July 7, 2020
Shirley Jackson was a Sagittarius who knew that arsenic goes best with sugar when serving blackberries after dinner. She raised demons into children, wrote with a broomstick, could identify the Amanita phalloide — the death cup mushroom — and terrified the world when she published a short story titled “The Lottery” in late June of 1948. Jackson was the type…
October 31, 2018
One of the first horror movies I can remember watching as a child was Salem’s Lot. My mother was downstairs in the basement ironing, and I was on the couch nearby, holding my knees to my chest as I tried to convince myself that I was brave enough to be watching this with her. I wasn’t. That night, I slept…
October 31, 2017
History grounds us, provides us with our foundation, and if we listen to its scars and screams, we can learn to accept the ghosts around us — the ones who watch us while we sleep — and learn from them rather than fight their existence. For me, I’ve always felt drawn to medical history and its psychiatric practices, so my…
October 3, 2016
People hate the Devil. No really. It’s a huge debate in horror, and it’s one I’ve had to listen to and weigh in on for the past few years as I’ve finished up two religious horror projects, both inside and outside of graduate school. And I get it. The appeal of a character who is only bad and therefore has a pretty…