Ever hear of the legend of Top Shelf Books? Gene Wolfe did!

I first heard about the legendary Top Shelf Books from four people who had frequented that mythical venue. However, they were not together when they mentioned the place, and the interval between tellings was years and across many locations. What I eventually learned was that it was a used book shop that hosted open-mic readings for writers. The “open-mic” writer’s group ran from ~2007-2013, in Top Shelf Books in Palatine, Illinois. It was uncanny that Top Shelf kept creeping into conversations, so I had to find out the history and then share it! Here are those who introduced me to the legend.

2015: Author Joe Bonadonna was the first. Back in 2015, he had reviewed my first novel and, by serendipity, we both joined forces as Perseid Press contributors for Heroika and Heroes in Hell, sharing six volumes; we even jointly wrote a story for Monsters in Hell. I adore Joe’s Dorgo the Dowser (Mad Shadows) books and interviewed him in 2022. Several times over the last decade, he mentioned Top Shelf.

2016: Chief editor of Black Gate, John O’Neill, was another Top Shelfer. I met John in person at the 2016 World Fantasy Convention, the same year and event in which Black Gate won the World Fantasy Special Award.  I began contributing to Black Gate in 2018, with one of my lead articles being coverage of Todd McAulty’s Robots of Gotham (spoiler alert: Todd McAulty is a pseudonym for John O’Neill). In 2019, at a Gen Con event with John and Howard Andrew Jones, I heard about the editing opportunity at Black Gate that led to becoming the Managing Editor.

2012 – 2022: David C. Smith’s Oron and Red Sonja books were hot topics in the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery group that I led for a decade. In fact, one of my better-cited Black Gate articles evolved from reading his work: Tales of Attluma: Review and Oron Series Tour Guide. Of course, David is still very active and just released his perspective on writing Sword & Sorcery in 2026 with Dark Muse News: Reviewing Arcane Arts and Cold Steel.

2021-2023: While leading the Gen Con Writers symposium and moderating panels, I met C.S.E. Cooney (Claire), a lead champion of Top Shelf. C. S. E. Cooney is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: first, for Bone Swans: Stories (2016), and most recently for Saint Death’s Daughter (2023); she also has a 2011 Rhysling Award! Before this recognition, she was helping other authors. Ha! She actually revealed all the secrets back in 2011, before I was Black Gate reader: Writers’ Nights, Open Mics, Literary Soirees: The Importance of Community.

These four all mentioned Top Shelf books to me across the last decade in disparate venues! Cripes, I kept saying: “Wait, you were there too?” Now, I feel like a want-to-be member trying to sign up after the show is over. Truthfully, I feel blessed to have met these folks. Their desire to better their craft while helping others is contagious and top-notch.

Top Shelf Books is closed now, but take heed. These visitors were largely meeting at Top Shelf before their writing careers/recognition took off, and they have all been actively helping other authors continuously for decades! Their infectious gratitude and creativity still spread.

Writer’s groups can very well be fun, providing camaraderie and legendary donuts. Let us learn from these role models and from their time at Top Shelf.

Time to re-read CSE’s “Writers’ Nights, Open Mics, Literary Soirees: The Importance of Community.”

First, a note from Top Shelf Owner Katie Redding

If anyone was a “mastermind” behind our literary salon, it was Claire. We met at Harper College in January of 2022 in an anthropology class.  We hit things off immediately, and things developed from there.  My main role was to operate the business and I wanted to support artists. I can’t take much more credit than that.  I guess I am the person who said, “YES, we can do that.”

The Top Shelf Years, by C. S. E. Cooney

I met Katie in a Native American anthropology class while completing my Gen Eds at Harper Community college in 2002. She mentioned that her mom owned a used bookstore in Palatine. I don’t think she believed me when I enthusiastically screamed how I’d always wanted to work at a bookstore! A used bookstore particularly! I think she got that a lot.

But I showed up for the interview and was hired. I’d worked at Crown Book previously, so I at least had some experience. When I moved to Chicago the next year to attend Columbia College Chicago for Fiction Writing and Acting, Katie mentioned that no one who ever moved to Chicago comes back to work in the Northwest suburbs. But I kept returning, every Saturday, to work at least one day a week throughout my college career, and to help run our once-a-month open mics as well.

I graduated in 2006, and Katie opened a second store in Chicago, just a few blocks from where I lived, called Kate the Great’s Book Emporium. It became a beacon for the arts. My co-manager J9 Vaughn and I, along with Katie, hosted art galleries, new plays festivals, open mics, poetry nights, concerts — the gamut. It was a wonderful place and certainly honed our hosting skills. Alas, Kate the Great’s Book Emporium never brought in as much foot traffic as we wished, and Katie had to close it after a few years.

Happily, the closing of Kate’s marked my return to Top Shelf Books! I started reverse-commuting back to the suburbs, and running more events there. I loved every minute of working hip-deep in dusty books, and meeting readers every day. These last three years, from 2008-2011 were when the open mics really started happening with greater regularity. We began to pull in people who used to attend Kate the Great’s events, as well as horror writing friends from Twilight Tales, a weekly reading series run by Tina Jens.

My friend and mentor, Gene Wolfe, who lived a few miles away in Barrington, IL, sometimes came to our events with his wonderful wife Rosemary, and would read from whatever short story or novel he happened to be working on.

In that time, John O’Neill would read, chapter by chapter, as he wrote The Robots of Gotham under his (then SUPER SECRET) pseudonym, Todd McAulty. I’d read from early drafts of Saint Death’s Daughter (in those days titled Miscellaneous Stones: Necromancer), or sometimes recite poetry.

My time at Top Shelf Books ended when I packed everything up and moved to Westerly, Rhode Island, which I’d visited once as a child and kept meaning to return to. It was the best and wisest move I’d ever made, even though it was the middle of a recession, and I was moving to a town where I had no job and few prospects. Though it was the adventure of a lifetime, and opened so many doors to me I could not at the time imagine, I will always regard my time at Top Shelf Books as formative. It was my favorite retail job I’ve ever worked, and certainly one of the most vibrant reading and writing communities I’ve ever been a part of. I’ll be grateful forever.

Gene Wolfe

As C.S.E. Cooney revealed, Gene Wolfe (yes, one of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, SFWA!) would sometimes attend Top Shelf Books. C.S.E. Cooney interviewed Gene Wolfe in 2010 for Black Gate where he provided writerly advice and explained the evolution of the New Sun series. John O’Neill explains the legend.

Interesting footnote to these photos, and the saga of Top Shelf. Rosemary had dementia, and Gene was her primary caregiver. He used to bring her to conventions with him, but that gradually became more challenging. One day, he was talking to his friend Rory at church, asking if he knew anyone who could help. Rory suggested his daughter, who eventually came to work for Gene, helping him and Rosemary travel to conventions. Over the years she got to meet and dine with numerous writers and publishers, including more than a few who offered writing advice and helped nudge her toward a stellar writing career. That hard-working young woman? None other than your friend and mine, C.S.E. Cooney…

In Gene Wolfe’s foreword, “Introducing C. S. E. Cooney” for her Bone Swans book, he detailed their fascinating relationship, and more amazingly, he described Top Shelf books! BTW, my daughter Erin Lindberg, who is a bibliophile and was studying Claire’s work because I was drafting this article, found this wonderful excerpt from Gene Wolfe (2015).

Picture me sitting in a small used-book shop with a banana cream pie on my lap. The young man reading at the lectern has given us a short-story that is certainly publishable and has now launched upon one that is not. We have had the poetry that suggests a poor article in Reader’s Digest cut up into uneven lengths, and the heart-wrenching personal memoir of the sister of a soldier killed overseas. And others. You know.

The readers are kept in order by Claire Cooney, a startling young blonde with a smile capable of lighting up a good-sized theater. At last she reads herself, a poem that rhymes and scans and grabs you from the opening line. The hero is a disfigured corpse floating down a city sewer, and it is funny when it is not horrible. (And sometimes when it is). She chants it, and her voice is clear and musical. I couldn’t be prouder of her if I were her father.

Reflections from John O’Neill

In November 2007, I attended the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York. There I met two young women from Chicago, Claire Suzanne Elizabeth Cooney and Katie Redding, who ran Top Shelf Books in Palatine. They invited me to join their small monthly reading group that met once a month.

The Top Shelf Open Mic evenings changed my life. It featured some enormously talented writers – including Gene Wolfe, Tina Jens, Michael Penkas, Joe Bonadonna, David C. Smith, Brendan Detzner, Dennis Depcik, Jeffery Westhoff, and Patty Templeton. And of course, C.S.E. Cooney herself, who would later win a World Fantasy Award for the book she workshopped at our gatherings, Saint Death’s Daughter.

At the time I was writing and publishing short stories in Black Gate under the name Todd McAulty, but the support and encouragement I received at Top Shelf gave me the courage I needed to try something much more ambitious. I started working on a series of stories set in a near-future Chicago after a robot apocalypse, which eventually became my first novel The Robots of Gotham. I wrote the first chapters in hotels while traveling for business, and read them out loud every month to the welcoming and enthusiastic attendees at Top Shelf.

If it wasn’t for Claire, who emailed me relentlessly until I finally came to my first Top Shelf Open Mic, and who was an incredibly astute and supportive listener, Robots would not exist. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude for that, and for much more. Claire eventually became our first website editor at Black Gate, and many of the talented folks I met at Top Shelf – including Michael Penkas, Joe Bonadonna, and Patty Templeton – became regular bloggers for us.

But the wonder of Top Shelf wasn’t really the amazing writers. I think focusing on those of us who got up to the podium every month misses what made Top Shelf truly special. What made it so magical was the warm and receptive audience. The sense that, month after month, there was a genuinely enthusiastic and engaged community somehow looking forward to the next installment of your broken manuscript. It was that belief — misguided as it might have been — that fueled countless late writing nights for me, and many breakthroughs. An undertaking as foolhardy as the 678-page manuscript for The Robots of Gotham simply wouldn’t have been possible at any other stage in my life. Not without that warm-hearted community cheering it on.

When I think of Top Shelf today, it’s that generous audience that I’m so grateful for. The wonderful Sally Tibbetts, who cheerleaded for us all, and who kept showing up long after her own daughter lost interest. Dave Michalak, our supernaturally talented dreamer, whose monthly tales of his dreams clearly demonstrated who had the most fertile imagination in our group. Karin Thogersen, whose open-hearted laughter single-handedly gave me the courage to add comedy to my strange little book. J9 Vaughn, a talented writer in her own right, whose enthusiasm was loud and infectious. Jahn Mitchell, quiet and thoughtful, whose opinion mattered. Patty Templeton, easily one of the most talented of our little band, whose passion for language made me strive to become a better writer. And Tina Jens, whose early approval and endorsement gave us our first taste of credibility in the Chicago literary scene.

Katie eventually sold Top Shelf Books in 2011, and it closed shortly thereafter. Claire moved to Rhode Island at the same time. The Open Mic carried on for a while, booking space in libraries and police stations, but it didn’t last long without a permanent home — or Katie and Claire behind the scenes. I miss it very much. To this day, when struggling writers ask for advice, I tell them the same thing: find a supportive writer’s group. If you’re very lucky, and find one that supports and energizes you the way the Top Shelf Open Mic did for so many of us, the results can be magical.

Joe Bonadonna: BOOKS, DONUTS, SNACKETY SNACKS & THE TOP SHELF SCRIBBLERS

I can’t recall the exact year when friend and fellow author David C. Smith took me to Top Shelf Books in Palatine, Illinois for a “browse and buy.” Katie Redding’s mother was the owner and manager at that time. Anyway, Dave’s wife, Janine, was working next door at the art supply store and she tuned us in to Top Shelf. At that time the bookstore had an adjacent room, Kindred Spirits, an arts-and-crafts store that sold a varietyof gift items and some antiques, where I often purchased some cool items. Sadly, Kindred Spirts closed, and the entrance leading from Top Shelf into the shop was walled off to allow for a small tea room that operated for some time.

Anyway, Top Shelf remained a favorite haunt for Dave and me. Memory fails me as to when we learned of the writer’s group that met there every second Thursday of the month, but in late 2010, Dave brought me there and introduced me to many of the regulars. At first, I was just spectator, and Dave was reading from his previously published works, as well as works in progress, such as Coven House and the revised, new edition of his trilogy, The Fall of the First World. Eventually, when my first novel — Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser — was published in 2011, I finally joined in and read excerpts from it, and later I’d read from my current works-in-progress.

Author Claire (C.S.E.) Cooney ran the show in those days and delighted us with excerpts from her World Fantasy Award Winning, Bone Swans. Then she moved on and Janelle Bada took over and remained our ringmaster until Top Shelf closed permanently. After that, she searched for other places where we could meet, such as the Palatine Police Department (true) and then the Palatine Public Library. Sadly, we could not find a suitable meeting place and the group disbanded, although many would continue to meet in downtown Chicago and even Oak Park, if memory serves me.

Top Shelf holds a special place in our hearts and in our memories. I made many friends and associates there, and pigged out on all the great snacks everyone brought to the monthly gatherings, especially Spunky Dunkers Donuts, courtesy of John O’Neill, who would then read excerpts from his novel, the terrific The Robots of Gotham. (I eventually became a contributor for Black Gate magazine.) Besides John, Dave Smith, Brendan Detzner (The Orphan Fleet), Janelle Bada, and Jeanine (J9) Vaughn entertaining us from their works-in-progress, there was also Michael Penkas, whose weird and wild short stories were worthy of the original Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Patty Templeton read from her wonderful, There Is No Lovely End. Jeffrey Westhoff read from his then work-in-progress, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, and Tina Jens introduced us to her The Blues Ain’t Nothin’: Tales of the Lonesome Blues Pub.

Sometimes there were book discussions and Q&A sessions, but never any harsh criticism that I recall. These evenings proved to be helpful, constructive, and even enlightening. It was a great group of people and those Thursday nights were made of pure magic.

There were also other forms of entertainment: Sally Tibbets would read poems from her favorite poets. Her daughter, Cynthia Glasson, would sing and play her ukelele. Julie Barnett (Mike Penkas’s gal), belonged to a choral group — The Sweet Adelines — and still does, I believe — and she would touch our emotions with many a song. I think Katie Redding also read from some of her favorite authors.

I remember meeting Arminzerella Smith, the late author Gene Wolfe, and a couple of guys named Dave, whose last names I, unfortunately, cannot recall. I did not meet Jason Waltz at Top Shelf but at Windy City Pulp and Paperback Convention (the exact year escapes me.) Also, while I had already exchanged a few emails with the late master of heroic fantasy, Howard Andrew Jones, we did not meet at Top Shelf but at the Windy City Pulp and Paperback Convention in 2011, where we exchanged copies of our first novels; we met again at Chicon 7 in 2012, I think it was.

Those were halcyon nights, for sure and we all wish they could have gone on forever. I miss the people, the conversations, the readings, the smell of old, used books, the variety of used books… and of course I miss all those great Snackety Snacks . . . especially the donuts.

David C. Smith

Joe recalls far more folks who used to attend the Top Shelf readings than I do, so I’m confident he has that part handled for you. The famous Patty Templeton! Mike Penkas! Howard Andrew Jones came by one time! Others!

My recollection is that they were held once a month on — the second Thursday of the month? John usually brought in two boxes of Spunky Dunkers donuts, famous here around Palatine and the general northwest environs of Chitown, which made John a very special member of our loose association. That and his robots.

I miss those evenings, miss them, miss them, miss them! Every time Janine and I drive past that plaza (we are close by) and see the building with part of a private school since having taken over the building, damn, I swear out loud.

I found two photos of myself, attached. There’s a group photo that I was sure I had somewhere, but now I can’t find it, *grrrr.* I even checked the old thumb drives I have in the filing cabinet drawer here. Nada.

[Editor’s sidebar: don’t worry, David, the others had you covered]

But look at those overloaded bookshelves behind me in both of those snapshots. An honest-to-God real live used-book store made for loafing and smiling in.

 

Now, Black Gate readers, it is time to soiree!

Start more legends!

 

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S.E. Lindberg is a Managing Editor at Blackgate.com, regularly reviewing books, interviewing authors on ‘Beauty & Art in Weird-Fantasy Fiction’, and running Dark Muse News. He has taken lead roles organizing the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium (2021-2023) and the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group; he even interned for Tales from the Magician’s Skull magazine and is an Assistant Editor for Battleborn magazine. As for crafting stories, he has contributed eight entries across Perseid Press’s Heroes in Hell and Heroika series, and has an entry in Weirdbook Annual #3: Zombies. He independently publishes novels under the banner Dyscrasia Fiction®; short stories of these have appeared in Whetstone and Swords & Sorcery online magazine, Rogues In the House Podcast’s A Book of Blades (Vol. I and Vol. II), DMR’s Terra Incognita, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Savage Realms Magazine, and Michael Stackpole’s S&S Chain Story 2 Project.