I’m delighted to talk Star Trek at an event by Licking County Library on Jan. 18, 2022 at 7pm Eastern. This event is live, online, and free to everyone.
My presentation: “Empowered Minds: How Star Trek Changed the World and Why It Still Matters”
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Empowered Minds: How Star Trek Changed the World and Why It Still Matters. After registering, yo
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October 24: House of Night series by P.C. & Kristin Cast (2007-2014)
Quote from Marked (2007):
“Remember, darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.”
NOTE: I contributed the essay “Reimagining ‘Magic City’: How the Casts Mythologize Tulsa” to a book about the House of Night Series, Nyx in the House of Night. You can read more of my posts about the series here.
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October is here! This year for my Halloween countdown, with the invaluable assistance of my husband (and resident expert on all things Appalachian), I will be bringing you a spooky, Halloween-appropriate song with a twist of mountain flavor. I’ve chosen one version of each of these songs to share, but some have been recorded and reinterpreted many, many times.
If you like “Boograss” (or Spooky Bluegrass), Southern Gothic tales, traditional murder ballads, ghost stories, and/or Halloween chills, I hope you will enjoy each day’s post!
Song: “O Death”
Quote:
O Death, O Death in the morning,
O Death, spare me over ‘til another year.
Listen to Rhiannon Giddens’ performance…
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October is almost here!
I’m currently working on new academic projects related to Dark Academia (the subgenre, not the aesthetic), so for Halloween month I’ll be posting a different DA title each day with a haunting/atmospheric quote. I hope you’ll enjoy the recs!
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October 29: Genesis by Bernard Beckett (2006)
Quote:
In the end, living is defined by dying. Book-ended by oblivion, we are caught in the vice of terror, squeezed to bursting by the approaching end. Fear is ever-present, waiting to be called to the surface.
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Dark Academia
I’m delighted to share the details of my Fall 2022 online Dark Academia class at Signum University!
I’m also thrilled to add that 3 of the brilliant authors whose works we’ll be studying in the Dark Academia course will be holding live Q&A sessions with the class!
I’m thrilled to add that 3 of the brilliant authors whose works we’ll be studying in the #DarkAcademia course will be holding live Q&A sessions with the class!
Peadar Ó Guilín for THE CALL (‘16)
Elisabeth Thomas for CATHERINE HOUSE ('20)
R.F. Kuang for BABEL ('22).
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October 8: Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber (1943)
Quote:
Things are different from what I thought. They’re much worse.
Film Adaptations: Weird Woman (1944), Night of the Eagle (A.K.A. Burn, Witch, Burn!) (1962), and Witches’ Brew (A.K.A. Which Witch is Which?) (1980)
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I’m delighted to be joining SPACE (Signum Adult Portals for Adult Continuing Education) online with Signum University. My upcoming modules in early 2024 include The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand, and The Last Man by Mary Shelley. I hope to see you in SPACE!
Registration is now open for January’s module, The Haunting of Hill House.
More information on my offered modules is here.
ALT
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Here’s a Halloween-relevant article by Kim Taylor Blakemore at CrimeReads: “The New Gothic: Feminist and Unapologetic - Tracing the Evolution of Gothic Heroines from the Mid-20th Century to the Present Day Through 7 Novels.”
On a related note, this is a timely reading list from Emily Wenstrom at Book Riot: “5 Modern Authors Upholding the Gothic Feminist Tradition in 2020.” One of the works recommended is one of the stellar “must read” novels of the season, Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. Here, have a taste:
- from Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020)
Chilling, no? A longer excerpt is available here: “Read an Excerpt from Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Haunted House Mystery.”
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October 22: Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand (1994)
Quote 1:
They never found her. Nothing at all: no clothes, no jewelry, no bones or teeth or locks of auburn hair.
Quote 2:
By the door the two figures remained still. I slitted my eyes, afraid that they would see that I was awake, be moved by the reflection of starlight in my pupils to reach for me with those terrible arms. Still they said nothing, only stood there unmoving, watching, waiting.
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Happy Halloween, everyone!
Song: “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
Quote:
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
Read the complete poem.
Listen to Joan Baez’s performance…
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October 26: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2005)
Quote:
As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claws.
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Song: “The Lantern”
Quote:
In dark misty hills of Carolina, Way back where the mountain laurel grows, On cool October nights, with a lantern shining bright, There’s something out there walking through the darkness all alone, Creeping through the darkness all alone.
Read the complete lyrics.
Listen to Front Range’s performance…
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Current mood: listening to Shirley Jackson’s daughter sing the murder ballad “The Grattan Murders,” which appears in Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, as her mother sang it to her.
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October 20: Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko & Sergey Dyachenko, trans. Julia Meitov Hersey (1st published 2007, in English 2018)
Quote:
“‘If we get to the end of the course… we shall become just like them. And we shall speak their language. Then we’ll take revenge.’”
Sasha shook her head.
“If we get to the end of this course, we won’t want to take revenge anymore. We’ll become just like them.”
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October 27: The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino (2021)
Quote:
Demons. Dark magic. The devil. These were the things he searched, muttering under his breath and dead to the world around him as dawn broke; as something grappled at the door of his office and found itself forbidden.
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ALT
It’s almost October, which means it’s almost time to start my annual re-reading of one of my all-time favorite books, A NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER by Roger Zelazny. With 31 chapters, one for each day of the month, it is a fantastic mash-up of creepy seasonal goodness wrapped into a compelling story, a kind of literary advent calendar for Halloween.
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In 1920, Native Women Sought the Vote. Here’s What They Seek Now.
Native women were highly visible in early 20th-century suffrage activism. White suffragists, fascinated by Native matriarchal power, invited Native women to speak at conferences, join parades, and write for their publications. Native suffragists took advantage of these opportunities to speak about pressing issues in their communities — Native voting, land loss and treaty rights. But their stories have largely been forgotten.
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Song: “Murder of the Lawson Family”
Quote:
It was on last Christmas Evening,
A snow was on the ground,
His home in North Carolina
Where this murderer he was found.
His name was Charlie Lawson
And he had a loving wife,
But we’ll never know what caused him
To take his family’s life.
Listen to The Carolina Buddies’ performance…
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