Category: History of Horror
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Women Were Always There
I write horror — dark, visceral, graphic, psychological horror. That still surprises people. Not because the work is unusual, but because a woman wrote it. Horror is strongly associated with men. That association stuck long ago, but it doesn’t reflect reality. The genre didn’t start loud, it started cold. Mary Shelley and the Birth of…
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Nursery Rhymes For Horrible People
How The Victorians Celebrated Death, and What I Learned From This Macabre Tradition Avery Vane, Avery Vane Wicked, twisted, and insane Killed his wife and ate her brain Then killed his son and did the same When I wrote this verse for my short story The Complications of Avery Vane (published in the Scribblers’ Den…
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Lying for a Living
“Literature was not born the day when a boy crying ‘wolf, wolf’ came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels. Literature was born on the day when a boy came crying ‘wolf, wolf,’ and there was no wolf behind him.”~ VLADIMIR NABOKOV Lies are funny things. The smaller…
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How To Write Dreadpunk
And Why You Should ~punk fiction is a genre that typically embraces anti-authoritarian themes, rebellion, and societal defiance. It’s not just a genre; it’s a mindset. Born from rebellion, ~punk challenges conventions, tears apart societal norms, and reimagines the past and the future through a lens of punk attitude. The punk movement began with cyberpunk,…
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Are We Just a Band of Pirates?
The aphorism ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ (and variations thereof) is a metaphor for expanding on the knowledge gained by thinkers who came before. Its first documented expression occurred in written works from the 12th century. The original metaphor was a tribute to the ancient Greek and Roman scholars, and referred to medieval dwarves…
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Horror and Myth: Monsters Around the World
Monsters have always been part of human imagination, lurking in the shadows, whispering terror, and fascination. Every culture has its version of things that go bump in the night, born from the fear of the unknown and shaped by the unique minds of their creators. These creatures—vampires, werewolves, vengeful spirits, and many more—are echoes of…
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Horror vs Picture Books (or Good vs Evil)
When my old friend Jack Tyler invited me to join Threads That Bind, I hesitated. The truth is, it’s been a while since I’ve written horror. My writing career began with dark fantasy, dark steampunk, and gothic horror. I later edited the dreadpunk anthologies DeadSteam and DeadSteam II, contributing short stories to each. But since…
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ERAS IN HORROR
Hello again. Since my last post here in the Threads I’ve taken to watching horror movies again. After the newest Evil Dead films, I moved over to see what else is out there. Not just the latest in fright fests, but the horrors of yesteryear. Did you know the French have put out two really…
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The Old School
Do you like the Universal Monsters? The old black and white film versions of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman, Invisible Man, etc.? If so, then you probably love classic horror. So do I. I grew up watching those flicks in syndicated TV and later on the glory that is TCM. Monsters who literally moved at…
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The Origins of Vampire Fiction
Happy October! I hope everyone has fun plans for Halloween. In keeping with the season, I thought I’d spend a little time exploring the origins of one of the season’s classic monsters, the vampire. Now, vampires have their origins in folklore and legends from around the world. Sometimes it’s hard to separate an oral legend…
Threads that Bind 