May '21 Madhouse Recap

Hello friends and fiends—

Can you folks believe it’s already June? It just doesn’t seem possible to me even with May being such a crazy month. Reminder to self: remember to breathe and sleep this month. Maybe even sneak some yoga in here and there? I finished off the Spring semester and dove right into summer. I’ll be taking two eight-week classes this time around in philosophy and psychology. Seems like a good idea to stay sharp, learn some new tricks, and keep me on my toes when it comes time to write new lectures and reinvent old ones. I’m also teaching a graduate class right now in speculative fiction and we’re having a blast so far. A few of the books we're tackling together are The Changeling by Victor LaValle, Circe by Madeline Miller, Recursion by Blake Crouch, and The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin—all great readings, some old friends, some new. 

As to publications this month, I’m thrilled to be joining the TOC for Shadow Atlas, an anthology focusing on dark landscapes in the Americas edited by Carina Bissett, Hillary Dodge, and Joshua Viola. My poem “Blood, Like Chocolate” will focus on invoking the chocolate-brewing witches of Latin America. I also published an essay with LitReactor about finding horror in unsuspecting places titled “When the Answer Isn’t Always Edgar Allan Poe” and sat down to chat with Books in the Freezer podcast about all things witch and lit! One of the books I talked about in the episode is The Nightgown and Other Poems by Taisia Kitaiskaia, and you can read my review for it here.

On the horror front, I watched Willy’s Wonderland, Honeydew, Wickerman, American Mary (which was a first for me!), finished watching both seasons of Creepshow, and I actually started off the month by throwing my dad a Sasquatch-themed 60th birthday party, so yeah, it’s been a wild couple of weeks. I also took R.L. Stine’s Masterclass, which I absolutely loved. I laughed a lot, learned a bunch, and definitely rewatched some of my favorite Goosebumps episodes in between lectures.

My reading for the month was filled with tons of poetry and it looked like this:

• 45 Mercy Street by Anne Sexton
• Words for Dr. Y by Anne Sexton
• Deluge by Leila Chatti
• Ebb by Leila Chatti
• Sixty Poems by Charles Simic
• Nothing is Okay by Rachel Wiley
• Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
• Bestiary by Donika Kelly
• Ask Baba Yaga: Poetic Remedies for Troubled Times by Taisia Kitaiskaia

I also listened to a good number of podcast episodes this month:

• Faculty of Horror: Episode 87, Mother Monster (Pyewacket, 2017 and Hereditary 2018)
• Faculty of Horror: Episode 81, You Bring me Closer to God (Seven, 1995)
• Faculty of Horror: Episode 77, Human Nature (Under the Skin, 2013)
• Evolution of Horror: Mind & Body, PT 34—Saint Maud (2020) and Possessor (2020).
• Evolution of Horror: Mind & Body, PT 6 –Carrie (1976)

June will be filled with tons of philosophy homework and even more poetry as we get the judging process moving with the HWA Poetry Showcase. A big thank you to everyone who submitted something, and a huge thank you to my judges Sara Tantlinger and Angela Yuriko Smith as we deep dive into all the delicious spookiness that awaits us. Looking forward, I’m also planning on posting a recommended poetry reading list for Pride Month where I’ll talk about queer poetry and some of my favorite poets, so keep a lookout for that, too.

Until next time! 

Spread love & stay weird,

Stephanie M. Wytovich