Suspense
Wilderness Thrillers Featuring Fearless Women
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I’m what you might call a mini-adventurer. I’ve climbed rockfaces, rafted rivers, backpacked into the wilderness and once slithered through a cave tunnel so tight that the only way through was to lie flat, turn my head sideways and push with my toes. I’ve never done anything as daring as free-climbing the 3,000-foot granite wall…
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 powerful supernatural stories in the 90s, and we adored them. That’s because there is magic in stories about sisters. When we discover sisters on the page,…
Vanessa Lillie on Writing a Thriller That Explores Native American Issues and Environmental Injustice
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Vanessa Lillie says she’s “an impatient reader,” a trait that influences her writing: “I really like to create characters who are aggressively seeking justice, even when it puts their lives in danger.” This is a dead-on description of Syd Walker, the courageous protagonist of Lillie’s new novel. Blood Sisters follows Syd, a Cherokee woman and…
A Cultural History of the Erotic Thriller
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The strip mall video rental store was an emporium of illicit dreams. Its doorway in the small town where I came of age, located in between candy store and pharmacy, doubled as a portal into fantasy, dark explorations of human nature, and cheap thrills that looked mightily expensive. Beginning in my early teenage years, I…
James Kennedy: “Storytellers are manipulative cult leaders.”
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I missed my chance to be in a cult. In my twenties, a guy on the street handed me a pamphlet to join a “communal farm”—an obvious cult. Nevertheless, I was intrigued: maybe I could enjoy this farm’s bucolic vibes and free love, while shrewdly avoiding any mass suicide, or baby-eating, or barnyard chores. I…
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…
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…