News — Women in Horror

Hawthorne as Horror & the Monstrous Woman

By Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Before I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” I didn’t understand that women in fiction could be monstrous. Or that “monstrous” didn’t always mean a stalker in the night.  

Beatrice, the daughter of a botanist who breeds poisonous plants, is herself poison. You may argue that she cannot be monstrous because she means no ill will to the man who tries to love her, but villains maintain their own sense of logic. Beatrice...

Happy Friday Night Worms! I hope your weekend will feel as long as this week has. Continuing on with giving you excellent woman-written books, today I’m highlighting Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed. Mohamed is an indo-Caribbean scientist who lives in Canada and let me tell you that she blew me away with this book. Although I thought it was a little bit slow, I really enjoyed this one. It’s a cosmic coming-of-age book centering around a child prodigy and her friend who are in the middle of a war with...

Celebrating Women's HERstory Month: Women Writing Extreme Horror by Kenzie Jennings and Janine Pipe

You mean a woman can write extreme horror? No, there must be some mistake. Exploring the myths are two Splatterpunk Award nominees, Janine Pipe and Kenzie Jennings.

An actual conversation:

Me – hey, have you read any extreme horror?

Normie – what???

Average horror reader – oh yes you mean Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Bentley Little, Whitley Strieber etc etc etc 

Me – Oooooookay, but what about Kenzie Jennings, Christine Morgan, Monica J O’Rourke?

AHR...