her. I felt comforted knowing there was someone like me. That connection allowed me to escape to a fantasy world all while discovering truths about myself, making her story one I could both lose myself in and find myself in.
I work to write a bewitching blend of equal parts candor and curiosity.
Work that you can both identify with and escape into.
I also have a background in gender + sexuality education. I use this to find the best and most inclusive and empowering resources and stories for all ages. I connect schools and programs with these books and am expanding into offering more in this arena.
All in all, stories and the way they allow us to witness ourselves and others is why I started Willow and will continue to grow it.
I hope the stories of this press become a haven for you to find + lose yourself in too.
Meghan Malcolm
More of the Team…
Megan Wray | she/her | Manager + Writer
Megan is a queer, mixed-race Japanese Canadian yonsei (4th generation) writer and poet based on Treaty 1 Territory. In 2019, she left her university English program after feeling chronically unseen in the stories she studied, and began interning at Willow. Now, she manages Willow, co-facilitates Mata Ashita, a virtual, intergenerational writing group for Japanese Canadians, and loves a good ol’ DIY project.