Gothic
Running Away with the Fairies
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Here in Avalon was never supposed to be about fairies. I’d envisioned the novel—a literary thriller about two sisters, one of whom, Cecilia, goes missing after getting involved with…
Mystical Threads: Spirit Mediums and Psychics in Crime and Suspense Fiction
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I never met my paternal grandmother. She died before I was born, but from a few family photos, I formed a picture of a smartly turned-out woman with warm…
Sinking Into the Gothic Gloom: My Favourite Works
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I’ve always struggled with some of the prevailing definitions of ‘gothic’ fiction. Tradition dictates there should be elements of fear, threat, woe, that hauntings should occur and vile things…
Brave Women in Mysterious Circumstances: A Reading List
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When I was 12 or 13, I read a book called The Other Side of Dark by Joan Lowery Nixon. There wasn’t a ton of YA in those days…
Elizabeth Hand on Playwriting, Haunted Houses, and Shirley Jackson
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This interview has been edited for clarity and concision. A Haunting on the Hill is now available from Mulholland Books. Olivia Rutigliano: I’m so excited because this is the…
The Magic of Sisterhood: Five Supernatural Sister Stories
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Halloween season has always been steeped in sisterly magic. Think of the Sanderson sisters in Hocus Pocus or the Owens sisters in Practical Magic. They set the stage for…
The Western Meets Weird Fiction: A Roundtable Discussion
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Once a narrowly defined genre—set in the American frontier of the 19th Century—the definition of Western has expanded with contemporary takes from such authors as Cormac McCarthy, Ivy Pochoda,…
6 Creepy Novels Featuring Murder Houses
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There’s something beautiful about ugliness. We all have it simmering under the surface. But we make damn sure not to show it. Why? In my debut, The Stranger Upstairs,…