Monday, February 22, 2021

WRITING JUSTICE INTO EXISTENCE: THE SOCIAL IMPACTS OF HORROR WITH R.J. JOSEPH

Hello Friends and Fiends--

Today in the Madhouse, I'm sitting down with R.J. Joseph, a writer of exceptional talent and a scholar with razor-sharp intellect. She and I met at Seton Hill during one of the SHUWPF residencies, and not only is she the type of person who I could talk to for hours, but she has this beautiful energy and sense of humor that makes her light up any room she walks into. 

She's joining me today to talk about her origins with the horror genre, and how she uses her writing as a way to invoke themes of balance, social justice, and discourse surrounding the female form. Also, be sure to check her out on Twitter at @rjacksonjoseph and on her blog at https://rjjoseph.wordpress.com/

Until next time,

Stephanie M. Wytovich

No, Life Ain’t Fair…but I Can Make It So

by R.J. Joseph

“That’s not fair!”

Mama met my oft-repeated childhood refrain with, “Life ain’t fair,” in what became a household song she and I sung together.

My child’s heart became deeply wounded when faced with what I perceived to be injustice of any type and I never understood why Mama would think it was okay to just accept these things as given. It didn’t matter to me then whether the issue was a large one or a small one: the person who stole from another person and the one who got the big piece of cake while everyone else got a tiny one were both way, way out of line. While growing up helped me to better understand scale and nuance in these situations (as well as the realization that life is, indeed, unfair), the passage of time did nothing to quell my frustration at the existence of grave injustices and the thought that some people would just be allowed to walk through life unpunished for their deeds against others. For me, horror is partially a means to try to balance those scales and even tilt them in the opposite direction. Using this tool as a Black, female horror writer serves two main purposes towards this goal.

Female horror writers are more widely accepted into the genre now than in the recent past. So are Black horror writers. For horror writers existing at the intersection of Black and female, however, the road is still one harshly traveled, even if less so than previously. The remaining obstacles are ones other writers are rarely forced to consider. Some experiences I write about are determined to exist outside the horror genre when they’re clearly frightening to me and a large segment of the population who also happens to be Black and/or female. There’s often an unnamed “problem” with my writing that can’t be articulated but still prevents the writing from being published. My characters are unrelatable, even to other Black people, who don’t have any empathy for my characters’ circumstances because they aren’t their own. Yet, I continue to write. In refusing to shut up and stop telling stories, I’m working with other Black, female horror writers to try to enact balance to what’s offered within our beloved horror genre.

My stories, themselves, often center on the experiences of Black women. These lives don’t represent a monolith: there are endless experiences within the diaspora. They do represent women I know, as well as the woman I was, am, and will be. Their lives are filled with wrongdoing, fear, and victimhood. When I tell their stories, their lives become also marked with ways to gain justice for themselves. I love to write characters who have strength they know exists but don’t know how to harness. They may be afraid of themselves and what they’re capable of doing. I think about the unfairness of the “strong Black woman” stereotype and write about the women who aren’t really as strong as outsiders want to paint them, so they aren’t charged with helping these women. When society or their partners label them as monsters because they react to circumstances forced upon them, some of my characters lean into their monstrosity and create the lives they want for themselves. The scales of justice tilt whatever way I want in my writing, so the lives of those Black women take turns we might not always see in real life.

Horror is my vehicle towards creating the type of world where I want to live. I want to live in a world where every writer has the same opportunities to fail or succeed without prejudice throwing some out of the game before they get started. I want to live in a world where the experiences of Black women aren’t dismissed as invalid or unimportant. No, this life ain’t fair. But I’ll continue writing justice into existence as I continue to write myself and other Black women into existence. Then it will be so.

Author Bio:

Rhonda earned her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and currently works as an associate professor of English. She has had several stories published in various venues, including two anthologies of horror written by black female writers, the Stoker award finalist Sycorax’sDaughters and Black Magic Women, as well as in CampfireMacabre, a flash fiction anthology, Slashertorte: An Anthology of Cake Horror, and the Halloween issue of Southwest Review. Her academic essays have also appeared in applauded collections, such as the Stoker award finalists Uncovering Stranger Things: Essays on Eighties Nostalgia,Cynicism and Innocence in the Series and The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Series. Rhonda’s essay from The Streamingof Hill House, “The Beloved Haunting of Hill House: An Examination of Monstrous Motherhood” is also a Stoker award finalist for 2020.

Her most recent short story, “Witness Bearer”, can be found in the charity anthology, Twisted Anatomy: An Anthology of Body Horror.

Rhonda can be found lurking (and occasionally even peeking out) on social media:

Twitter: @rjacksonjoseph
Blog: https://rjjoseph.wordpress.com/
Email: horrorblackademic@gmail.com

Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/rjjoseph

Saturday, February 20, 2021

DRAWN TO THE DARK SIDE WITH CLAIRE C. HOLLAND

Hello Friends and Fiends--

Today in the Madhouse, I'm hanging out with Claire C. Holland and talking about what initially drew her to horror. Holland is a poet and writer from Philadelphia, currently living in Los Angeles. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found reading or binge-watching horror movies with her husband, Corey, and her Wheaten Terrier, Chief Brody. She is also a feminist, a tattoo lover, and interested in all forms of art strange and subversive. 

I Am Not Your Final Girl is her first book of poetry, and for those looking to read more about her process and intention with the book, you can zip over to a previous interview I did with her here. Needless to say, I'm a huge fan of Holland's work, and she's definitely one of my go-to people when it comes to talking horror films, so be sure to check out her collection and follow her on Twitter at @ClaireCWrites.

More soon,
Stephanie M. Wytovich

Drawn to the Dark Side
by Claire C. Holland

I think horror was always a part of my identity, lurking somewhere deep in my bones, long before I ever realized it.

All things being relative, coming of age during the early aughts as a girl was no picnic. It’s only recently – in the last few months, really – that we’ve begun as a society to reckon with the unique brand of blatant misogyny imposed upon women, especially celebrities, during the first decade of the new millennium. Characterized by Perez Hilton, vicious tabloids, and stringent, sexist double standards, the early 2000s weren’t terribly different from the world we live in today; still, from the perspective of a post-MeToo America, it feels nonetheless shocking to look back on the cruelty piled upon women in the name of “entertainment.”

Forever a Britney fan, I watched the New York Times’ documentary Framing Britney last month with a box of tissues and my fists curled tight in anger. The documentary illustrates Britney Spears’ precipitous rise to ultra-fame as a teenager—what we’ll call the “Madonna” period, during which time she was asked invasive questions about her relationships and the status of her virginity, but was still considered a “good” girl—to her subsequent fall in the media, starting with her breakup with Justin Timberlake—the beginning of the “Britney is a slut” narrative adopted by most media outlets—and culminating in the night she shaved her head and threatened a paparazzo with an umbrella. That’s when people started calling her crazy, thus completing the usable lifecycle of a woman.


I promise I’m reaching a point.

That documentary brought up feelings I thought I’d long buried. Outrage and protectiveness, and also sadness for what could have been – not just for Britney, but for all of us girls. Where would we be, mentally and emotionally, if we weren’t raised by a savagely misogynistic society? I see the women around me thriving despite the world we were brought up in, a world of “catfights” and competition, a world where you could only be a Jessica (virgin, polite, smiles a lot) or a Christina (whore, ‘nough said), and you’re invisible by 30 anyway. A world we still live in, even if sexism is less barefaced.

But here’s a secret I’ve learned over the years: If you’re looking for an out, horror can be an escape route.

As a little kid, I delighted in watching Jaws and being the only one who wasn’t afraid or disgusted when Quint got bitten in half by the shark, spewing blood out of his mouth and gasping his last breaths. I felt brave, and it scratched a tomboy-esque itch of mine that, over the years, was otherwise mostly snuffed out by everything society was telling me I should be. Constantly praised for being “sweet” and quiet, and for never, ever causing a problem, I implicitly learned that I needed to be that way always.

But horror was always there, too, somewhere in the periphery, whispering in my ear and calling me over to the dark side. It started with the goth girls – Nancy from The Craft, Stokely in The Faculty, Ginger of Ginger Snaps. Oh, and Katie Holmes in Normal Behavior – that was a big one. These were the girls I secretly wanted to be or be friends with… or something. They scared and excited me with their belligerent, kohl-rimmed stares, their belly shirts and piercings, and their flagrant refusal to smile and make nice at the appropriate moments. They seemed self-assured and self-possessed in a way I could only dream of at the time. I couldn’t be them—how could I? it seemed impossible—but I could borrow pieces of them to bolster my own strength.

A smudge of dark eyeliner, or just a little bit of attitude. A skirt my mother wouldn’t approve of. Small things, maybe, but they gave me a small, secret confidence. They made me feel more like me.


I kept watching the movies and seeking out more like them. I quickly found that the women I related to weren’t on my TV screen very often, and they weren’t in most Oscar-winning movies. I began the slow, years-long process of realizing that all the complex, angry, sexy, twisted, multi-faceted women I saw myself in most weren’t in the mainstream, and more often than not, resided in the horror genre. These characters became a lifeline and a blueprint for me over the years, showing me the alternatives to living according to others’ expectations and inspiring me to misbehave.

Turns out they’ve always been there.

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Tentacles Through the Darkness: The Connection of Horror With Laurel Hightower

Hello friends and fiends:

I've been thinking a lot about what horror means to me: why I'm drawn to it, why I write it, why I enjoy being scared, being uncomfortable. It's a loaded question/answer for sure, but as I sit here and meditate on it, especially during the throes of Women in Horror Month (WiHM), I'm realizing more and more that horror is my safe space, my happy place, and the place where I feel most at home with myself.

As such, I wanted to reach out to some fellow genre writers and see what their experience has been like finding and working within the horror community and so today in the Madhouse, I've invited fellow horror writer, Laurel Hightower, to chat with us about what horror means to her. 

More soon, 

Stephanie M. Wytovich

Tentacles Through the Darkness: The Connection of Horror

By Laurel Hightower

It has been said of writing that it’s a solitary endeavor. For many of us, that’s been a welcome truth – time alone in our heads and our imaginations are how we got here in the first place. Over the last year, that solitude has become enforced, and for most folks has involved increased responsibilities, stress, and little to no relief. I find myself craving connection more than ever, and that’s where horror fits into my world.

Ultimately, it’s about that connection. With other writers, as I read their deepest fears set down on the page, reaching within myself to find those same fears echoed. With the readers I’m lucky enough to have connected with – private messages, heartfelt reviews, and conversations that tell me what I’ve created has touched someone, made them feel seen or less alone. And with myself. It’s only been recent that I’ve delved into writing short fiction, and I’ve found it an effective vehicle to convey what I’m afraid of. I’ve surprised myself at the feelings I’ve uncovered by translating them to horrors on the page – the struggles of motherhood, body image, and the deep-seated and sometimes internalized threads of misogyny I fight against to be seen as a whole person, worthy of respect. The bleak landscape of alone that I’ve felt since long before the pandemic, that I’d pushed to the back of my memory with the excuse that such times were behind me.

That’s the thing about fear. We may think we’ve conquered it, but the scars are always waiting to remind us, to build dread in our bellies when we feel the hairs stand up on our arms and realize the monster isn’t done with us. But these days I can look to my right and my left, form a ragtag band of scrappy horror folks, and turn to fight. We’re each other’s cheerleaders and the ones who reach out and say it’s okay not to be okay. We give advice, we beta read, we provide each other platforms. We teach one another both formally and informally and provide inspiration. Reading horror poetry has inspired my own language and seeing how other writers tackle genre and style has made me stretch my own capabilities. Reading diversely has taught me how much more there is to the world, and to horror than my own little corner of it. All new fears, all new voices, and all new warriors to stand with.

I have no doubt I’ll always be an introvert, and that when things begin to settle out, I’ll be seeking that solitude, as I always have. But for now, and I hope always, horror is the dark and bloody road I follow to find my people, my purpose, and myself. 


Author Bio
:

Laurel Hightower grew up in Kentucky, attending college in California and Tennessee

before returning home to horse country, where she lives with her husband, son, and two rescue animals, Yattering the cat (named for the Clive Barker short story) and Ladybug the adorable mutt. She definitely wants to see a picture of your dog, and often bonds with complete strangers over animal stories. A lifetime reader, she would raid her parents’ bookshelves from an early age, resulting in a number of awkward conversations about things like, “what does getting laid mean?” She loves discovering new favorite authors and supporting the writing and reading community.

Laurel works as a paralegal in a mid-size firm, wrangling litigators by day and writing at night. A bourbon and beer girl, she's a fan of horror movies and true-life ghost stories. Whispers in the Dark is her first novel, though there are always more in the pipeline, and she loves researching anything horror related. She can usually be found working on the next project into the wee hours, sometimes as late as ten at night, as long as her toddler allows. Follow her on social media, even though she’s really bad at it, and she’ll follow you back. Plus you’ll be rewarded by pictures of cute dogs and kids.

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

January '21 Madhouse Recap

Hi there, friends and fiends—

I hope this post finds everyone safe and well and that your new year has gotten off to a good start. I know I’ve mostly been hunkered down in my house and covered in blankets and pit bulls while the snow collects outside, and while my day job has definitely kept me busy, I’ve been making some adjustments to how I’m spending my free time lately as well as to how I’m feeding my creativity as well as my body.

I made the decision this year to not set a reading goal. I tend to get really crazy about goals that I set for myself, especially when I have something that’s tracking them, and so this year I decided that Goodreads was not going to control or shame me for my book intake. I set a goal of 1 book—and then naturally was immediately ridiculed on the site by tons of strangers—because I wanted to see what happened when I took the pressure off and just read for enjoyment, for escapism, for education, etc. In January alone, I ended up reading 11 books, which is absolutely insane for me, but it was honestly so relaxing and nourishing and it happened organically. I was also happy that I was able to make time in my schedule to edit an upcoming collection for a client, to take on a fiction mentee, as well as blurb an upcoming poetry collection from Clash Books.

Here’s a full list of what I read this January:

  • Fanged Dandelion by Eric LaRocca
  • Altars and Oubliettes by Angela Yuriko Smith
  • The Smallest of Bones by Holly Walrath
  • Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass by Lana Del Rey
  • Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite: The Science of Monsters by Matt Kaplan
  • Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters by Nikita Gill
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker
  • Tender is the Flesh by Augstina Bazterrica
  • The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez
  • Impulse by Ellen Hopkins
  • The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary by NoNieqa Ramos
On the teaching front, I got to pop into WCSU MFA's winter residency and do a Q&A with the students, which was an absolute blast! I'm also teaching three classes with them this semester: two in young adult fiction and one in dark fantasy. For those interested in the reading lists, please be sure to follow my Instagram (@swytovich and @thehauntedbookshelf) for updates, reviews, and cool bookstagram pictures. You can also follow me on Twitter at @swytovich. 



On the creative front, I made a promise to myself that I would focus more on my own artistic endeavors this year, so I’ve been dabbling with poetry here and there, and then working on revisions for a novelette and a short story. In addition to that, I’m looking forward to editing the HWA Poetry Showcase this year and to making some exciting announcements soon about who will be judging alongside me in addition to who will be taking my place as editor next year. And then you got to know that I have some cool stuff in the works with my pals over at Raw Dog Screaming Press, so I’ll be sure to share more about those secret projects when I can.

Outside of that, I’ve been getting back into painting (oils, acrylics, charcoal), and I’ve been transitioning into a vegetarian diet, so if you have fun books, tips, or recipes that you’d like to send my way, please feel free to comment below; I’m looking to formulate a book list about being/becoming vegetarian (nonfiction, memoir, etc), so I’ll also happily take those recommendations.

A couple other reminders about things that are out there or are on the horizon:

  • I wrote a letter/poem/essay to Edgar Allan Poe for his birthday on 1/10. You can read it via LitReactor under the title: Dear Edgar Allan Poe.
  • I reviewed Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh. You can find it on my website here.
  • I’ll also be teaching another installment of my Witch Lit course with LitReactor starting on March 9th, so if you’re looking to learn more about the history and archetype of the witch, in addition to creatively exploring him/her through short fiction and poems, please consider joining our coven! 
Until next month,
Stephanie M. Wytovich

September Madhouse Recap: Mabon, Spooky Reads, and Fall Wellness

Hello friends and fiends– Thanks for reading Stephanie’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. We started S...