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Always Halloween and Never Thanksgiving

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Halloween 2022: Day 2

Song: “Knoxville Boy” Quote: When the moon is high the Knoxville boy
Goes prowling out to kill.
We don’t know why so many die
To give that boy a thrill.
A handsome lad with a wealthy dad
And eyes of bluebird blue,
He’s killed before, he’ll kill some more,
And the next one could be you.

When the fog rolls into Knoxville
And the river’s on the rise,
Don’t go near the Knoxville boy
There’s murder in his eyes. Listen to Larry Stephenson’s performance…
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eldritchhobbit

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<p>I am delighted to report that STAR TREK: ESS...

I am delighted to report that STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER is coming soon! ? I’m so excited to share this with the universe! This academic anthology includes work from Emily Strand, Una McCormack, Daniel Unruh, Edward Guimont, Brunella Tedesco-Barlocco, Kristina Šekrst, Javier Francisco, Erin Bell, Martine Gjermundsen Ræstad, Andrew Higgins, John Jackson Miller, and me. The cover art is by Emily Austin. More information, including the complete Table of Contents, is available here from Vernon Press. ALT
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Halloween 2020, Day 2

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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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 17: In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead (2021)
Quote: It turns out the real you is a quilt, made up of the light and the dark. The life you’ve lived in sunshine and your shadow life, stretching underneath the surface of your mind like a deep underwater world, exerting invisible power. You are a living, breathing story made up of the moments in time you cherish, all strung together, and those you hide. The moments that seem lost. Until the day they’re not.
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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

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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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 25: S.T.A.G.S. Series by M.A. Bennett (2017-2021) Quote from S.T.A.G.S. (2017): I think that’s when I realised he was crazy: he was still being chivalrous, waiting until I was quite ready for him to kill me. 
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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 29

Dark Academia novel: Fraternity by Andy Mientus (2022) From the cover: Be careful what you pledge. Quote: How to make a Perfect Storm: 1. Allow terrible, unholy powers to find their way into the hands of children. See that those children only half-translate their conjurations, missing key protective details. 2. Have them perform those conjurations at the very height of autumn, the dying of the year, when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. Make sure they are coming to the work not soberly but at an emotional breaking point, dripping blood, hungry for violence. Aim their violence at another child. 3. Pray for those children. Terrible consequences await them. ALT
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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 13: Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas (2020) Quote: You are here. You are in. And doesn’t it feel good?
You are in the house and the house is in the woods.
You are in the house and the house is in you.
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Many thanks to @ashleywritesstuff and Mike Slamer of We Are Starfleet (hear the episode here), …

It’s time for my periodic “Thank you!” to those in the Star Trek and Science Fiction communities who have helped us get the word out about our new anthology, Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier, thus far. More details about our book (including the table of contents, reviews, etc.) are here on the Vernon Press website. (Note: The coupon code CFC10822213C4 provides a 24% “new release!” discount at the Vernon Press website. In addition, the book is also available from all major booksellers and for request via libraries as an ebook or hardcover. Library requests help us a great deal!) If you work with a periodical, podcast, blog, or website and might be interested in reviewing our book or talking to us or our contributors, please get in contact with me. I may be able to arrange a digital review copy for you! The easiest way to reach me is through this contact form on my website. Many thanks to @ashleywritesstuff and Mike Slamer of We Are Starfleet (hear the episode here), Brandi Jackola of Boldly Go (hear the episode here), Jarrah Hodge of Women At Warp (read the review here), and The Honorable Kavura of StarPodLog (read the review here) for their wonderful conversations, reviews, and support! ALT
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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 16

Dark Academia novel: Missing Clarissa by Ripley Jones (2023) Quote: Everyone from Oreville knows the story of Clarissa. Her living ghost haunts the long rain-dark winters alongside the looming specters of Washington’s grim army of infamous serial killers and litany of missing girls…. Clarissa Campbell, who vanished so completely that no one has found a trace of her – not the full investigative force of the Oreville police department, not legions of armchair sleuths and online obsessives, not television news crews or magazine reporters or Clarissa’s friends and family. ALT
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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia (Part 2) Is Coming Soon!

In 2021, my Halloween Countdown focused on 31 Days of Dark Academia. I enjoyed that so much that I’ll be back in October 2023 to spotlight 31 different and new works of Dark Academia! As in 2021, I will be using the #31DaysofDA tag. Each day I’ll be posting a different DA title with a haunting/atmospheric quote. I hope you’ll enjoy the recommendations! ALT In the meantime, here are a few links related to my own Dark Academia-related doings, FYI! In 2022, I had the great delight of teaching a graduate course on Dark Academia for Signum University. This experience led me to write the 2023 article “Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman (1951),” which appears at Reading Shirley Jackson in the 21st Century. I continue to be fascinated by — and am working on a new project related to — the key features of Dark Academia literature. To my mind, these include the use of Gothic modes of storytelling (as I define Dark Academia as a subset of the Gothic), a focus on an academic setting and educational experience, the cultivation of a dark mood with an emphasis on death, and an interrogation of imbalances in and abuses of power. For a longer discussion about defining the Dark Academia genre (as opposed to the aesthetic), there’s my discussion of DA 1) in my “Looking Back on Genre History segment on Episode 671 of the StarShipSofa podcast and 2) in my essay "Dark Arts and Secret Histories: Investigating Dark Academia” in the forthcoming Potterversity anthology. I have a new project in the works, as well, and will be discussing that soon! Right now, I can say that I’ll be giving a related paper (“Consumed by the Campus: Dark Academia, the Gothic Imagination, and the Missing Student”) in November at Sheffield Gothic’s “Consuming the Gothic” conference. I hope to see some of you there (virtually)! For now, I hope you will enjoy my 2023 Halloween Countdown starting tomorrow! The most wonderful time of the year is almost here! ?
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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 7

Dark Academia novel: The Cloisters by Katy Hays (2022) Quote: Death always visited me in August. A slow and delicious month we turned into something swift and brutal. The change, quick as a card trick. I should have seen it coming. The way the body would be laid out on the library floor, the way the gardens would be torn apart by the search. The way our jealousy, greed, and ambition were waiting to devour us all, like a snake eating its own tail. The ouroboros.   ALT
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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 5: Grey Land Duology by Peadar Ó Guilín (2016-2018) Quote from The Call (2016):  “Oh, they mean to do more than kill you, child. They want to twist you. To crumple you up like an old sheet of paper.”
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Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman

Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman (1951) by Amy H. Sturgis I’m happy to say that my “Teaching Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman (1951)” post, based on my experience of teaching Shirley Jackson in my graduate Dark Academia course in Fall 2022, is now online at Reading Shirley Jackson in the 21st Century.
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Halloween 2022: Day 21

Song: “Young Charlotte” Quote: They reached the door, and Charles sprang out and held his hand to her.
“Why sit you like a monument, have you no power to stir?”
He called her once, he called her twice; she answered not a word.
He asked her for her hand again, and yet she never stirred. There are many variations of this song. Read more here. Listen to the performance of Grandpa Jones…
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Halloween 2023: 31 Days of Dark Academia, October 19

Dark Academia novel: The Good Girls by Claire Eliza Bartlett (2020) From the cover: secrets and lies, then somebody dies Quote: The end of my life starts here. A rainy, sodden autumn has turned the river below into a roaring monster. Rocks jut out like jagged teeth, jet black against frothy white. My blood sings as the weathered wood sags behind me—someone has followed me onto the tiny bridge over Anna’s Run…. Legends say Anna’s Run takes one unlucky sacrifice every year. The wind wraps around my neck like a cord. ALT
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The Last Dangerous Visions

On my latest “Looking Back at Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 745), I discuss the New Wave in science fiction and the Dangerous Visions anthologies, including the newly-published The Last Dangerous Visions. ALT ALT
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31 Days of Dark Academia: Halloween 2021

October 6: The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
Quote: Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does.
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2024 Wrap-Up: Talks

Some of the university and conference talks I gave this year are now online.
Why You Should Read The Last Man by Mary Shelley
Why You Should Read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
“A Fortnight in the Wilderness” with Alexis de Tocqueville
“Missing Students & Their Fictional Afterlives: True Crime, Crime Fiction, and Dark Academia" (presented at the Popular Culture Research Network’s “Guilty Pleasures: Examining Crime in Popular Culture” conference). View this presentation here.
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