Friday, April 29, 2022

Shelf Edition: Victoria Moore

We are bringing back Shelf Edition! This month Victoria Moore brings us her #Shelfies to celebrate National Independent Bookstore Day on April 30, 2022. She is the owner of Whitty Books Bookshelves in Tulsa, OK.

Do you have any recent favorite LOHF books?

We have a Horror Lit Book Club at the shop and we only read books by authors of a marginalized gender, so I read a lot of LOHF books. Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin, The Grip of It by Jac Jemc, Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall by Suzette Mayr, The Cipher by Kathe Koja, White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi, The Good House by Tananarive Due, Now You’re One of Us by Asa Nonami, Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado, and Revenge by Yoko Ogawa are all favorites of mine. I even have tattoos inspired by a few of those titles!

Which LOHF books do you currently have on your TBR?

The list gets longer and longer every day, but I can’t wait to dig into The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward, Below by Laurel Hightower, and These Bones by Kayla Chenault. I don’t tend to read a ton of classics, but I’ve never read Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay and am hoping to get to it this year!

Where do you find recommendations? Are there any LOHF books that have been recommended to you that you loved?

I get recommendations from so many different sources; customers, the Tulsa Library, different reading websites (including LOHF!), book club members, etc.  Both Crossroads by Laurel Hightower and The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher were recommended to me and both were books that I absolutely loved.

Where do you prefer to shop for books?

I own an indie bookstore, so I do more book-shopping than I probably should!  I also love visiting the other bookstores in town, and any time I travel one of the first things I do is find a local bookstore. 

Are there any upcoming LOHF releases you’re excited about?

I’m really interested in Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt, Motherthing by Ainsley Hogarth, and The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings, among many others.

In regards to your own work, tell our readers a little bit about what’s new and/or coming up for you.

I own an indie bookstore in Tulsa, OK!  In addition to our Horror Lit Book Club, we also host two other book clubs each month, as well as a variety of other events.  On May 13th we’ll be hosting a virtual event with Kathe Koja to discuss her new book, Dark Factory.

Where can people find you on social media and/or find your work?

You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @shopwhittybooks , or visit us online at www.whittybooks.com

Thank you for joining us, Victoria! Our TBR piles also thank you!  

If you would like to be featured on a future Shelf Edition please leave a note in the comments. We’d love to see your shelves!


Teresa creates our Shelf Edition posts and is one of our LOHF Awards readers. You can find Teresa on Goodreads, on Twitter as @teresa_ardrey, and lurking in a corn maze.

Thursday, April 28, 2022

YA/MG Horror Spotlight April 2022

The Ladies of Horror Fiction team is putting a spotlight on Young Adult and Middle Grade horror each month. Below we are featuring the books that were released in April as well as what our team has been reading and reviewing.

Young Adult New Releases

Dead Girls Can’t Tell Secrets by Chelsea Ichaso

Piper’s fall was no accident. Did someone want her dead? It’s up to her sister to discover the truth in this shocking new thriller with an unreliable narrator, from the acclaimed author of Little Creeping Things.

Piper Sullivan was in a strange hiking accident last month and has been in a coma ever since. Her older sister, Savannah, can’t pretend to be optimistic about it; things look bad. Piper will likely never wake up, and Savannah will never get any answers about what exactly happened.

But then Savannah finds a note in Piper’s locker, inviting Piper to a meeting of their school’s wilderness club…at the very place and on the very day that she fell. Which means there was a chance that Piper wasn’t alone. Someone might’ve seen something. Worse, someone might’ve done something. But who would want to hurt the perfect Piper Sullivan…and why?

To discover the truth, Savannah joins the club on their weekend-long camping trip on the same mountain where her sister fell. But she better be careful; everyone in the club is a suspect, and everyone seems to be keeping secrets about that tragic day.

And Savannah? She’s been keeping secrets, too… 

Expected publication: April 5th 2022 by Sourcebooks Fire Goodreads | Bookshop

Scout’s Honor by Lily Anderson

Prudence Perry is a third-generation Ladybird Scout who must battle literal (and figurative) monsters and the weight of her legacy in this YA paranormal perfect for fans of Stranger Things and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Sixteen-year-old Prudence Perry is a legacy Ladybird Scout, born to a family of hunters sworn to protect humans from mulligrubs―interdimensional parasites who feast on human emotions like sadness and anger. Masquerading as a prim and proper ladies’ social organization, the Ladybirds brew poisons masked as teas and use knitting needles as daggers, at least until they graduate to axes and swords.

Three years ago, Prue’s best friend was killed during a hunt, so she kissed the Scouts goodbye, preferring the company of her punkish friends lovingly dubbed the Criminal Element much to her mother and Tía Lo’s disappointment. However, unable to move on from her guilt and trauma, Prue devises a risky plan to infiltrate the Ladybirds in order to swipe the Tea of Forgetting, a restricted tincture laced with a powerful amnesia spell.

But old monster-slaying habits die hard and Prue finds herself falling back into the fold, growing close with the junior scouts that she trains to fight the creatures she can’t face. When her town is hit with a mysterious wave of demons, Prue knows it’s time to confront the most powerful monster of all: her past.

Expected publication: April 5th 2022 by Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) Goodreads | Bookshop

I Am the Ghost in Your House by Mar Romasco-Moore

From the author of Some Kind of Animal comes a wildly unique story about an invisible girl struggling to see herself in a world obsessed with appearances.

Pie is the ghost in your house. She is not dead, she is invisible.

The way she looks changes depending on what is behind her. A girl of glass. A girl who is a window. If she stands in front of floral wallpaper she is full of roses.

For Pie’s entire life it’s been Pie and her mother. Just the two of them, traveling across America. They have slept in trains, in mattress stores, and on the bare ground. They have probably slept in your house.
But Pie is lonely. And now, at seventeen, her mother’s given her a gift. The choice of the next city they will go to. And Pie knows exactly where she wants to go. Pittsburgh–where she fell in love with a girl who she plans to find once again. And this time she will reveal herself.

Only how can anyone love an invisible girl? A magnificent story of love, and friendship, and learning to see yourself in a world based on appearances, I Am the Ghost in Your House is a brilliant reflection on the importance of how much more there is to our world than what meets the eye.

Expected publication: April 19th 2022 by Delacorte Press Goodreads | Bookshop

Middle Grade New Releases

Witchlings by Claribel A. Ortega

A magical adventure for fans of Amari and the Night Brothers and Nevermoor, about three witchlings who must work together to do the impossible if they have any hope of earning their full powers.

Every year, in the magical town of Ravenskill, Witchlings who participate in the Black Moon Ceremony are placed into covens and come into their powers as full-fledged witches.

And twelve-year-old Seven Salazar can’t wait to be placed in the most powerful coven with her best friend! But on the night of the ceremony, in front of the entire town, Seven isn’t placed in one of the five covens. She’s a Spare!

Spare covens have fewer witches, are less powerful, and are looked down on by everyone. Even worse, when Seven and the other two Spares perform the magic circle to seal their coven and cement themselves as sisters, it doesn’t work! They’re stuck as Witchlings—and will never be able to perform powerful magic.

Seven invokes her only option: the impossible task. The three Spares will be assigned an impossible task: If they work together and succeed at it, their coven will be sealed and they’ll gain their full powers. If they fail… Well, the last coven to make the attempt ended up being turned into toads. Forever.

But maybe friendship can be the most powerful magic of all…

With action-packed adventure, a coven of quirky witchlings, Claribel A. Ortega’s signature humor and girl-power vibes, this middle grade Latine witch story is truly a modern classic.

Expected publication: April 5th 2022 by Scholastic Press Goodreads | Bookshop

Young Adult Books Reviewed

This month Cassie reviewed Watch Over Me by Nina Lacour. Don’t miss her review of Watch Over Me (“I loved this so much, and would highly highly recommend it”)! We recommend checking content warnings.

Cassie also read and reviewed Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis. Be sure to check out her review of Harrow Lake (“I was so excited to read this one – a spooky small town, a filmmaker dad, and a girl scared of a monster? It sounds like everything I like, so I was eager to pick it up!“)


Jen is one of our LOHF admins. Jen manages the technical side of the Ladies of Horror Fiction website. She also keeps a spotlight on middle grade and young adult horror each month.

You can also find Jen on her blog Book Den, Twitter as @bookden, Instagram as @bookdenjen, on Goodreads, and Letterboxd.

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

What We've Been Reading #130

We have three recommended reads for your tbr pile today! Our team members review books by Sarah Andersen, Premee Mohamed and Emily M. Danforth. We hope you find something new to love!

Click either tag above to read more team recommendations.


Fangs by Sarah Andersen

A love story between a vampire and a werewolf by the creator of the enormously popular Sarah’s Scribbles comics.

Elsie the vampire is three hundred years old, but in all that time, she has never met her match. This all changes one night in a bar when she meets Jimmy, a charming werewolf with a wry sense of humor and a fondness for running wild during the full moon. Together they enjoy horror films and scary novels, shady strolls, fine dining (though never with garlic), and a genuine fondness for each other’s unusual habits, macabre lifestyles, and monstrous appetites.

First featured as a webcomic series on Tapas, Fangs chronicles the humor, sweetness, and awkwardness of meeting someone perfectly suited to you but also vastly different. Filled with Sarah Andersen’s beautiful gothic illustrations and relatable relationship humor, Fangs has all the makings of a cult classic.

Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop

Cassie’s Teaser Review

I think my favorite thing about this is that, while it’s about two creepy ‘creatures’ that don’t really exist, there are a lot of parallels to be found in your average, everyday relationship between just two boring ol’ basic humans. Finding those similarities – among the jokes about sleeping in coffins & changing under the full moon, of course – was a delight.

I read this as a borrowed library copy, but will definitely be grabbing one for my shelves – so cute, highly recommended!

Read Cassie’s entire review at Goodreads.


And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed

In a far future city, where you can fall to a government cull for a single mistake, And What Can We Offer You Tonight tells the story of Jewel, established courtesan in a luxurious House. Jewel’s world is shaken when her friend is murdered by a client, but somehow comes back to life. To get revenge, they will both have to confront the limits of loyalty, guilt, and justice.

Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop

Audra’s Teaser Review

This is a fabulous dystopian novella about a dead girl and her revenge mixing futuristic fantasy with horror–I loved it.

Read Audra’s entire review at Goodreads.


Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.

Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.

A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.

Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop

Tracy’s Teaser Review

This book is 600+ pages of intricate world-building, relationships, and modern/classic gothic storytelling. Quite simply, I loved it. From the unusual way the book addresses the reader to the tangled f/f relationships throughout, readers will be hard pressed to find another book quite like this. A “story within a story within a story” could be confusing. Danforth is able to deftly carry readers along, pushing them to understand each piece and the intersection where the walls between worlds grow thin.

Read Tracy’s entire review at Sci-fi and Scary.


Thank you for joining us today! We hope you found something to add to your tbr list. Please share your recent reads with us in the comments below.

If you are a LOHF writer and have a book you’d like us to consider for a review please visit our review submission page here.


Laurie is one of our LOHF Admins. Laurie creates our review posts, coordinates review requests, oversees the Ladies of Horror Fiction directory, and manages our LOHF Goodreads group.

You can find Laurie on her blog Bark’s Book Nonsense, on Twitter as @barksbooks, on Instagram as @barksbooks, and on Goodreads.

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Blackout Poetry Q&A: An Interview with Jessica McHugh

As we near the end of this year’s #NationalPoetryMonth celebrations, we wanted to highlight the diversity and creativity that the entire genre can offer to new and old fans of poetry alike. We’re absolutely honored to have Jessica McHugh chat with us a little bit about her Bram Stoker Award-nominated collections of blackout poetry, and to give us some information on what “blackout poetry” is in general!

We loved learning more about this unique format of poetry, and are so appreciative to Jess for hanging out!


Interview with Jessica McHugh

Cassie: Can you tell us a little bit about what “blackout poetry” is, in your own words?

Jessica: Blackout Poetry, also known as Found/Erasure/Micro Poetry, is created by taking an existing page of prose, finding a poem hidden within the text, and then using different artistic methods to remove the unused text. This can be as simple as literally blacking it out with a marker, or as complex as using papercraft with moveable parts to bring the poem to life, like I did with a couple of Alice in Wonderland commissions last year. It’s a blast!

C: What got you started with blackout poetry? Do you remember the first book you used to create one of your poems?

J: I’d tried it once a few years before I started making it in earnest. Inspired by a blackout poem given to me by John Edward Lawson and Jennifer Barnes of Raw Dog Screaming Press, I tried it with a Game Informer magazine . . . and I’m pretty sure I was terrible at it, so I’m not sure why I decided I would make blackout poems as thank you gifts after a bunch of people donated money to help dig my husband and me out of a financial crisis in 2019. But I’m so glad I did. At the Dollar Tree, looking for a book to play around in, I was incredibly lucky to find Let Me Tell You: Stories, Essays & Other Writings by Shirley Jackson. Once I started making pieces from that book, I couldn’t stop. I made around 30 pieces that first week, some of which I’m keeping forever to remind me of when my life changed forever.

C: What is the typical process of creating one of your poems, from start to finish? Does the process differ for commissions versus personal work?

J: Ha! I’m going to try to be as concise as possible here, so bear with me!

I open the book and let my eyes run wild, latching onto various words to serve as a possible anchor word or phrase/subject of the poem. Some pages yield nothing. Though, oddly, they might yield something at a later date. The first time I tried to make poetry from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I couldn’t find anything. A little over a year later, I made enough for a Stoker Award nominated collection.

Once I find my anchor and figure out the driving force of the poem, I explore where it can take me, like an artistic word search. Sometimes every word is perfect as is, and sometimes I have to build the words I need. Sometimes the reading direction is left to right, top to bottom, and sometimes it’s more atypical. That’s where the blackout designs come in. Not only do I want them to embody the feeling and topic of the poem, I want it to steer the reader’s eye as naturally as possible.

I’ll often sit with a poem for a bit before adding any of the artistic elements. With consideration to the position of the words I’ve selected, I ask myself what colors and shapes come to me when I read the poem. If nothing comes to mind, I consider whether it would work best as a collage, or if something more illustrative would best serve the piece. Because every poem has a different personality, they require different approaches, and I love experimenting with methods to best exhibit them.

The only difference with commissions comes from me asking the client if they have a specific color scheme or theme in mind. It’s funny, I find I’m often tasked with looking for themed poems that feel like the opposite of the source material. For instance, looking for romance in Where the Red Fern Grows and extreme horror in Charlotte’s Web. But pushing boundaries with artistic experimentation is one of the things I love most about this medium.

C: Do you feel a difference in the way you’re able to express yourself creatively via black-out poetry as opposed to a more “traditional” type of written poetry, or writing in general?

J: I feel like blackout poetry is . . . I hesitate to say “easier” because writing a great poem or piece of flash fiction, as these sometimes feel, is certainly not easy, especially with word/space limitations. But I do feel like it eliminates some of the stress of starting with a blank page. It’s comforting opening a book you’ve known all your life and discovering a new sort of magic inside. I’ve also craved making visual art since I was a little kid but believed I wasn’t good at drawing, painting, or sculpting (I’ll expand on this in a bit), and blackout poetry finally satisfied that lifelong need. The process, while not without its anxieties, is more relaxing than any other writing I do.

C: I know that you’ve spoken publicly about how working in this medium helps you process and deal with grief and personal things you’ve been through. If you’re open to it, would you be able to talk a bit about what you find healing or therapeutic about the practice?

J: Absolutely. Because of word constraints, blackout poetry urges you to use metaphor in a unique way that has personally allowed me to access and communicate feelings that prose has not. And because it’s an artform built around omission and deconstruction, it allowed me to work through the complicated grief over my brother’s death from an overdose in January 2021. When he passed away, I knew I had to cope differently than I did when my cat died a few years prior, because writing through my grief caused me to utterly ruin the end of the novel I was working on.

But I did need a distraction, so I started coloring old blackout poems I’d written and set aside. That helped amazingly, because my brain and heart didn’t have to do any heavy lifting. That eventually led me into making a few new poems. Two weeks after he passed, I was very superficially discussing what classic, woman-penned novel I might use as a follow-up to Frankenstein when The Secret Garden came up. For some reason, I glommed right onto that, and the next day, my friend Kahla gave me her childhood copy to play in. That’s how my most recent Stoker Award nominated collection Strange Nests hatched into existence.

Creating those poems not only comforted me and allowed me to unpack some heavy familial issues, it also evolved my art. When I started the design portion of Strange Nests, I was making collages using the book’s beautiful Graham Rust illustrations, but I stopped that immediately once Jacob Haddon of Apokrupha Publishing warned me those images probably weren’t legal to use. And he was right. I did speak to the talented Mr. Rust regarding using his work, but he was unable to grant me permission, so I took it upon myself to recreate the poems I’d made with my own attempts at illustration. It turned out I was more capable than I thought. Or maybe I’d been so traumatized by my brother constantly telling me I was terrible at art when we were younger that his death released me from the fear of being a failure. I know that sounds kinda awful, but maybe, in a way, grief set me free.

C: I’ve noticed that a lot of your poetry has gorgeous, brightly colored artwork to accompany it. What decision making goes into adding art alongside the poem? Is there a specific balance you try to achieve, or do you just go with feeling?

J: It’s definitely more of a feeling. If nothing comes to mind during the writing process, I will literally stare at the page and wait for the colors and shapes of the poem’s personality to present themselves. I interpret and execute that as well as possible while being mindful of the poem’s legibility. There are times when what I envisioned doesn’t work out, but I’ve had very few instances (honestly, I can’t only recall one) in which I had to trash the poem due to an artistic error. For the most part, even when I make mistakes, I’m able to fix them in a way I feel embodies the subject of the piece. It’s a very forgiving art form.

C: What sorts of tips would you give to someone interested in trying their hand at black-out poetry? Are there any tools of the trade or special rules that you’ve found yourself following as you work?

J: Start with light pencil marks when you’re building the poem, especially when using older books with fragile pages and ink that might lift out easily. If you’re having difficulty deciding how to start your poem, try phrases that might lead into metaphors like, “I am . . . ,” “Love is . . . ,” etc.

If you accidently color over a word you wanted to keep, you can usually find that word elsewhere in the book, cut it out, and glue it over the mistake.

And the only rule I follow explicitly when it comes to blackout poetry is: if it feels like hard work, stop and reassess. Blackout poetry should be fun and freeing. There’s no reason to force anything, because there’s always another page, or another way to look at the current page.

C: Can you recommend some of your favorite women (past &/or present) that are writing dark speculative poetry? If you have any favorite collections to highlight, that’d also be great!

J: I love every Stephanie Wytovich poetry collection I’ve read, but Brothel is my favorite. Linda A Addison’s work has been very influential to me over the last few years, and I’m constantly rereadingher collaboration with Alessandro Manzetti, The Place of Broken Things. Likewise, Sara Tantlinger’s Cradleland of Parasites and Cina Pelayo’s Into the Forest & All the Way Through has gotten me grinning like a madwoman and weeping like a baby within the same day. Also, Under Her Skin, the new Black Spot Books dark poetry collection edited by Lindy Ryan and Toni Miller includes dozens of the best women (cis and trans alike) in horror poetry working today! Everyone should definitely check that out.

C: Do you have any upcoming projects or work that you’d like to talk about?

J: This summer, Ghoulish Books is rereleasing my coming-of-age madhouse horror novel, Rabbits in the Garden, and in November, they’ll be releasing the 1970s cult horror sequel, Hares in the Hedgerow. And although I haven’t started coloring any of the poems, I have already written many of the pieces that will be included in a forthcoming blackout poetry collection created from the pages of Little Women. I hope to go full-steam-ahead on that within the next few months! I’ll also be opening at various times for blackout poetry commissions on my website McHughniverse.com, so follow me on IG, Twitter, and Tiktok at @theJessMcHugh. Thank you so much!


Jessica McHugh is a novelist, poet, and internationally-produced playwright running amok in the fields of horror, sci-fi, young adult, and wherever else her peculiar mind leads. She’s had twenty-five books published in thirteen years, including her bizarro romp, “The Green Kangaroos,” her YA series, “The Darla Decker Diaries,” and her Bram Stoker Award-Nominated blackout poetry collections, “A Complex Accident of Life” and “Strange Nests.” For more info about publications and blackout poetry commissions, please visit McHughniverse.com.


Cassie

Cassie is one of our core team members, and maintains our site interviews with authors and creating monthly themed content.

Find her online at her blog www.letsgetgalactic.com, Twitter as @ctrlaltcassie, or over at her Etsy store, where she sells clothing, coloring & activity books, bookmarks, art prints, DIY craft kits, & more!

Monday, April 25, 2022

May 2022 Readalong Selection

For the May #LOHFReadalong, the members of the Ladies of Horror Fiction discord group selected Sundial by Catriona Ward.

Sundial is a new, twisty psychological horror novel from Catriona Ward, internationally bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street.

You can’t escape what’s in your blood…

All Rob wanted was a normal life. She almost got it, too: a husband, two kids, a nice house in the suburbs. But Rob fears for her oldest daughter, Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her too much of the family she left behind.

She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, to Sundial, deep in the Mojave Desert. And there she will have to make a terrible choice.

Callie is worried about her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely, and speaks of past secrets. And Callie fears that only one of them will leave Sundial alive…

The mother and daughter embark on a dark, desert journey to the past in the hopes of redeeming their future.

The readalong begins May 1, and discussions will take place throughout the month of May. You must be a member of the Ladies of Horror Fiction discord group to participate. Everyone is welcome to join!

Check in and let us know you are joining us.

If you have any questions, please let us know. We look forward to reading with you!

📸 Featured Photo by Jen


Jen is one of our LOHF admins. Jen manages the technical side of the Ladies of Horror Fiction website. She also keeps a spotlight on middle grade and young adult horror each month.

You can also find Jen on her blog Book Den, Twitter as @bookden, Instagram as @bookdenjen, on Goodreads, and Letterboxd.

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Writing Poetry in the Dark: A Spotlight Interview with Stephanie M. Wytovich

In continuation of our celebration into April’s #NationalPoetryMonth extravaganza, we’re honored to have had the chance to sit down with Bram Stoker-award winning author Stephanie M. Wytovich to talk about Raw Dog Screaming Press’ upcoming WRITING POETRY IN THE DARK, a craft book for speculative poets, by speculative poets.

Photo by Jen

We’ve featured Stephanie and her books on the Ladies of Horror Fiction blog before, and our team members are huge fans – we can’t recommend her writing enough! Read what she had to say during our chat below:


Interview with Stephanie M. Wytovich

Cassie: How have you personally seen poetry change & grow within the horror genre over the years?

Stephanie: Speculative poetry has definitely garnered more attention over the past years, and it’s becoming more widely read and promoted, which is such a breath of fresh air. More presses are also publishing dark poetry—both individual collections and anthologies—so we’re also being exposed to more voices in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, and that does nothing but help expand the market, drum up excitement for the form, and most importantly, encourage people to write and explore their relationship with poetry.

C: When editing WRITING POETRY IN THE DARK, was there anything new you learned about poetry that you didn’t know before?

S: Absolutely. I think no matter how long you’ve been in the game, there’s always more to learn and different ways to do and try things when it comes to your writing process and how you conceptualize your work. For instance, Christina Sng has a fabulous article in the book about writing haiku that helps poets move beyond the act of just counting syllables; its informative with tons of examples and it walks the reader through her process step-by-step in a digestible and easy-to-understand way. Jessica McHugh has an essay that talks about creating blackout poetry that is also really illuminating both from a process perspective but also through an emotional lens as it talks about how the form can help break writers block and help writers work through trauma. Another great example is Saba Syed Razvi’s essay on incorporating myth into the poem. As someone who is really interested in the intersection of fairytale, magic, and spirituality in the poem, this piece spoke to me and gave me a lot to think about not only historically but also in how and why I choose the topics I do for my collections. 

I also want to take a moment to just say that I really admire the poets I’ve worked with and am working with in this book, and I think their expertise, experience, and knowledge is not only valuable but positively inspirational. They’ve acted as true beacons for me and others in this community when it comes to poetry, and I hope this book and their words will continue to inspire and energize people about the form.

C: Who do you think the target audience for the book would be?

S: I wanted to create a book that spoke to people interested in speculative poetry, regardless of whether they’re just getting started or already solidified in the field, but I also wanted this book to speak across genres, too, so I think it’s a valuable sourcebook for people who are just interested in poetry in general.

C: We’ve already got a list of some of the amazing contributors – are you able to give an example of one or two of the topics/essays that will be in the book?

S: Sure thing! To kind of expand on the question before this, I tried to create a nice balance of craft essays that tackled both the technical side of poetry, but also the genre side of it, so we have pieces in the book that talk about worldbuilding, or about how to incorporate humor or violence into your poems, but then we also have essays that deal with processing trauma and using memory recall and magic in in your writing process, so there’s a little bit of something for everyone, I think.

C: What’s your number one tip you’d give to someone starting out with poetry as a beginner – either with reading or writing it?

S: Don’t feel the need to write a certain way. When I first got started, I was obsessed with form and put all these constraints on my voice and when I decided to just say goodbye to all of that and write how I wanted to write, everything felt so much lighter and just more possible. There’s nothing wrong with being unique or different—in fact, that’s what the speculative poetry market is all about!—so don’t be afraid to experiment and try new things or create something new altogether. Poetry doesn’t have to be the scary, intimidating form that I think we were all taught to believe it was; it can be that, sure, but we’re a legion of writers who are all about conquering fears and monsters and finding truth, so if you need to bend the form or the rules in order to do that for your art or slay that fear/expectation, then I say go for it. Your work will be stronger because of it.

C: Who are some of your favorite names writing poetry of the past and present? Are there any collections you’re currently looking forward to reading?

S: Right now, I’m looking forward to reading The Sorrow Festival by Erin Slaughter (Clash Books), The Saint of Witches by Avra Margariti (Weasel Press), and Foundlings by Cindy O’Quinn and Stephanie Ellis (Independently published). I’m currently editing Crime Scene, a forthcoming collection from Cynthia Pelayo, and I worked with Donna Lynch on her upcoming release, Girls from the Country, so I definitely encourage everyone to keep an eye out for those and add them to your TBR list. Other speculative (or what I consider to be speculative-adjacent) collections I’ve enjoyed in the past include (but are not limited to) The Smallest of Bones by Holly Lyn Walrath, Burials by Jessica Drake-Thomas, Deluge by Leila Chatti, The Nightgown and Other Poems by Taisia Kitaiskaia, A Love Story by Joanna C. Valente, Regret or Something More Animal by Heather Bell, and I Can Remember the Meaning of Every Tarot Card But I Can’t Remember What I Texted You Last Night by Elle Nash.

C: Do you have anything else in the works currently for your own poetry?

S: Of course! I’m always writing poetry, even if it might be happening a little slower these days, but I have two collections in the works right now. The one I’ve been slowly chipping away at for years but it’s coming together and will be thematically based around witchcraft (I know, shocking!). The other one is pretty much finished. It kind of just fell out of me after Evie was born earlier this year. I’m not quite sure how to explain it yet, or if I even plan on attempting to publish it, but it’s a domestic horror collection that meditates on magic, postpartum, and rage.


About Stephanie M. Wytovich

Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous magazines and anthologies such as Weird Tales, Nightmare Magazine, Southwest Review, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, as well as many others.

Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Point Park University, and a mentor with Crystal Lake Publishing. She is a recipient of the Elizabeth Matchett Stover Memorial Award, the 2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Writers Grant, and has received the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for non-fiction writing.

Wytovich is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare, and most recently, The Apocalyptic Mannequin. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press.

Follow Wytovich at http://stephaniewytovich.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter and Instagram @SWytovich​ and @thehauntedbookshelf. You can also find her essays, nonfiction, and class offerings on LitReactor.


Cassie

Cassie is one of our core team members, and maintains our site interviews with authors and creating monthly themed content.

Find her online at her blog www.letsgetgalactic.com, Twitter as @ctrlaltcassie, or over at her Etsy store, where she sells clothing, coloring & activity books, bookmarks, art prints, DIY craft kits, & more!

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

What We've Been Reading #129

Today we have three recommended reads for your tbr pile! Our team members review books by Kirby Kellogg, Alexis Henderson and Gemma Files. We hope you find something you’ll love!

Click either tag above to read more team recommendations.


Trampled Crown by Kirby Kellogg

Trampled Crown by Kirby Kellogg

Valerie Barnes is tired. Tired of wrangling snarky teens through their math lessons, tired of helicopter moms with no respect and even less kindness, and – most importantly – tired of hearing about Canary Lane High’s upcoming homecoming dance. She’s been planning it for months and promises, if only to herself, to give the kids a night they’ll never forget.

But when strange things start happening and people’s lives are threatened in the days before the dance, that promise becomes more ominous than ever. Even the administration is getting antsy, and fingers are pointing to Valerie. With time running out and stakes getting higher, it’s up to Valerie to keep her students safe, clear her name, and figure out who’s been threatening all of their lives.

Book 10 in the Rewind-or-Die series: imagine your local movie rental store back in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, remember all those fantastic covers. Remember taking those movies home and watching in awe as the stories unfolded in nasty rainbows of gore, remember the atmosphere and textures. Remember the blood.

Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop

Cassie’s Teaser Review

What is it about high school dances that are just SO much fun to read about in a horror setting? High school by itself is pretty horrifying, but add to that a whole bunch of brutal deaths, and it’s just a recipe that I love being served up again and again and again!

Read Cassie’s entire review at Goodreads.


The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut.

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.

But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.

Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.

Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop

Tracy’s Teaser Review

One of the best reading experiences is picking up a debut novel and falling in love. Especially when that book is full of dark and dangerous things just waiting to ensnare your imagination. The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson is just such a book. Themes of oppression, race, religion, and more weave together to create an immersive experience in this dark fantasy/horror mash-up. Be sure to check out the synopsis posted above for more information.

Read Tracy’s entire review at Sci-fi and Scary.


Experimental Film by Gemma Files

Experimental Film is a contemporary ghost story in which former Canadian film history teacher Lois Cairns-jobless and depressed in the wake of her son’s autism diagnosis-accidentally discovers the existence of lost early 20th century Ontario filmmaker Mrs. A. Macalla Whitcomb. By deciding to investigate how Mrs. Whitcomb’s obsessions might have led to her mysterious disappearance, Lois unwittingly invites the forces which literally haunt Mrs. Whitcomb’s films into her life, eventually putting her son, her husband and herself in danger. Experimental Film mixes painful character detail with a creeping aura of dread to produce a fictionalized “memoir” designed to play on its readers’ narrative expectations and pack an existentialist punch.

Goodreads | Amazon

Audra’s Teaser Review

This is cosmic horror without being Lovecraftian, procedural without being dull, phantasmagorical without being opaque. There are several horror books and movies that I can think of that attempt a similar enmeshing of the meta with the literal in this way, but none are as fully rounded as Experimental Film.

Read Audra’s entire review at Goodreads.


Thank you for joining us today! We hope you found something to add to your tbr list. Please share your recent reads with us in the comments below.

If you are a LOHF writer and have a book you’d like us to consider for a review please visit our review submission page here.


Laurie is one of our LOHF Admins. Laurie creates our review posts, coordinates review requests, oversees the Ladies of Horror Fiction directory, and manages our LOHF Goodreads group.

You can find Laurie on her blog Bark’s Book Nonsense, on Twitter as @barksbooks, on Instagram as @barksbooks, and on Goodreads.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

National Poetry Month: Guest Post by Eva Roslin

We’re continuing our celebration of National Poetry Month here at LOHF HQ, and we’re loving all the recommendations and reviews we’ve been tagged in so far!

In addition to book recommendations, we have a lineup of great interviews and guest posts with some wonderful women currently writing in the poetry genre. Our first of these is today’s guest post from author Eva Roslin discussing what it’s been like for her to break into the genre, and her feelings on writing poetry in general. You can also follow Eva over on Twitter at @EvaRoslin.


I’m not sure if it’s because the way poetry is taught at least in most Western nations is in the most abstract terms. There’s a fixation on things like meter, iambic pentameter, rhythm, rhyming, phrases, and while all of that is important to the understanding of poetry, it can also discourage a lot of prose writers. When I started writing, I focused on novels and short stories and that’s still true today. However, I received challenges from instructors over the years to try poetry. Whenever I did, I got this weird sense that I wasn’t doing it properly, or that my emotions were too extreme on the page, that I should just leave it to the experts. I’ve admired poems from authors I think of as goddesses like Linda Addison, Donna Lynch, Stephanie M. Wytovich, and many more. But there was always this voice in my head, and a mental wall would come up like a blockade whenever I tried my hand at poetry. This doesn’t rhyme, it’s not in the right meter, it doesn’t have the right rhythm. I felt like I was just skimming rocks across the surface of a lake but nothing stuck. 

Under Her Skin

Then I challenged myself to do more and to feel okay with sucking. Okay, so what if I have no sense of rhythm and I don’t tell mini-narratives like Chaucer? Poetry intimidates me more than novels. There’s very little space and making sure that we convey a central message is daunting. Still, poetry allows the opportunity to put raw emotions and moods on the page, different kinds of narratives with threads. Pain bleeds onto the page. We can sweep away readers and hit them in the feels, to force them to confront a reality and not turn away. Poetry is powerful. When I wrote more poems, I submitted to some of the markets out there, including an amazing project, Under Her Skin from Black Spot Books. I am delighted that one of my poems was accepted to be included, and definitely had no expectations going in. I approached it more as an anxiety challenge–that notion of feeling the fear and doing something anyway. Challenging ourselves to grow and to go for things that frighten us. This is my first published poem, and I hope that as I’ve learned from this experience that I will write and submit more poems, and that other horror authors will do so, as well. Poetry presents some of the most interesting and versatile challenges, like gymnasts who dance with ribbons and make it look effortless while putting in so much practice so that their performances look flawless. My fellow horror authors, poetry is a beautiful and scary thing. And I encourage you all to write more of it. 


Eva Roslin

Eva Roslin is a disabled horror writer from Canada with a penchant for Southern Gothic themes. She received the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship from the Horror Writers Association in 2017, a Ladies of Horror Fiction Grant in 2021, and is a Supporting HWA member. Her work has appeared in such publications as Love Bites (Mischief Publishing), Dark Heroes (Pill Hill Press), Murky Depths, Ghostlight Magazine and others. She is a librarian, instructor, and researcher with a focus on 19th century American history, particularly the Civil War, Reconstruction Era, and free people of colour in antebellum Louisiana.

Monday, April 18, 2022

Reading Poetry for Beginners: A Guide for People Who "Don't Read Poetry"

Poetry is one of my favorite things to read and has been for as long as I can remember, so naturally, poetry books end up being things I recommend a lot to other people. With those recommendations, I’ve noticed that people not already familiar with reading those types of books kind of balk at the suggestions. Sometimes the people I’m suggesting these collections to tell me they “don’t read poetry”, and it’s usually for one of two reasons:

  1. They “don’t know how” to read poetry (or say they feel like they’re ‘doing it wrong’), OR
  2. They’ve tried it and honestly just do not like poetry.

Now just to be totally clear, this isn’t going to be me bashing on folks who don’t like poetry, because “to each their own”, right? I know some people have tried to read poetry and just aren’t into it, and that’s okay! I’m not really into reading books with war as a theme, so I get that tastes vary, and I’ll never mind if someone tells me they just aren’t into poetry – I’ll just avoid recommending it in the future! But if that applies to you, then this article probably doesn’t, because I’m going to try to give tips to folks who just aren’t sure how to start.

If you’re one of those people who just finds the concept of poetry a little too intimidating to try or really get into, then I’ve got a few things that may help make the whole thing a little bit less scary. These are tips I’ve offered to other people, and that I’ve found useful even for myself – even after years and years of reading!


5 Tips for Reading Poetry

1) Let go of your expectations for what poetry “should” be.

A lot of people have certain ideas of what poetry is or isn’t, but it’s honestly just too flexible of a format for those kinds of rules, so my first tip is to ditch ’em completely! You don’t have to read the classics if you hate them, poetry doesn’t have to rhyme, and punctuation isn’t really as important as your third grade teacher made it out to be – I promise!

Also remember that with poetry, things are rarely meant directly or literally. Sometimes a seashell isn’t really a seashell, but a symbol of something else that feels important to the person that wrote the poem. Similarly, sometimes a seashell is really just a seashell in the poem, but for the reader, it suddenly means more!

Freeing yourself of whatever expectations you’ve got in mind for what you should enjoy or feel when you’re reading poetry can allow you to fully connect with it on a more natural, personal level. Some people love long, wordy prose, while others prefer short snippets with little illustrations that folks can find uplifting on Instagram. There are no rules; find what works for you, and don’t let other people’s opinions of it change yours.

2) Try a wide variety of different poets.

Sometimes finding something we like in a genre can be nerve-wracking because there are so many choices, and finding one we like in all the ones we don’t might be a daunting task. My recommendation for this is to try out a few anthologies that feature a number of different people writing about a singular theme – preferably, one that interests you! The more different types of poetry you read, the more likely it is that you’ll find something that you enjoy.

Once you do find a poet or poem that speaks to you, look for more like it. Search other work by the author – maybe they have their own full collection out that you can grab a copy of, or maybe there’s another anthology they’ve been in that you can check out. One thing often leads to another, and I’ve found some of my favorite poets and books through lists or recommendations featuring other things I’ve already established liking.

You can also try different styles of poetry, like written versus spoken. Some people are drawn to one type more than the other, and that goes hand in hand with finding what specifically appeals to you as a reader.

3) Try reading it out loud.

This one might feel kind of silly at first, so I won’t force it on you, haha. But I will say that a lot of poetry naturally (and often intentionally) follows a natural rhythm with the way its written, and sometimes that rhythm can be read better when it’s read aloud. Again – no rules, so this isn’t always the case, but it can be really useful to engage with the poem on a different level, especially if just reading it outright isn’t working for you.

4) Don’t be afraid to annotate, take notes, or look things up if you need to.

Okay, so I am a strong supporter of not approaching your “for fun” reading or poetry as if you’re doing a school assignment, because I think that sometimes a bad experience with school reading can really deter a person from trying reading again. That said, I am also very big into fully engaging with the things I’m reading, which for me means that I’m often scribbling down notes, dissecting different lines, or pinpointing things that stand out to me for one reason or another.

I love highlighting & tabbing specific parts of my books and then rereading them later to see what stood out before & currently, and my poetry books have ended up being some of my most annotated because each poem is a new opportunity to fully engage with a line – or several!

I’m not afraid to admit that sometimes a word or phrase just goes completely over my head and comprehension level too, so I like to look up anything I’m not totally sure of – but I only do this after I’ve read completely through the poem once or twice. I’ve noticed that if I read it through, just skipping over the bits I’m not super sure on, when I come back through for another pass, the parts I did get the first time now feel sort of familiar, which helps me connect even further.

5) If all else fails, it’s okay to accept that poetry might not be for you.

Finally, my last tip is just simple acceptance with no shade at all if you’re really not all that into poetry. It’s not for everyone, and it doesn’t make any person better or worse than any other for liking it or not. If you’ve tried to read poetry again and again, and you’ve found that it’s just not your jam, don’t worry. There are lots of other types of books out there, and I wish you the happiest of reading in finding them!

But if you just aren’t sure about poetry yet, and are thinking of checking it out, I’d highly recommend giving it a shot!


Although I’ve been reading poetry for most of my life, it’s only been recently that I’ve discovered poetry in the dark fiction genre, and I’ve still got so much to catch up on! I’m so grateful to the writers and presses right now putting out such stunning material to read. If you’re looking for a few poetry recommendations, check out our other National Poetry Month content. We have a Ladies of Horror Fiction Team Favorites post, and our If You Liked That Horror Theme, Try This Dark Poetry Collection listicle!


Cassie

Cassie is one of our core team members, and maintains our site interviews with authors and creating monthly themed content.

Find her online at her blog www.letsgetgalactic.com, Twitter as @ctrlaltcassie, or over at her Etsy store, where she sells clothing, coloring & activity books, bookmarks, art prints, DIY craft kits, & more!

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Team Favorites: Dark Poetry Collections We've Loved

We’re just over halfway through National Poetry Month, and we’ve LOVED seeing everything you’ve been reading! Several of our team members are avid poetry readers, so being able to share our love of the genre with all of you for an entire month is such a highlight (even though we’re totally still gonna keep sharing them throughout the rest of the year, too!).

Today, we’ve got another big round up of some of the Ladies of Horror Fiction team’s favorite dark poetry collections for you—let us know if you see any favorites here!


Poetry Collections We’ve Loved & Would Highly Recommend:

Photos by Cassie and Jen

About the Book:

Hold your screams and enter a world of seasonal creatures, dreams of bones, and confessions modeled from open eyes and endless insomnia. Christina Sng’s A Collection of Nightmares is a poetic feast of sleeplessness and shadows, an exquisite exhibition of fear and things better left unsaid. Here are ramblings at the end of the world and a path that leads to a thousand paper cuts at the hands of a skin carver. There are crawlspace whispers, and fresh sheets gently washed with sacrifice and poison, and if you’re careful in this ghost month, these poems will call upon the succubus to tend to your flesh wounds and scars.

These nightmares are sweeping fantasies that electrocute the senses as much as they dull the ache of loneliness by showing you what’s hiding under your bed, in the back of your closet, and inside your head. Sng’s poems dissect and flower, her autopsies are delicate blooms dressed with blood and syntax. Her words are charcoal and cotton, safe yet dressed in an executioner’s garb.

Dream carefully.
You’ve already made your bed.
The nightmares you have now will not be kind.
And you have no one to blame but yourself.

Goodreads | Bookshop

Team Reviews:

From Emily:

I think that A Collection of Nightmares would be a great introduction to someone who wants to try out horror poetry, but maybe doesn’t want to get into super gory material just yet. This book is definitely dark, but it’s not as bleak as some others I have read. There’s still some hope in these poems even though they are focused on nightmares. A Collection of Nightmares is a great book, and I would love to read more from Christina Sng!

Check out Emily’s full review here!

From Cassie:

This is my second book of poetry by Christina Sng, and it absolutely will not be my last: she has this haunting, ethereal way of describing things in her poems that makes each read so mysterious and comforting at the same time. Although some of the themes in the poems are quite dark, this isn’t an overly gory or “extreme” type of poetry collection. More like dark, sci-fi fairy tales—and I loved it!

Check out Cassie’s full review here!

Photo by Jen

About the Book:

Cynthia Pelayo constructs a narrative in her poetry in response to the work of Jorge Luis Borges that examines the themes and subsequent consequences of insomnia, death, and blindness. There’s a visionary quality to her work that dances along the line between the present world that we inhabit and the other world that lingers beyond the veil. Her poetry folds back this blanket of darkness, and shows readers the quiet violence and beauty that hides beneath waiting to be exposed, experienced, and encompassed.

Goodreads | Bookshop

Team Reviews:

From Emily:

My favorite thing about Poems of My Night were the descriptions of human relationships. There is some pain in these poems, and Cina’s writing is honest and relatable. My top 5 poems in this collection were Los espejos, Dos formas de insomnio, Mi vida entera, Curso de los recuerdos, and Los enigmas.

Check out Emily’s full review here!

Photos by Cassie and Jen

About the Book:

Exposed Nerves continues the explorations into dark poetry by Stoker Award winner and Shirley Jackson Award nominee Lucy A. Snyder, pairing the author’s sly wordplay and imagery with grim introspection. By turns challenging, wryly amusing and gut-wrenching, Snyder’s work plumbs bittersweet catharsis and maps a survivor’s path through dangerous worlds, both the real and the horrifically imagined.

Goodreads | Bookshop

Team Reviews:

From Alex:

Lucy Snyder’s collection of poems, Exposed Nerves, is another example upon many of how talented she is with wordsmithing and phrasing. This collection is a full of biting examples on social commentary and the daily horrors we face. Something doesn’t have to be dripping with blood or chasing you with a knife to be scary.

Check out Alex’s full review here!

Photo by Audra

About the Book:

Who doesn’t need to know How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend? From the first African-American to receive the HWA Bram Stoker award, this collection of both horror and science fiction short stories and poetry reveals demons in the most likely people (like a jealous ghost across the street) or in unlikely places (like the dimension-shifting dreams of an American Indian). Recognition is the first step, what you do with your friends/demons after that is up to you.

Goodreads | Amazon

Team Reviews:

From Emily:

How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend is a collection of horror & sci-fi poetry and short stories from Linda Addison. I believe this is the first time I’ve read Linda’s work, and I loved it so much! She is so talented at writing both short stories and poetry, and the book switches between the two seamlessly.

Check out Emily’s full review here!

From Alex:

This is the first collection of horror poetry/short stories that I have read and it just opened up a whole new world for me! I was impressed with the tales and short stories, but the poetry was even better than I could have imagined! I had no idea just how dark and twisted poetry could be.

Check out Alex’s full review here!

From Audra:

A collection of poetry and short stories, this collection of horror fiction is definitely worth checking out for any fan of the genre.

What I loved best about these stories is that though they all contain dark themes, Addison brings a different dimension to each story. Some are hilarious and some are heartbreaking. Some delve into the supernatural and others offer more realistic horror. This collection definitely held my interest just because I had no idea what was coming next!

Check out Audra’s full review here!

Photos by Cassie and Audra

About the Book:

H.H. Holmes committed ghastly crimes in the late 19th century. Many of which occurred within his legendary “Murder Castle” in Chicago, Illinois. He is often considered America’s first serial killer. In her second book of poetry from Strangehouse Books, Sara Tantlinger (Love For Slaughter) takes inspiration from accounts and tales which spawned from the misdeeds of one Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes. Fact and speculation intertwine herein, just as they did during the man’s own lifetime. There’s plenty of room in the cellar for everyone in The Devil’s Dreamland

Goodreads | Bookshop

Team Reviews:

From Tracy:

If you are like me, and poetry isn’t your jam—consider giving this a try. Tantlinger plays with form and substance. Some of the poems are sparse and chilling, others are more prose-like, and ALL of them are accessible and engrossing.

Check out Tracy’s full review here!

From Emily:

Sara’s research was so in-depth, and you can see the love she had for this project poured out into the pages. Although the poems have a fictional twist, they are organized by chronological events, and the book tells HH Holmes’ full life story. I loved that it was set up in this way, and it was like reading a fictional novel about a true crime story told through poems.

I loved that so many poems were from different points of view—you are not in Holmes’ head the entire time. Some of them are focused on the people and things around him, and Sara did an amazing job at weaving together as complete of a story on Holmes as possible.

Check out Emily’s full review here!

From Audra:

If you are perhaps a bit afraid of poetry, this collection is a wonderful example of how poems don’t have to be obfuscating. Tantlinger’s use of language is measured, image-driven, and often playful, and her attention to line breaks and spacing give the lines fresh readings upon closer inspection.

Check out Audra’s full review here!

Photo by Cassie

About the Book:

From Claire C. Holland, a timely collection of poetry that follows the final girl of slasher cinema – the girl who survives until the end—on a journey of retribution and reclamation. From the white picket fences of 1970s Haddonfield to the apocalyptic end of the world, Holland confronts the role of women in relation to subjects including feminism, violence, motherhood, sexuality, and assault in the world of Trump and the MeToo movement. Each poem centers on a fictional character from horror cinema, and explores the many ways in which women find empowerment through their own perceived monstrousness.

Goodreads | Amazon

Team Reviews:

From Audra:

These are emotional and resonant poems that get to the heart of what it means to be someone who has experienced something traumatic. Through the use of horror films, Holland has also captured a piece of the current socio-political trauma in these pages, and that’s powerful, not only as an argument for why horror is important, but for how we can continue to fight back as creators, artists, and women.

Check out Audra’s full review here!

From Cassie:

Holland’s introduction is an honest and raw almost call-to-action about the strength of being a woman, and how much it sometimes sucks for us in this day and age. The pressure of what it means to be a “woman” is sometimes too much to bear—from being told how we should look, act, dress, or talk, to being terrified of walking to our cars alone in the dark at night. The bond we share with each other—and with the final girls on these pages—is one that can only be strengthened by coming together, being vocal about what’s wrong, supporting one another, and fighting back. I loved this intro—it was an incredible start to an amazing collection, and I want to be best friends with the author.

Check out Cassie’s full review here!

From Emily:

Some of these poems hit very close to home. Claire’s writing is honest, and the poems are so relevant. Some of them felt so personal, and at times it’s jarring to read your own truth laid out by someone else. The poems have a lot to say about both our strengths and our vulnerabilities, and how these two aspects of ourselves work together to form a complete person. I believe that this book gives a call to stand up & fight for yourself.

Check out Emily’s full review here!

Photos by Cassie and Jen

About the Book:

The Apocalyptic Mannequin by Stephanie M. Wytovich is a collection that strips away civilization and throws readers into the lives of its survivors. The poems inside are undelivered letters, tear-soaked whispers, and unanswered prayers. They are every worry you’ve had when your electricity went out, and every pit that grew in your stomach watching the news at night. They are tragedy and trauma, but they are also grief and fear, fear of who—or what—lives inside us once everything is taken away.

Goodreads | Bookshop

Team Reviews:

From Laurie:

Wytovich creates a bleak world devastated by plague, chemicals, ruination and all of the painful truths about humanity that are likely to occur when life as we know it is over forever. It contains beautifully written and frightening visions of an apocalyptic future. Each poem is a little glimpse into a bleak nightmare world.

Check out Laurie’s full review here!

From Tracy:

These vary in length and all boast what I have come to love most about the shortest form of horror fiction. Every word counts. Sometimes it’s slow. Often it’s a gut punch. But whether these pieces are insidious or brazen, the result is the same. I am unsettled, entertained, and left thinking. I will be seeking out more from Wytovich in the future.

Check out Tracy’s full review here!

From Jen:

One of the most important things I look for in poetry is being able to understand it in a way that I can relate to. I’ve read a lot of poetry that has left me scratching my head, but Wytovich’s poetry is very accessible. There is a reason Stephanie Wytovich is so well loved in the horror community. Her writing is beautiful and it’s brutal.

Check out Jen’s full review here!

Photo by Audra

About the Book:

Part fairy tale, part horror story, Northwood is a genre-breaking novella told in short, brilliant, beautifully strange passages. The narrator, a young woman, has fled to the forest to pursue her artwork in isolation. While there, she falls in love with a married man she meets at a country dance. The man is violent, their affair even more so. As she struggles to free herself, she questions the difference between desire and obsession—and the brutal nature of intimacy. Packaged with illustrations by famed English artist Rufus Newell and inventive, white-on-black text treatments by award-winning designer Jonathan Yamakami, Northwood is a work of art as well as a literary marvel.

Goodreads | Bookshop

Team Reviews:

From Audra:

Haunting, visceral, and claustrophobic, this freeform poetry/novella mashup is the perfect one-sitting read, about a woman struggling with her art and a violent, intense affair.

Check out Audra’s full review here!

Photos by Jen and Cassie

About the Book:

Choking Back the Devil by Donna Lynch is an invocation, an ancient invitation that summons the darkness within and channels those lonely spirits looking for a host. It’s a collection that lives in the realm of ghosts and family curses, witchcraft and urban legends, and if you’re brave enough to peek behind the veil, the hauntings that permeate these pages will break seals and open doorways, cut throats and shatter mirrors.

Goodreads | Bookshop

Team Reviews:

From Cassie:

I loved this collection, and enjoyed the ways it stood out from some of the others I’d read recently. Horror can be found in so many different places, and I really liked that the focal point through a lot of these stories seemed to be personal demons, and mental health struggles. Murder and ghosts and things are definitely terrifying, and I love reading about them, but I also enjoy a good be of introspection when its done well; I’m happy to say that Lynch has definitely done it well here! The inside of our minds can be a very unsafe, unsettling place to be—and what better atmosphere for a horror writer can there be than that?

Check out Cassie’s full review here!

From Tracy:

I loved this brutal, beautiful horror poetry from Donna Lynch. Almost all of these pieces were 4-5 stars for me. The longer ones are stunning; however, it was the brief ones that damaged me. The selections of just a few lines, or even a single page, boast an unparalleled stark brutality.

Check out Tracy’s full review here!

From Emily:

Choking Back the Devil is the second collection I’ve read from Donna Lynch, and I loved it so much! These poems were gorgeous and haunting, and I really enjoyed my time reading them. I found this collection to be honest and easy to connect with.

Check out Emily’s full review here!

Photos by Audra and Cassie

About the Book:

What is buried can return. Those who are dead can still speak. A witch can be burned, but not silenced. When the abattoir is opened, the dead will rise. Burials is the narrative of those whose voices have been taken away-murdered women, witches, ghosts. It’s about speaking one’s truth, and using magic to heal or to banish, even from beyond the grave.

Goodreads | Amazon

Team Reviews:

From Audra:

Burials is a dark poetry collection considering women whose voices and stories have been silenced—murdered women, ghosts, witches. I loved the opening poem, “Queen of Sticks,” which really sets up the atmosphere and intention of the poems. The poems come from a place of pain but also from a place of hardened strength and durability; these women aren’t going anywhere even when they are buried. Also, the tongue-in-cheek love spell poems offered a bit of levity in the midst of the lachrymosity and darkness of the rest, and I enjoyed that.

Check out Audra’s full review here!

From Cassie:

A combination of relatable witchy spells to poems from beyond the grave, there’s a little bit here for the spooky girl in us all. The imagery in these poems brings to mind gruesome depictions of different women and their situations, from the characters in famous paintings to true crime victims, and more. The variety to the collection is pretty impressive, and I loved turning each page after reading, eager to see where Jessica would be taking me with her next poem.

Check out Cassie’s full review here!

Cassie

Cassie is one of our core team members, and maintains our site interviews with authors and creating monthly themed content.

Find her online at her blog www.letsgetgalactic.com, Twitter as @ctrlaltcassie, or over at her Etsy store, where she sells clothing, coloring & activity books, bookmarks, art prints, DIY craft kits, & more!

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