As Halloween approaches, it’s time to get weird! Last month, I read Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, which brought my attention to the many gaps in our understanding of the history of these genres, caused by the tendency of past (and some present) critics to value male authors over their equally inventive and influential female contemporaries. Well, a small press in the UK is looking to fill one of those gaps with the collection Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890–1940, edited by Melissa Edmundson. Appropriately, the book is being released on Halloween day. Continue reading Review of Women’s Weird–Bringing Female Authors Back into the Spotlight
Tag: edith wharton
Women and the Golden Age of Ghost Stories
I’ve had ghost stories on the mind lately, and in honor of Women’s History Month, I want to highlight some of the contributions that women have made to this particular genre. Ghost stories in one form or another have been a part of the literary tradition—both oral and written—going back centuries. But the period between the beginning of the Victorian era in the 1830s and the onset of World War I is considered the Golden Age of the ghost story as we know it today. Short fictional accounts of encounters with ghosts abounded in literary magazines and in the form of collected anthologies. Big name novelists and more obscure authors alike turned to writing ghost stories as a fun and reliable source of income in these years, and more than a few of those authors were women. Below are four of my favorites: Continue reading Women and the Golden Age of Ghost Stories
Ghost Stories to Get You in the “Spirit” for Halloween
Now that summer is officially over, do you know what season it is? It’s Halloween season! I’m a firm believer in beginning my celebrations of the greatest holiday of the year at least a month in advance. You may be mourning the end of summer or feeling distracted by a new school year, but that’s no reason you can’t start getting excited for the night when the veil between the worlds is thinnest! To that end, I’ve complied a list of ghost stories below that will help get you into the “spirit” for Halloween. (See what I did there?)
Continue reading Ghost Stories to Get You in the “Spirit” for Halloween