Columns

Stephen King’s Evolution on Writing Women, LGBTQ Characters, and People of Color

October 20th, 2022

Photo credit: Shane Leonard via Author's website I want to state up front this article will lean positive. I believe Stephen King has been a forward-thinking person when it comes to the rights of others, including the groups covered in this discussion. Full disclosure: he did vote for Nixon once. Most people did at the time. His wife still teases him about it.

Read Column →

When Fiction Sells, Why Write Speculative Poetry?

October 18th, 2022

I learned early on that if I wanted to make money—make a living—being a writer, I needed to write fiction and nonfiction: novels, short stories, craft essays, how-to articles, etc. There is some money in teaching, too, which is great because I always wanted to be an instructor, but the problem is I’ve always been drawn to poetry, which historically, makes no money. So why write it?

Read Column →

Let's Replace Canonical Horror

October 14th, 2022

Header image via Kristupas Kemeža The idea of sitting down to replace iconic horror novels with newer, updated versions is, well, incredibly stupid. And because “incredibly stupid” is essentially my Bat Signal, here I am. And because “ill-advised listicles” is your catnip, here you are. Here we are, together, for this.

Read Column →

Storyville: How Various Media Can Change You as a Writer

October 13th, 2022

As writers, we do not exist in a vacuum—we are constantly informed, changed, influenced, and inspired by the world around us. Today, I wanted to give you some examples of how various media has changed me as a writer over the years, and how you can look to these mediums for your own continuing education. Let’s get into it, shall we?

Read Column →

Where Is All the Feminist Vampire Literature?

October 12th, 2022

The word ‘vampire’ conjures images of Lestat, Edward Cullen, and Dracula; men whose cursed nature causes them to commit acts of bloodlust that are at once violent and euphemistically sexual. Sure, there are some powerful female figures in vampire literature and lore as well—there’s the 1872 novella, Carmilla, for instance, which predated Bram Stoker’s Dracula by over two decades.

Read Column →

The Magical Books That Fostered My Own Budding Love of "Spooky Season"

October 10th, 2022

I’ve never been the biggest fan of the “spooky season.” As someone who’s more of a wuss than anything else, I can’t really stomach much in the way of horror, thrills, or general spooky content. Five years ago I actually tried to read some horror books and let’s just say it was a less-than-successful venture.

Read Column →

7 Books You Should be Reading Right Now, According to TikTok

October 7th, 2022

If you’ve set foot in a bookstore in the last few years, you’ll have noticed the signs/labels saying: “TikTok Made Me Buy it.” No? Here’s an example from an online retailer — this is the kind of metadata some publishers are adding on UK Amazon. Mentioning TikTok in the book’s title helps authors appear in TikTok-related searches and gives their books a sense of  social validation:

Read Column →

Do It Yourself Limited Edition Releases

October 6th, 2022

Normally, limited editions are handled through specialty publishers. These publishers often approach authors directly about particular titles. The size of the print run depends on the publisher’s estimation of the title's sales potential and the popularity of the author in question. But as with everything else in publishing, a lot more authors are now going their own way.

Read Column →

Time's Chainsaw: Why You Should Set Your Horror In A Specific Time Period

October 5th, 2022

Urban Legend isn’t exactly in the pantheon of horror movies that embody the late 90s. It wasn’t as self-aware as Scream, wasn’t as intense as Final Destination, and it didn’t fly under the radar as hard as The Faculty. But the one thing Urban Legend does better than the rest: It screams, bleeds, and oozes 1998.

Read Column →

Book vs. Film: My Best Friend's Exorcism

October 3rd, 2022

SPOILERS AHEAD The 2022 film My Best Friend’s Exorcism, adapted from the 2016 novel of the same name by Grady Hendrix, enters the much-bloated cinematic lexicon of demonic possession movies, but with much more humor and far less religious oppressiveness. (The subgenre’s progenitor The Exorcist is, first and foremost, a Catholic propaganda film that spawned countless imitators, all rife with the same black and white, good versus evil morality). 

Read Column →