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November 9, 2018 • Fiction: Horror & Paranormal
Horror is hard work, y'all. People underestimate just how exhausting it is. Not only do you have to battle masked serial killers, deadly space aliens, or haunted videotapes, but then you’re expected to clock in by nine if you want to keep your job at the local [insert movie trope here]. That hardly seems fair! Still, work is one of those inevitable things, regardless of whether or not you made it to the final cutscene. So at the end of the day, if you’ve just got to pay the bills, here are a couple of the best gigs in horror movies. Feel free to grab an application. Most of them are hiring...
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October 31, 2018 • Fiction: Horror & Paranormal
Halloween is here, and we’re in that gorgeous seasonal sweet spot where it’s just as exciting to take a brisk walk in the leaves as it is to cuddle up indoors with a good book. Which is why we’re merging those two activities together for the ultimate Halloween activity: spooky podcasts and horror novels. Now let’s get scared.
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October 31, 2018 • Fiction: Horror & Paranormal, On Writing
When Sarah Sanderson comes calling...I’ll follow.
Here a few orange and black “nuggets” to impress your friends over the apple-bobbing bucket this Halloween. P.S. Beware “dog germs,” of course.
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October 29, 2018 • Fiction: Horror & Paranormal, Geek
It’s almost time for Halloween, which means planning for Halloween parties! But what to do when you want to have a more literary bent to your party? One need not go the full Phantom of the Opera and kidnap someone, throw a chandelier at the rest of your guests, and then act like you’re the victim, here (though I suppose you could). Here are some easy and fun ways to bring your literary love into your costume soiree.
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April 24, 2018 • Fiction, Fiction: Horror & Paranormal
R. L. Stine was a man ahead of his time. In the early ‘90s, he started a children’s horror series that would go on to sell over 400 billion copies worldwide. His success was largely due to an impressive ability to connect with children: the cover art alone was like visual candy (credit Tim Jacobus). The first chapter reeled us in with something relatable (sibling rivalry). And the next thing we knew, we were under the covers, frantically hoping Carly Beth could escape the Halloween mask before it was stuck on her forever (The Haunted Mask, 1993).
There was one other aspect of Stine’s formula that was critical to his success: the titles. By his own admission, this was the first thing he’d come up with before starting a new book. And while most of them seem pretty silly, a strange pattern reveals itself once you review them as a whole. Stine wasn’t just writing horror for kids. He was writing about the horror of being a kid. In fact, most of his titles perfectly summarize the single most terrifying thing his readers were going through at that time: puberty.
