Writing the Uncanny
How do we write a truly scary story? What unsettled us in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House? What tension building secrets did Stephen King employ when drafting the locker room shower scene in Carrie? It wasn’t…
How do we write a truly scary story? What unsettled us in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House? What tension building secrets did Stephen King employ when drafting the locker room shower scene in Carrie? It wasn’t…
Sometimes, you think: there’s no way I’ll meet this deadline. My brain is fried. My eyes burns. My motivation is at a low point. My fingers feel like fists on the keyboard. And then something magical happens. 12 hours later,…
Juliette Fay’s fourth book, The Tumbling Turner Sisters, is the story of four girls who try their hand as an acrobatic act in 1919 vaudeville, in an effort to save their poverty stricken family (Gallery Books 2016). Ultimately it is a…
I’m at a dinner party. My partner gestures to me and says to the man we’re making small talk with: “Rose is a writer. In fact, she’s writing a novel!” “Well, isn’t that something!” he begins. I take a sip…
My Grandma Sue lived alone in the middle of a rice field in southern Missouri. The electricity would flicker if the wind blew too hard and the water smelled like lead. She stole all her dad’s savings and ran away…
I submitted something due tomorrow 20 minutes ago. I feel incredibly ahead of the game. I’m usually sweating it until one minute before the deadline. It only took four loads of laundry and multiple checks of social media to focus…