Our Collaborators

Nikki Steinbaugh has been a used bookseller for over ten years. Her interest in owning an indie bookstore began when she became the manager of The Book Rack of the Quad Cities in 2017.  She has an MA in English from WIU and wrote her thesis on the feminist functions of the ghost in Neo-Victorian Gothic literature.  (Very specific literary nerds, we know you're out there!) She started The Macabre Librarian as an online store in 2018. Using her bookselling experience, she brought blind date with book to the QC area in 2022.

Nikki currently works at her local library to supplement TML, which she hopes to evolve into a brick-and-mortar store. She likes staying home, the month of October, horror stories,  talking to animals (scaled, furred, and feathered), iced tea, true crime podcasts, and her pet bunnies and tortoises. Her favorite book is The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice.