Praise to the King in Yellow! I’ve got my first acceptance of the year! Even better, it’s a story I was having trouble finding a home for!
So, you’re probably all excited to hear what the story is about and when and where it’ll come out. “The Dedication of the High Priestess” is a story I first wrote back in winter after I got back from my vacation. The story follows a young ballet student named Anastasia “Annie” Hummel. She dreams of being a famous ballerina, and being selected as a model for a famous artist’s latest series of paintings seems like a great boost to her fledgling career. However, what actually happens is that Annie is awakened to her true destiny. A destiny that will change the course of her life, and the world. forever.
If you read my post about elevated horror the other day, you might realize from the description and my opening shout of praise that this is the ballerina-meets-the-King-in-Yellow story I mentioned. And yes, I realize it got accepted right after I mentioned trying to find it a home. Not sure if that counts as irony, but it is funny.
And if you’re wondering what this King in Yellow thing is, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Sadly, I think The King in Yellow is even less well-known than HP Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.* It’s a collection of short stories written in 1895 by Robert Chambers. Most (and the best) of the stories revolve not around the titular character, but around a play bearing the character’s name and which is said to be so twisted, reading the second act will drive you mad (or make you a servant of the King, depending on if you believe he’s a real entity).
The stories have proven influential, being beloved by Lovecraft and becoming partially integrated into the Cthulhu Mythos by later writers. If you would like to find out more, you can read my own blog post on the collection, which I wrote back when I first read the stories, or you can watch this awesome YouTube video on the collection. Or you can read the collection yourself, that’s a valid choice as well.
This is my copy of the collection. Seriously, you should check it out!
Anyway, my take on the stories and the character combines both elements from the collection, from what later writers have added, and adds ballet, because let’s face it, I’m a huge fan of ballet and I’m sad there aren’t more ballet-themed horror stories. As to how I use ballet in the story, you’ll have to wait till it’s out to discover that.
Speaking of which, “The Dedication of the High Priestess” will be published as an audio story by the horror podcast Tales to Terrify. This is a podcast where professional narrators read one or two short stories or short novelettes per episode, the goal of each story being to chill you silly. I listened to a couple of episodes a while back and thought it might be a good place for my story, so I sent it in. I’m so happy they agree.
As to when it comes out, all I can say at that point is that it’ll be some time in 2022. Yeah, that’s vague, but that’s just how it is sometimes. And anyway, the moment it is out, I’ll be sure to let you know so you can check it out yourself.
I want to thank Tales to Terrify for accepting my story and I can’t wait to hear what you guys do with it. I’m very proud of this one and I’m glad it was able to find an excellent home.
And that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got some other stuff cooking that I’ll be announcing soon, so keep an eye out for that. And I have dinner cooking, so I’ll keep an eye on that. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.
*Which is a damn shame, because I think it’s better than Lovecraft in many ways, though I still like the stories the latter wrote.
I’ve heard this term thrown about a few times since January, first in the new Scream movie and most recently in an analysis of a horror film on YouTube. “Elevated horror.” And the speakers, whether in in the Scream movie or in the YouTube video, made it sound like it’s a recognized subgenre of horror with its own staple of tropes and trappings. Like slasher and its killers and gore, or Gothic with its ancient, diseased settings and corrupting influence.
The thing is, it isn’t. Elevated horror isn’t an actual subgenre of horror. I’ve consulted with dozens of writers on this (thank you, Twitter and the Horror Writers Association Facebook group) and it’s not a subgenre. It seems like a subgenre of horror at first glance when you look at works referred to elevated horror. In movies, films referred to as elevated horror include The Witch, Babadook, It Follows and Get Out, among others: they’re horror stories that focus more on probing psychological drama, characters and metaphor than blood and gore or supernatural horrors. Often, there’s a powerful social commentary being presented through the narrative, such as Get Out‘s commentary on race.
In terms of literature, “elevated horror” might have all of these as well as flowery language. It might be almost called “literary horror,” because there’s an emphasis on wording the story nicely and making it just too dark to be called “literary fiction.” Examples include The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers, Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, The Deep by Alma Katsu, and A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill.
And, most importantly, “elevated horror” can sometimes cross over into other genres, such as thriller, literary, or even comedy.
Can you really say The Witch and Get Out belong in the same subgenre?
Sounds like a subgenre, doesn’t it? But it’s not. The works called elevated horror are all as different from each other as roses are to tulips are to primulas. All flowers, but all different kinds of flowers. Let me explain: The King in Yellow and The Deep are cosmic horror mixed with deep psychological themes, The Witch is some cross between folk, religious and historical horror, and Get Out‘s searing satire makes it borderline horror-comedy. In fact, it was nominated at the Golden Globes under categories for comedies or musicals!
Yet all of them are given the designation of elevated horror. So, if it isn’t a subgenre, what is it?
The conclusion I’ve come to after speaking to numerous other writers is that elevated horror is actually horror films taking place in elevators.
Just kidding, that’s elevator horror, and the only example of that I can think of is 2010’s Devil.
No, “elevated horror” is a marketing term. And like all marketing terms, it’s directed towards a specific audience. Who is this target audience? It’s people who normally wouldn’t check out horror because they fear it’s low class, dangerous, or degenerate. They may want to check out horror or be curious, but the stigma still attached to the genre keeps them from doing so. Either that, or they won’t check it out unless a work is given a specific designation.
Calling something “elevated horror” is basically saying, “This isn’t like other horror stories, where half-naked teens are voyeuristically killed with tons of blood and gore, or where supernatural entities menace children in sewers. No, it has nuance and social commentary! There’s psychology and drama and fleshed out characters! You can be respectable while enjoying this!”
In other words, it’s another way of something is high-brow. “There are no explosions and superheroes here. No aliens or elves. No star-crossed lovers up against the odds. Only real people having real life situations, or real people in situations that are absurd but it’s okay, because it says something important about society.”
I almost wish it was a subgenre. I might have found a home for my ballerina-meets-the-King-in-Yellow story already (still working on that, give it time).
Pinhead may not be from an elevated franchise, but that doesn’t make him or Hellraiser any less awesome.
And the problem with this marketing term is it’s misleading. By calling certain movies or books “elevated horror,” it’s labeling all other horror as “trash,” or at the very least “common.” Either way, the designation puts other horror stories down. And that’s a shame, because there’s such good horror out there. Dark Harvest, Kill Creek and Salem’s Lot aren’t high brow, but they’re great stories that thrill and can leave their readers up late into the night. Same with The Thing or the Hellraiser franchise: they may never win Oscars, but goddamn are they scary, and the latter has led to one of the most memorable characters in the slasher genre.
I’m not trying to put down the term. I’m just saying we should understand what it means, both for works designated as such and those that aren’t. And if it lets you enjoy horror, great. Just make sure to check out works that aren’t “elevated” and whose creators don’t really think or care if their work is called that.
Personally, I can see some of my work being called elevated, but I’ll just say that I was trying to write a fun story and wanted others to enjoy it as well.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. After getting my thoughts on this topic out, I’m off to dream of beasties and ghosts. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.
I heard a movie based on this book was coming out later this year, so I thought I would check it out. And since I had to drive up to Cleveland yesterday (it’s a Passover thing, don’t ask) and the audio book was long enough for the drive to and back, I thought I would listen to it. I started as I pulled out of my parking space and finished about a mile from my complex on the way home. And I have to say, it certainly added to the drive.
Set in an unnamed village on Halloween night 1963, Dark Harvest follows Pete McCormick, a teenage boy who is participating in the Run, an annual harvest ritual where he and the other teen boys in town chase a living pumpkin-headed scarecrow known as “Sawtooth Jack” and “The October Boy.” The kid who manages to catch and kill Sawtooth Jack before he reaches the church in the center of town by midnight wins great prizes for him and his family, including the right to leave the village. Pete is gearing to win this year, even if it means breaking some rules, but he soon finds out there’s a darker truth to the Run. And losing might not be the worse thing in the world.
I have to say, while I was able to predict certain things, I enjoyed the story. I was sucked in by the immediate weirdness of the tale and by the haunting atmosphere. There’s this explosive potential in the narration and the reveling in violence and death that comes from the story. It really fits the Halloween vibe, as well as the cruelty and nihilism that comes with it. And while some things were predictable, as I said, it’s such a joy watching them unfold.
That being said, the style of narration was kind of annoying at times. There’s a lot of addressing the reader and rambling on the thoughts of individual or multiple characters. Great, it’s lots of psychological flowery language, but I would like to reach the next exciting bit of the story, and what does this all add to the overall book?
That, and it wasn’t really explicit about why the Run exists. It’s hinted it’s some sort of pagan ritual to help with next year’s corn harvest and keep people in town, but it’s never really spelled out or how this sort of thing began in the first place. Mostly, you hear stuff about how the Run is part of a way of life, but that only explains so much.
Still, I had a great time with this novel and was glad I finally got around to reading it. On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m giving Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge a 4.3 out of 5. It’s a fun little Halloween romp that you can gobble up in a day or so. Whether or not you plan to see the movie version, if you haven’t read this one and love your Halloween stories, I recommend checking it out.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I hope to have some exciting news out very soon. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!
You know, many great stories were originally published in serialized form. From Charles Dickens’ many novels to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and HP Lovecraft, many writers we still read today had stories serialized in newspapers and magazines.
I’m not saying that “Blood and Paper Skin” is one of those great stories, but I do think it’s cool that it’s not only been serialized, but that the last part is now available.
So, if you’re wondering what I’m talking about, “Blood and Paper Skin” is a novelette I wrote some time ago about a bunch of teens and college students who go out to get drugs, only to be taken captive and held in a strange prison-like room. The story has been serialized by The Dark Sire literary journal, a quarterly journal that specializes in horror and dark speculative fiction and poetry. And they also do serializations of longer stories, such as “Blood and Paper Skin.”
I’m very happy that TDS has released the final part of the story, especially this is the publication’s last print issue (they’re moving entirely to e-book after this issue). It’s a story I didn’t think would find a home, so I was glad it did and that the team behind that home loved the story. Every time I talked to them, they praised it and said they got so much feedback from readers who love “Blood and Paper Skin.”
Anyway, if you would like to check out “Blood and Paper Skin,” I’ll include the links for all issues of The Dark Sire where the story appears, starting from the most recent. And if you would like what you read, either of “Blood and Paper Skin” or The Dark Sire, please make sure to leave reviews and check out our other work. We both work really hard to deliver to you the best stories, so we hope you continue to check them out and let us know what you think.
Anyway, I’ve got a new story rattling around in my wacky head, so I’m going to start outlining. If you need me, you know where to find me. Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares!
The placeholder cover I made for Hannah and Other Stories. I can’t wait to show you all the official cover someday soon.
Well, the story I was writing for that one anthology will have to be put on pause. Good thing I don’t have to submit till June.
So, as many of you are aware, back in October I signed with BSC Publishing Group to release a collection of short stories. The collection is going to be called Hannah and Other Stories and will consist of seven short stories, novelettes and novellas, including: Hannah, which follows two ghost hunters whose latest investigation has consequences for multiple people; The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah, about a young girl’s relationship with a budding psychopath; and Poor, Unfortunate Souls, in which a rave underneath the streets of Paris receives an unexpected and horrifying guest.
Anyway, since I signed that contract, some time has passed, and I’ve been writing and editing stories like crazy so I don’t get rusty. And today, I finally received the first round of edits. And it looks like I have a lot of work to do!
Man, I wish all those edits I’d done back in spring and summer last year were enough to spruce up the stories. But I guess I wasn’t so lucky.
On the bright side, I still have some pretty clear memories of when I edited Rose back in 2018 and 2019. That was the last time I edited an entire book with a publisher, and it was quite the learning experience. Given what I remember, I will take it story by story, part by part, and try to identify the same issues my editors did, as well as using their suggestions to improve the story.
I will also make sure to take care of my mental and emotional health. It’s not something that’s talked about enough in the writing community, but this path we walk takes a toll on us writers. And that’s especially true when it comes to publishing an entire book! When I got the first edits back on Rose, for example, I went into a tailspin of anxiety. There were a lot of issues with the novel, a couple of which led to me rewriting around two-thirds of the book. Needless to say, I was upset with myself that I missed so many issues and worried I wasn’t going to be able to fix them. It took a lot of work for me to calm down again and start to work on the book again.
This time around, I’ll be better prepared. As I said before, I’ll take each story one at a time, and I’ll try not to let the issues with each story get under my skin. After all, not only have I been through this ordeal before, but I wrote these stories already and the publisher thought they were decent enough in their imperfect state that they wanted to publish them. If I was able to do that, I can edit the stories to a state where they can be released.
Plus, I have a support network I can rely on if things get to be too much, and I’ve already ordered my comfort anime from the library (nothing like a Sailor Moon binge to make you feel refreshed). Add in some ice cream and the occasional pizza delivery, and I’ll be fine.
Anyway, I’ll keep you all updated on the progress of the book, as well as my other projects. I may also write a post on maintaining your mental health during the publishing process at some point. In the meantime, if you’re looking forward to Hannah and can’t wait to read it, or you need something to read in the meantime, I’ll include links to Rose and my other books down below. Who knows? You might just find your new favorite horror story down below. Let me know what you think.
And please also check out the anthology Dead of Winter from the Dublin Creative Writers Cooperative and Spark Street Media, which contains the story “Azazel Dances” by myself and Richard Gerlach. It’s a great story inside a great anthology, so why not check it out?
And with that, I’ll take my leave. Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first publication of 2022!
Some time ago, I met another Jewish horror writer by the name of Richard Gerlach. There was an anthology being created at the time of holiday horror stories, and we thought we’d team up to write one with a little Jewish flair. We wrote a story set around Hanukkah and submitted it. It didn’t get in, but it birthed a friendship and we both believed in the story, so we kept shopping it around.
Dead of Winter from Dublin Creative Writers Cooperative and Spark Street Media, which contains mine and Richard Gerlach’s story “Azazel Dances.” Looking forward to hearing what you think of it!
Some time last year, the story was accepted by the Dublin Creative Writers Cooperative,* who in partnership with Spark Street Media are releasing the anthology Dead of Winter. And our story, “Azazel Dances,” is featured in the anthology! Which is out today!
Honestly, Rich and I are so excited for you to read this story, which centers on a demon who interferes with two feuding Jewish families around Hanukkah. Not only do we get to add to the ever-growing subgenre of Jewish horror (something I’ve been trying to do anyway), but we worked really hard on this story. Like really hard. Like oh my God, the amount of work that went into this story to make sure it was ready for publication! And it was not easy for either of us to find time to edit it, either. Like, I tried to buy the guy a bottle of wine because we somehow made the deadline despite the amount of work and how crazy our lives got! Sadly, mailing alcohol without subscriptions or memberships to special clubs is troublesome.
The point is, we put in a lot of hard work, and I’m very proud of the work we put in to write and edit this story together. So I hope you read it and see what we managed to create together. And if you like what you read, please make sure to spread the word somehow. Goodreads, Amazon, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok, whatever. Leaving your thoughts online somewhere allows us writers to know what people think of our work, as well as helps other readers decide whether or not to check out the book.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll leave a link to check out Dead of Winter below. Ebook is already available, and paperback shouldn’t be far behind. Either edition, there are a lot of great stories in there besides the one by Rich and me, so it’s worth your while. And while you’re at it, you should also check out Richard Gerlach. He’s a great writer with another story in another anthology and has more on the way. He also writes for Divination Hollow Reviews and is a co-host for the podcast Staring Into the Abyss. You can find him on his Twitter account here, his previous publication here, Divination Hollow Reviews here, and the Twitter account for the podcast here.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I don’t know how we got to the end of February so fast, but I’m looking forward to whatever March brings. So until next time, good night, happy reading and pleasant nightmares!
*Dublin Ohio, which was used for a short scene in Rose. Not Dublin, Ireland. Just clarifying.
As many of you know, I’m a big fan of manga author Junji Ito. While sometimes his stories can be hit-or-miss with me, there’s no denying the man has a distinctive style that aims to bring out the full horror of whatever story he’s drawing. And his latest release in North America is Deserter, a collection of some of his early works dating back all the way to the late 80’s. You can bet I was curious. What was Junji Ito, the author and illustrator behind such terrifying stories as Uzumaki and Remina like during his early days? I was determined to find out.
Now, as I said, this is a collection of the author’s early works, and with just one exception, the stories are presented in the order they were chronologically published in. And that really gives you a clue on Ito’s evolution as an artist and storyteller. For example, the artwork is a lot rougher and feels more rushed in the earlier stories in the collection. You can see more of a reliance on thicker brushes and the characters are a bit more sketch-like. Ito’s famous for purportedly spending up to ten hours a day on a page with pen and paper, making his artwork as dark as possible. If I had to guess, this would be from the days he couldn’t afford to do that, or wasn’t yet at that stage, and that explains the roughness we see.
The stories in the earlier sections are also pretty rough around the edges. The first, “Bio House,” feels shocking for shock’s sake and has a rather slap-dash kind of plot, while “Where the Sandman Lives” makes little sense. Others, such as “Face Thief” and “The Devil’s Logic” have good concepts behind them but the payoff is either a rushed conclusion or a story that feels like its potential wasn’t fully reached.
It’s not that they’re bad, they were good enough to be published. They just remind me of some of my earliest horror writings, when I was realizing you needed more than a monster to tell a horror story but I didn’t yet have the tools to write a truly scary story. That’s how those stories feel to me.
However, once you get to the last five stories, you can see Ito really gaining experience and the stories improving in quality. “A Father’s Love” still is a little rough in the art department at times, but it has a compelling stories and characters you really feel for (ooh, I shipped those two young kids!). “Village of the Siren” is a bit long-winded, but it has a really cool idea and the artwork to match. “Bullied,” which is a famous story of Ito’s that I’ve been waiting to get to America, is a terrifying story of karma and psychological trauma built around childhood guilt. And the titular story, “Deserter,” is a meditation that asks, “Who is really doing the haunting? Who is really trapped in a haunted house?” I was in awe of that one.
Overall, I’m conflicted on what score to give the collection. On quality alone, I’d give it a 3.3 out of 5. However, the value of the book and how it shows Ito’s evolution is a 4 out of 5. I’ll meet it halfway and award Deserter by Junji Ito a 3.6. If you’re new to Junji Ito, I wouldn’t advise checking this one out till you’ve read some more of his work, particularly Uzumaki or Remina. However, if you’re already familiar and want to consume more of his work, I would totally recommend it just to see how the author evolved and to read those last five stories.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Life is crazier than the Joker right now, but I’m hoping have some good news in the near future. Either that or you’ll hear about my attempts to open the gates of Hell just so I can get some peace and relaxation.
Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares.
Some of you may remember at the start of the pandemic I had the pleasure to interview Alma Katsu, author of the critically acclaimed novels The Hunger and The Deep (you can read that interview here). I loved both novels, which took on the historical events of the Donner Party and the Titanic, respectively, and turned them into supernatural horror stories. It won’t surprise you, then, that I’ve been looking forward to her next historical horror novel for a while now.
Two pieces of good news: first, Ms. Katsu has a new novel, The Fervor, coming out in late April! The novel takes place during World War II at a Japanese internment camp and involves a strange disease and a stranger monster from Japanese legend. Yeah, you can tell this is right up my alley!
Second pieces of good news: Ms. Katsu has agreed to let me interview her about the book! So without further ado, let’s talk to Alma Katsu and find out why you should be as excited as I am for her new novel.
Rami Ungar: Welcome back to the blog, Ms. Katsu.Please tell us about The Fervor and how it cameabout.
Alma Katsu: First came the decision to set the next book in WWII. That had to do with trends in publishing, frankly; I’d sat in on the editors’ panel at the Historical Novel Society conference a few years ago, when it was time to come up with a proposal, and their advice was that historical fiction was pretty much dead except for WWII. I’d always thought it would be interesting to write about the internment camps, but then the question was how to turn that into a horror story? Objectively, the horror should be pretty evident: here was a government locking up its own citizens, people who hadn’t committed a crime, because they didn’t trust them. Because the average citizen (with the help of propaganda) believed that Asians were inherently sneakier and untrustworthy.
RU: You’ve talked about your Japanese heritage and how it influenced the story. Can you go into thatfor us?
AK: This was the first time where the main character of the book has the same ethnicity as me, and it was pretty eye-opening. For one thing, as I was writing I realized that I had a lot of resentments about the way my mother had been treated coming to America after the war, and the way I’d been treated as a minority (to a lesser extent) bottled up inside. Add to that the preconceptions about Asians and Asian women, in particular. This was an opportunity to write the truth, to dispel myths. It was freeing.
RU: I can only imagine!And speaking of Japanese elements, there’s been a surge of stories inspiredby Japanese culture, particularly yokai, in the West.Some examples include Nothing but Blackened Teeth byCassandra Khaw and my own novel Rose.What do you think of that surge,and where do you think it comes from?
The Fervor by Alma Katsu.
AK: I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer here. I know some folks are big into Japanese folktales and such, so I’m not aware of a surge per say. It always seems to be fairly popular thanks to anime! Japanese yokai and yurei are part of the fabric of life for Japanese, and so I’d heard and read stories when I was a kid, and it didn’t seem you could tell a horror story with Japanese characters without incorporating it in some way.
RU: Well, I can attest thatanime was definitely an influence on me.Anyway, The Fervor also involves anepidemic in a Japanese internment camp.Did the COVID-19 pandemic influence your decision to include that?
AK: I drew on COVID, yes, the feelings of mass panic and confusion, but The Fervor is about racism. I decided to write it after watching what’s been happening to this country over the past four years or so. I’m not naïve but it’s been bewildering to see racism go mainstream in America. It’s comforting in a way to think it could be a disease, something you could catch, as that at least is understandable. The January 6th attack on the Capitol also influenced the book: The Fervor was an attempt to look at what this country has been going through and compare it to another horrible incident in America’s past, and show that we haven’t changed much.
RU: I’m looking forward toseeing how that plays out in the book. So, what research did you do for the book?
AK: This was different from The Hunger (the Donner Party) and The Deep (the sinking of the Titanic), events that I didn’t know a lot about. I already knew a lot about life in the internment camps, because I’d heard stories from my in-laws, seen documentaries and read articles. I knew what the issues were, I knew how the interned felt and what they had gone through. For the book, it was more a matter of filling in the gaps. I lucked out in that a neighbor’s family had been interned at Minidoka, which is featured in the book, and had a trove of documents from the camp: maps, rosters, newsletters, all kind of non-official documentation that typically gets lost to time. It was a real windfall.
RU: Yeah, primary sources like that are always a boon when writingabout history or using it. And speaking of which, you’ve written about the Donner Party, the sinking of the Titanic, and now the Japanese internment camps. Are there any other ages or historical eventsyou would want to write a story about?
AK: After doing three books and having them change a bit each time (going from being fairly close to the history to becoming reinterpretations of events, maybe just shy of alternate histories), I think it’s time to re-evaluate. I’m sure there are plenty of interesting historical events (I’d love to do another Western, for example) but I’m a little burned out on close reads of history right now.
RU: Fair enough. Switchinggears a bit, what are you working on nowadays?And when can we expect tosee the TV series based on your spy novel, Red Widow?
AK: I just handed in the second in the spy novel series, and though I’m sure it’ll need some work, I’m glad to have that behind me. I’m working on a new project that I can’t talk about at the moment, and hope to be pitching a few TV proposals soon.
Red Widow, the TV series, is chugging along. The pilot script is being polished right now, and we hope to know whether we’ll be shooting the pilot before too long.
RU: Final question: what are you reading these days? And are there any recent reads that you wouldrecommend others check out?
AK: There are so many great books coming out this year that it’s hard to single out just a few. Let’s see… SA Barbes’ debut Dead Silence just came out. It’s space/horror: think Aliens meets Titanic. It’s a lot of spooky fun. I had the opportunity to read Andy Davidson’s The Hollow Kind, a wonderfully suspenseful, creepy southern Gothic with a dual timeline. It doesn’t come out until October, however. I’m really excited for Catriona Ward’s next novel, Sundial, which I think I liked even better than Needless Street.
RU: Well, thank you for joining us, Ms. Katsu. It was a pleasure to have you again. Please keep us posted on your progress.
If you are interested in The Fervor, you can preorder it now from most retailers. You can also check out Ms. Katsu’s other books, including The Hunger, The Deep and Red Widow. And, of course, you can find Ms. Katsu on her website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I look forward to reviewing The Fervor this coming spring. And in the meantime, I’m sure I’ll be back soon with plenty to share with you. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!
The Lafayette Hotel. Definitely worth the trip on so many levels.
As many of you were probably aware, I drove out to Marietta, Ohio for the Hidden Marietta Paranormal Expo. The expo took place at the Historic Lafayette Hotel, a beautiful historic hotel that is also purported to be haunted. Since I was going to be at a hotel anyway, I didn’t want to get up early on a Saturday to drive out to the expo, and I knew its reputation, I decided to stay the night before the expo and see if anything happened.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can confirm that the Historic Lafayette Hotel is indeed haunted.
First, let me tell you about the hotel. It is a beautiful place that words can’t do justice. You step inside the building, and it’s like stepping through time: there’s all this gold and bright colors and mahogany and you almost expect to see people in Edwardian dresses and suits smoking cigars and discussing President Roosevelt or something! There’s a giant steering wheel from an old steamboat on the ceiling, a grandfather clock, and so much more scattered around. I was enchanted from the moment I stepped in!
Now, there are a few places in the hotel that are supposed to be haunted. One is the third floor, which is where I stayed. The other is the basement, where the spirit of a little boy named Thomas is supposed to hang out. (There might be more, but I didn’t have a chance to learn about them.)
After getting settled into my room, I went down to explore the hotel. During the course of my journey, I ran Carita and Viva, two of the folks who run Hidden Marietta and the expo, as well as Jeff and Caitlin, two more vendors. The latter two would become good friends of mine over the weekend and we would hang out quite a bit. Anyway, Carita and Viva gave us a short tour of the hotel, starting from the ballroom where the expo would be and going around the first floor. We then all decided to meet in the lobby and do a bit of ghost hunting at 7 PM.
Well, 7 PM arrived and I arrived in the lobby. Carita and Viva messaged to let us know they may not be able to make it due to prepping for the expo, so I ended up hanging out with Jeff, Caitlin and the hotel staff. And yes, the staff had LOTS of stories to tell. They’ve seen shadow figures and other things while working in the hotel.
Around 8 PM, we decided to go up to the third floor and see if we caught anything. Jeff and Caitlin had a lot of their own equipment, including an EMF meter (measures changes in electromagnetic energy), a paranormal puck (has an electronic dictionary in it that spirits supposedly can manipulate to answer questions), and an SLS camera (maps figures like certain video game systems do, so any figure without a person attached to it might be a spirit). So, for the first time in my life, I got to work with paranormal equipment I’d only seen on TV before! The result was the below video.
Pretty cool, right? We mapped a spirit using the SLS camera, and got some interesting answers on the paranormal puck device. Also, if you’re wondering why I said Jeff and Caitlin’s nicknames are “Wolf and Roses,” it’s because the spirits they’ve encountered in the past have called them that for reasons I’m not going to get into.
After that testing session, we kept trying to get some responses. And that’s when things got very weird and very funny.
So the spirit had us call for a dog, which may have been a demon dog; we heard the words “help” and “shit” on the spirit box (you can hear them too if you listen closely), and after we’re joined by that family, the spirit lets us know someone’s ORDER of pizza is on its way; it’s a great DEAL; and it’ll be here in a TICK! Yeah, that was hysterical.
We messed around in the hallway for a little bit longer, and the only thing I remember getting is that the puck at one point said “TOP” and “JESUS.” This will be relevant later.
At some point we moved on to using my dowsing rods in my room, and that was when things got really scary.
Yeah, so whatever we were communicating with in my hotel room was not a friendly spirit. Remember when I said the spirit said “TOP JESUS?” Well, possibly that was the same spirit we encountered in my room, and it would make sense for something malevolent to say it’s stronger than Jesus. And after I stopped recording, Caitlin started laughing uncontrollably. It was kind of scary, and she said later she had no idea why she was laughing! I think at that point I pulled the rods out of Caitlin’s hands to break the connection. Quite possibly, something was laughing through her.
Yeah, after that, we did a cleansing energy ritual to make sure I could sleep that night. And thankfully it worked, because I slept comfortably that night and none of us had any scary dreams that would indicate an evil entity was trying to attach to us. I still needed a beer from the hotel bar and then a few prayers to my higher power before I felt entirely calm, though.
And that’s the last time I do ghost hunting without first creating an energy barrier around myself!
That’s the last video I took that night, and we wrapped up our ghost hunting afterwards. To say the least, it was an experience. We laughed, we got freaked out, and we got some good evidence on camera. I’m glad I was able to do it, and I am glad I was able to do it with Jeff and Caitlin beside me.
Also, I’m going to note here that while we were waiting for Carita and Viva, I did stop in the basement for a brief moment. Let me tell you, that basement may be warm to the point of balmy, but it gave me the creeps! Maybe it was how odd that floor was laid out, but I had chills being down there and quickly went back up.
I’m going to leave it at that, Followers of Fear. To say the least, the Historic Lafayette Hotel is an active location and if you go there, you’re probably going to experience something. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with my video of the Expo. It was a lot of fun and there were plenty of cool booths there, too.
Also, check out Jeff and Caitlin’s game, Killers the Card Game! It looks like a ton of fun, and if you think you can find someone to play with, you should. You can buy it from here: https://linktr.ee/killerstcg
Until next time, Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and remember, ghosts know when your pizza is arriving!
I should be in bed now, but I can’t! I’m too energized, too excited, too joyous! That Which Cannot Be Undone, the anthology my friends and I have been trying to create, is fully funded!
So, if you’re new around here and have never heard of this anthology, then let me first say hello. I’m happy to have you reading my blog and showing interest in my career as a writer. Secondly, over the course of the pandemic, some of my fellow Ohio horror writers and I came together to form our own publishing press, Cracked Skull Press, with the goal of putting out an anthology of stories that emphasized writers from our state. Furthermore, the stories would all be set in Ohio and would revolve around the theme “that which cannot be undone,” which became our eventual title.
To fund this project, we launched a Kickstarter campaign back in late November, and worked our butts off to get noticed and to get people to pledge to support us. I’m proud to say, with four days left of the campaign, we are fully funded and have exceeded our funding goal!
There are so many people I want to thank. To the people who pledged, of course, you get a huge thank you. We literally could not be doing this without your help. An even bigger thanks to the people from this blog, my Followers of Fear, who pledged their support. It means a lot that you support my projects and my career, and I’m so happy to have you supporting this one. To the writers who said they would contribute works to our anthology if we were fully funded, and to the many individuals who posted and promoted the Kickstarter, we also extend a big thank you. We can’t wait to showcase your stories and list your contributions in the Donor section. And to the other members of Cracked Skull Press, Ray Pantle, Randall Drum, and David Day, I’m so glad to be working with you and can’t thank you enough for the hard work you put into this project. There will be more hard work from here on out, but I’m sure we’ll be up to the challenge.
And if you still want to be part of this project in some way, there are still a few days left of the anthology. You can still pledge your support and thereby help us in case we encounter further costs to this anthology. Or if you’ve already pledged, you can increase how much you pledge before the end of the campaign. You can do so using this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crackedskullproject1/that-which-cannot-be-undone-an-ohio-horror-anthology
I’m so excited right now, my Followers of Fear. I can’t wait to tell you what’s coming next with this project and our eventually publication in October 2022. As with all my other projects, I’ll make sure to keep you updated on this one, right up until it’s out in print/ebook.
And yes, don’t worry, this won’t be the last project from Cracked Skull Press. We’ll have plenty of ideas for further projects. Keep an eye out and get ready for great stuff on the horizon.
Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares.
Rami Ungar The Writer 