The Monster She Wrote Podcast

12-year-old Harper Raine and her family have moved from New York City to a suburb of Washington, D.C., for a new start. Harper is trying to work through wounds left by a traumatic series of events in her past that harmed her physically, mentally, and emotionally and left her with gaps in her memory. Her parents, however, have unknowingly picked the worst new home for Harper to live in: the Grady House. Harper quickly learns from her new friend Dayo that the house has a bad reputation and a creepy history. When Harper starts experiencing cold spots, hearing strange noises, and having dreams and visions, she wonders if something evil from the house's past is lingering in her family's present. And then there's her little brother's new imaginary friend, who is definitely not imaginary and far from friendly.

Recommended in this episode: Toil and Trouble--Preorder now!

UP NEXT: An interview with Rachel Harrison about her newest book Such Sharp Teeth

For those interested in the women from Monster, She Wrote, you can read Francis Stevens's The Citadel of Fear, out now!

PREORDER TOIL AND TROUBLE

In Elizabeth Walter's story "The Sin-Eater," Clive Tomlinson gets more than he bargained for on a trip to the Welsh Border to see and sketch an old pre-Reformation church. On his way back to his hotel, he is waylaid by a couple on a farm who are oddly insistent that he visit their ill son, Eddie. Clive quickly realizes that Eddie is dead, and he rushes through drinking some wine and eating a scone under pressure from the older couple. Later, he learns he took part in a sin-eating ritual, something the modern world has left behind. But, since he was unaware of what he was doing and doesn't believe in it, he couldn't possibly be affected by the ritual, could he?

Recommended in this episode: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

UP NEXT: Ellen Oh's Spirit Hunters #1

PREORDER TOIL AND TROUBLE

You know her as Uhura from the Star Trek universe, but her impact went far beyond the sci-fi world. Born in 1932 in Illinois, she had many careers before working with Gene Rodenberry. She was a model, a singer, a dancer, most notably working with Duke Ellington. Robert Heinlein dedicated his novel Friday (about a female artificial human) to her, she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the 90s, and she garnered numerous awards, including The Life Career Award at the 42nd Saturn Awards. But we are here to talk about her work with NASA.

Recommended in this episode: Hocus Pocus! and Ellen Oh's Spirit Hunters

UP NEXT: "The Sin Eater" by Elizabeth Walter

LINKS:

The "Scully Effect"

Nichelle Nichol's speech at NASA

Woman In Motion documentary

Gwendolyn Kiste is the three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, Boneset & Feathers, And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, Pretty Marys All in a Row, and The Invention of Ghosts. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vastarien, Tor's Nightfire, Black Static, The Dark, Daily Science Fiction, Interzone, and LampLight, among others. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, two cats, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com.

BUY Reluctant Immortals (OUT NOW!)

Link to "The Eight People Who Murdered Me" by Gwendolyn Kiste at Nightmare Magazine

Recommended in this episode: Le Femme Grotesque

Up Next: A special episode dedicated to Nichelle Nichols

Please rate and review us, or better yet, tell a friend.

Our social media is @MonsterWrote on Twitter and Instagram. Our email is [email protected]. This episode was produced and researched by Lisa and Mel. Theme music is "Misconception" by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.

WARNING FOR THIS EPISODE: We do discuss sexual assault as it relates to the plot of the story.

Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, is a dying coal town. People don't stay around for long because it isn't safe for those who live there. Friends El and Octavia learn that the hard way when they wake up one evening in a movie theater with no memory of what has happened. Their subsequent quest for understanding leads them to the strange creatures in the deep, dark woods and the even stranger history of their town.

Recommended in this episode: T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead

UP NEXT: Interview with Gwendolyn Kiste

Please rate and review us, or better yet, tell a friend.

Our social media is @MonsterWrote on Twitter and Instagram. Our email is [email protected]. This episode was produced and researched by Lisa and Mel. Theme music is "Misconception" by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.

PREORDER OUR NEW BOOK, TOIL AND TROUBLE!

We are back from our brief hiatus, and in this episode, we welcome writer and academic Crystal O'Leary Davidson! Make sure to check out her short fiction.

In Donna Tartt's The Secret History Richard Papen recounts his ill-fated time at Hampden College in Vermont. A second-year transfer from California, Richard, middle class and awkward amongst his privileged peers, becomes fascinated with a group of students studying under the mysterious Julian Morrow, a Professor of Classics. At first, Richard is denied entry into Julian's Classics curriculum. Julian is extremely selective. But after Richard has a serendipitous encounter with the group translating in the library, Julian allows Richard to join his classes. Richard's fellow students, the twins, Camilla and Charles Macaulay, Francis Abernathy, Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran, and the brilliant Henry Winter, have formed an insular group that further constricts when four of them take their studies too far. The fall-out from this accident leads to the murder of Bunny Corcoran. This isn't a spoiler. Richard reveals the murder and the murderers at the beginning of the novel. What follows is an exploration of why Bunny was killed and how evil begets evil, until all is infected and ruined. As Richard tells us in the prologue's conclusion: "I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."

Recommended in this episode: comfort Star Wars watches and Catriona Ward novels (also discussed: The Once Upon A Time At Bennington podcast)

UP NEXT: Carmen Maria Machado's The Low Low Woods

Please rate and review us, or better yet, tell a friend.

Our social media is @MonsterWrote on Twitter and Instagram. Our email is [email protected]. This episode was produced and researched by Lisa and Mel. Theme music is "Misconception" by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.

NEWS: Mel and Lisa are taking a brief hiatus so the next episode will be four weeks away instead of two...WE WILL BE BACK!

Samantha Heather Mackey is an MFA student at the prestigious Warren University located somewhere in New England. She splits her time between hanging out with her mysterious friend Ava in a ramshackle house in town and taking workshop classes with the rest of her all-female fiction cohort on campus. She prefers the company of Ava to her writing peers, however. The other four students have bonded into an extremely codependent, cult-like hivemind, who, instead of using names, call each other "Bunny." They wear a lot of pink, use a lot of emojis, and love anything miniature and cute. Samantha finds this behavior repulsive, but she still gets sucked into the Bunnies' unorthodox off-campus extracurriculars, and then things really get weird.

Recommended in this episode: Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline

UP NEXT: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Link to Shirley Jackson readings from "Good News" segment: https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/shirley-jackson-the-lottery-rare-recording

Please rate and review us, or better yet, tell a friend.

Our social media is @MonsterWrote on Twitter and Instagram. Our email is [email protected]. This episode was produced and researched by Lisa and Mel. Theme music is "Misconception" by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.

When his six year old son says he saw a man outside their home, Dr. Holland thinks it is a case of overactive imagination. Mister Mole, as his son calls his new friend, wants to take the young boy for a walk. What could be so sinister in that? Turns out a lot. When another boy in the neighborhood turns up dead, though, Dr. Holland begins to wonder if there isn't more to Mister Mole after all.

Harding's story archived: https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tales_v42n01_1949-11

Recommended in this episode: Carmen Maria Machado's graphic novel The Low, Low Woods

UP NEXT: Bunny by Mona Awad

Please rate and review us, or better yet, tell a friend.

Our social media is @MonsterWrote on Twitter and Instagram. Our email is [email protected]. This episode was produced and researched by Lisa and Mel. Theme music is "Misconception" by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.

The narrator in Cynthia Asquith's "The Corner Shop" has a relatable problem: he needs to buy a wedding gift. So, one foggy, cold London night, he stops into a little antique shop and finds exactly what he needs. He enjoys the shop so much that he returns again. This time, though, he buys something for himself: a little jade frog. The frog turns out to be more than he bargained for, and the narrator finds himself pulled into a family drama and maybe the center of a ghost story.

Recommended in this episode: Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories

UP NEXT: Allison V. Harding's "The Underbody"

Please rate and review us, or better yet, tell a friend.

Our social media is @MonsterWrote on Twitter and Instagram. Our email is [email protected]. This episode was produced and researched by Lisa and Mel. Theme music is "Misconception" by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.

In Rosemary Timperley's 1955 story "Harry," a mother finds herself terrified of her daughter's new imaginary friend named Harry. At first, it irritates Mrs. James to see 5-year-old Christine chatter away to someone who is not there when she plays by the rose bush in the yard. However, she becomes more distressed when Christine becomes increasingly attached to Harry. Mrs. James's husband and the family doctor tell her this is normal behavior for children, especially when they haven't met many other kids yet, but she decides to start an investigation into the past. As she learns more, she realizes that Harry is most certainly not just an imaginary friend.

Recommended in this episode: Louise Erdrich's LaRose

UP NEXT: "The Corner Shop" by Cynthia Asquith

Please rate and review us, or better yet, tell a friend.

Our social media is @MonsterWrote on Twitter and Instagram. Our email is [email protected]. This episode was produced and researched by Lisa and Mel. Theme music is "Misconception" by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.