Essays
Sudden Death and the Startlement of Absence
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Sudden Death is a dirty business. It touches you, and there’s no rubbing it off. Scrub until you bleed. No dice—it remains. Maybe that’s why I keep writing about it. A Southern California summer in ‘93. I remember blades of grass on the bottoms of my feet. Morning dew between my toes, and sunshine on…
How Unlikeable Characters Freed Me From Perfectionism
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I’m hardly the first author to call herself a perfectionist. In fact, I’m sure many of us were once described as “a pleasure to have in class”—which, for me, meant straight As, crippling social anxiety, and a paralyzing fear of getting in trouble. My literary role models were Nancy Drew, Matilda, and Ella (of Enchanted…
Confessions of a Serial Anthology Editor
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My parents moved to Paris in France for work when I was only three years old. As a result, not only did I become bilingual (and was once capable of writing in both languages) but I spent much of my first two decades navigating between France and England as a result. In my early teens,…
On the Uncanny Delights of the The Invisible Man
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I wish so badly that I could have seen The Invisible Man in 1933 when it premiered in theaters. The film is a carnival of early special effects, a parade of parlor tricks and stage magic and photographic tricks. To see it for the first time, unburdened by the knowledge of a century’s worth of…
Monster, Survivor, Villain, Victim: The Many Faces of Queer Horror
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Believe it or not, the first time many young queers feel seen in media isn’t in some sweet romcom, it’s in horror. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a queer character in the horror story who makes them feel comforted, or empowered, or even validated. It’s the final girl. It’s the vampire. It’s the werewolf.…
What Are Thriller Authors Truly Afraid Of?
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At Halloween, fear is an emotion that is universally celebrated, but for me, terror has been an ever-present source of inspiration for fiction. My fears are vast, ever-encroaching, sensual. Claustrophobia, subterranean cities, the idea of being buried alive. Falling from a great height or watching someone I love plummet into an abyss as I stand…
Setting a Gothic Thriller in the World of Nonprofits
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When we worked together in the fundraising office of a third-rate law school in San Diego, my friend Melissa and I used to joke that we should write a sitcom about the uniquely terrible world of working for nonprofits. Imagine The Office, but instead of sales meetings and cute interoffice romances, all the chairs are…
Why Horror Fiction Matters for Telling Indigenous Stories
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I’ve been consuming horror films and books from perhaps a too young age, though it’s worked out fine for me. It’s been a formative genre for me as a writer and a person. I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it premiered, when I was eight years old, and it was long my favorite…
Dorothy L. Sayers and the Enduring Legacy of a Marriage of True Minds
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–Originally delivered as the Annual Speech (28 June 2023) for the Dorothy L. Sayers Society, edited. Exactly a hundred years ago this October, Dorothy L Sayers published Whose Body? It launched her career as an illustrious author of eleven novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey that changed the detective genre forever. Sayers was, quite simply, unique.…