On Being Nineteen
When I started reading Stephen King’s Dark Tower novels, one of the things that resonated with me is his introduction, “On Being Nineteen”, which is included in […]
dark fantasy
The Masque of the Red Death
“The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe tells the tale of Prince Prospero who, when hemorrhagic fever rages through in his kingdom, retreats […]
The Red Tree
Caitlín R. Kiernan’s The Red Tree is a dizzying weird gothic novel that chronicles the final months of a writer named Sarah Crowe as she grieves for […]
Themed Anthologies
A themed anthology is a book-length work containing short stories, essays or poetry all written by different authors on the same theme, concept or topic. […]
Unreliable Narrators
Caitlín R. Kiernan’s dark fantasy novel The Drowning Girl: A Memoir and Robert W. Chambers’ supernatural story collection The King in Yellow have several themes in common—ancient […]
What’s Weird Fiction?
Weird fiction can refer to a couple of different types of literature, depending on who’s discussing which books and stories. Classic Weird Fiction “Classic” weird […]
The King in Yellow
The King in Yellow (first published in 1895) is a collection of short stories written by author Robert W. Chambers. Most of the tales in […]
On Alpha Males
If you have been writing mostly horror but are interested in branching out into urban fantasy or paranormal romance, there are some genre conventions to keep in […]
On Dark Fantasy
In the 1990s, dark fantasy became regarded as being “code” for horror. Why? Major publishers who flooded the market with awful, horrible, no-good novels in […]