How We Make Our Children: Alternate Creation Myths in Speculative Settings
“The Arbor tells us stories of a time before, when all the dead were kept in orchards that rolled endlessly, and had always been there, and people tended to them…
“The Arbor tells us stories of a time before, when all the dead were kept in orchards that rolled endlessly, and had always been there, and people tended to them…
(Spoiler warning: while I’ve tried to step lightly, some discussions of plot, characters, and events might spoil certain developments in the books.) Essa Hansen brings her Graven trilogy to a…
It’s time to press play on Bauhaus and dance around in sexy black leather outfits. Regardless of what folks might think, being goth isn’t new. So if you’re rather young…
Death is the guaranteed ending that we all have in common, but death itself is a social construct that we have no knowledge of beyond the biological. We know not…
As Umberto Eco said, “there is nothing more wonderful than a list,” especially a list full of death scenes. 1. Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring (the movie) Boromir’s…
I am most keenly aware of the nearness of death when I’m on an airplane. I’m safe there; I know that in the logical sense. But the sensation of exposure…
Suzan Palumbo’s debut story collection Skin Thief is a dark exploration of metamorphosis, cultural fusion, and identities at turns warring and coexisting inside the same vessel. A common thread woven through stories is the subcutaneous need to shed one’s skin—one’s duty or forcefully assigned reality—and don another.
Breath of the Wild begins in a tomb. Link, the protagonist, wakes up from a hundred years of darkness to a world that has long moved past him. Before he…
Bootheels clacking on the sidewalk. Cloak or duster flying behind. Eyes shaded by the brim of a black hat or a pair of dark glasses…or maybe by the darkness of…
Something I’ve been fascinated by lately are ghost weddings that take the form of an interesting mixture of a wedding and a funeral combined. Rituals for ghost weddings differ between…