Leanna Renee Hieber, one of my favorite authors, has visited The Gothic Library before to discuss the varieties of female strength in her Strangely Beautiful Saga. Now she’s back to talk about her latest series, The Spectral City, and why she writes about women in community. Read on to learn about why relationships between women are so important, especially in the Gothic…
*** Continue reading Spectral City and the Importance of Women in Community
As Halloween approaches, it’s time to get weird! Last month, I read Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, which brought my attention to the many gaps in our understanding of the history of these genres, caused by the tendency of past (and some present) critics to value male authors over their equally inventive and influential female contemporaries. Well, a small press in the UK is looking to fill one of those gaps with the collection Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890–1940, edited by Melissa Edmundson. Appropriately, the book is being released on Halloween day. Continue reading Review of Women’s Weird–Bringing Female Authors Back into the Spotlight
As Halloween approaches, the veil between this word and the next grows thinner and, according to legend, the spirits of the dead can more easily come into contact with the living. These days, we tend to focus less on communing with our dead ancestors and more on dressing in costume, watching horror films, and telling ghost stories. But either way, we’ve still got ghosts on the brain. And what better way to celebrate ghosts than by seeking out some shining examples from Gothic literature? For the purposes of this post, I’ve limited myself to only ghosts that are fairly unambiguous supernatural apparitions of dead humans, though the Gothic genre contains a multitude of spirits that range from literal to metaphoric or imagined to everything in between. Below are five of the most memorable ghosts that appear in Gothic literature: Continue reading Iconic Ghosts from Gothic Literature
Once upon a time doesn’t necessarily have to be long, long ago. I’ve mentioned my great love of fairy tales—whether they be classics, retellings, or brand-new fairy tales that emulate the classics in form and style. Denizens of Distant Realms, a new collection of short stories by Dawn Vogel, falls into the latter category. The book came out back in August, and while I was previously unfamiliar with the author and her other works, my great love of fairy tales drew me to take a chance on the new collection. Continue reading Denizens of Distant Realms Review
Recently, there has been a growing trend of book covers adorned with slithering snakes. Just within the last few months, we’ve seen them on the gorgeous covers of Shelby Mahurin’s debut, Serpent & Dove, and Pierce Brown’s latest addition to the Red Rising Saga, Dark Age. The trend is especially prominent among young adult fantasy titles, but it seems to be spreading to other markets and genres, as well. And I have to say, as a Slytherin, I am 100 percent on board with this! Continue reading Slytherin Season: Celebrating Snaky Book Covers!
Want some romance with a side of literary rivalry? How about if it’s set in the Victorian era and features that aptly named mode of early horror fiction—the penny dreadful? The Lady and the Highwayman by Sarah M. Eden, which came out earlier this month, is a delightful historical romance that pushed all the right buttons for me. If you love Victorian literature, bold heroines, and sweet couples solving mysteries together, then this is the perfect book to curl up with on a cool autumn day! Continue reading The Lady and the Highwayman Review
All aboard! You don’t want to miss the train to Hadestown, a Broadway musical that gives Greek mythology a modern twist. Friends have been telling me for months that I needed to see this show, especially since the tale of the spring goddess Persephone and her underworld husband Hades is one of my favorite myths and I’m a sucker for creative retellings. I finally got the chance, and let me tell you: it totally lives up to the hype. The production stars Reeve Carney (whom some of you may recognize as Dorian Gray from the show Penny Dreadful) as the poet Orpheus, Eva Noblezada as his lover Eurydice, Amber Gray as Persephone, Patrick Page as Hades, and André De Shields as Hermes. The production swept the Tony Awards this year, winning eight awards including Best Musical and Best Original Score. Hadestown is currently playing at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York. Continue reading Review of Hadestown—A Mythic Musical
Some members of the literary community always seem to express surprise and disbelief when they see women writing horror and speculative fiction books—and winning awards for them. Aren’t these genres predominantly the purview of men? Well, not really. Women have been there from the very beginning, and a compelling argument can even be made that these genres couldn’t exist without them. Scholars Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson do just that in Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror & Speculative Fiction. This exhaustive guide explores over one hundred female authors from the earliest days of speculative fiction to the present day. The book comes out tomorrow, September 17, and you do not want to miss it! Continue reading Review of Monster, She Wrote—A Comprehensive Compendium of Female Authors
Do you have any burning questions about death that you’ve just felt too squeamish to ever ask? Well, children have no such qualms. In her latest release, Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, mortician Caitlin Doughty answers real questions from real kids about death, dead bodies, and decomposition. I’ve been a fan of Caitlin Doughty since her early Ask a Mortician days on Youtube, and have reviewed her previous two books: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity. So you bet I was first in line to snag a review copy of her newest book aimed at her youngest fans. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death comes out tomorrow, September 10. Continue reading Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Review
It is now September, and I know for many of you that means it’s time to go back to school. It’s become a yearly tradition for me to put together a reading list of Gothic works you may encounter on your English syllabus. So far, I’ve done my initial Back to School Reading List of Gothic novels, a Short Story Edition, and a Drama Edition. Now it’s time to tackle poetry! Here are a few of the darker poems you may come across in class: Continue reading Back to School Reading List: Poetry Edition
