Scriptus 2026

Another year, another Scriptus!

In some ways we were the least prepared we’ve ever been, but in others we were the most experienced we’ve been so far, so it all balances out. Historically we’ve brought a bigger team, but that’s always meant the store was slammed, so as with all things in life, we tweak the balance and hope for the best.

Lots of familiar things, like Franklin-Christoph prototypes, our Wonder Pens Unite banner, a few new things, like the Fine Writing International Pencket with a special Scriptus edition nib. We didn’t have a Scriptus postcard, and if you’re a regular with us you may have noticed we haven’t had postcards for a while: our printer has been out of the usual paper stock we get our postcards printed on, and then as time was ticking to Scriptus, knowing that maybe a couple of you like to collect the Scriptus postcard, we tried pivoting to another paper. Turns out that one was thought to be in stock, but not quite—so we came empty-handed.

But! The kids had a candy shop, and while they ate their way through a fair bit of their margin, they ended up donating $500 to the Toronto Humane Society. No one was keeping track, but I’m pretty sure Junia ate the most because she has a completely non-developed sense of moderation as well as no fear in life. There continues to be a suspicious number of empty candy wrappers in the laundry, floating out of pockets into outer space.

Another Scriptus, and the passage of time is relentless and also a complete gift. Every season has its own hard edges and glimpses of joy, and it’s hard to believe another show has come and gone. The kids love Scriptus and it’s turned out to be one of their favourite days of the year. It’s basically a holiday in our house, like Thanksgiving, where we gather with our favourite people, and have our same traditions of wandering the show, ordering lunch, spending the day running around chasing children, losing track of children.

And every year, we end up completely exhausted, cups full.