The Monster She Wrote Podcast

In Rosemary Timperley's story "Christmas Meeting," two lonely people find company during the holiday season. [Story can be found in Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories (1983)]

Recommended: Yellowjackets on Showtime; Ruth Ware's The Turn of the Key

NEXT EPISODE: "The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth" by Rhoda Broughton

Theme music is "Misconception" by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.

You know the most famous Christmas ghost story of them all. A miserly, miserable man must learn the true meaning of Christmas by meeting with three appropriately themed holiday specters. There have been many spins and takes on Dickens's famous tale, but one of our favorites is Connie Willis's "Adaptation." In Willis's story, a divorced father confronts the Spirit of Christmas Future at a bookstore.

Recommended: Stephen Graham Jones's The Only Good Indians

UP NEXT: Rosemary Timperley's "Christmas Meeting"

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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 of Jeanette Winterson's "Dark Christmas" will be celebrating Christmas at Highfallen House with friends. No one seems to know who owns the house and is letting them stay there, but that doesn't seem to matter. The narrator goes ahead to spend a night alone in the house before picking up their friends from the train station. After a warm meal and a bottle of wine, they hear strange noises from the attic above, but ignore them. The next day, the narrator's friends do not show and send a cryptic text message instead. They don't show the following day either. And the narrator is seeing things and hearing things, and it's getting colder and snowing more and more. Read the story here.

Recommended in this episode: Peter Straub's Ghost Story and Neil Gaiman's Coraline (audiobook version)

NEXT EPISODE: Connie Willis's "Adaptation"

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.

Following our discussion of Elsa Lanchester and her iconic role as The Bride of Frankenstein, we wanted to take another look at another one of her iconic films, this time, Bell, Book, and Candle. In the film, Gillian is a shop owner--and a secret witch. Using her occult powers (and her cat familiar, Pyewacket), Gillian sets out to woo her neighbor, the handsome and engaged Shep, using a love spell. Elsa Lanchester stands out in her role as Gillian's magical Aunt Queenie.

Recommended in this episode: Stephen Graham Jones's The Only Good Indians, Stephen King's The Long Walk, and the classic Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein

UPCOMING ON NEXT EPISODE: "Dark Christmas" by Jeannette Winterson

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.

She’s one of the most recognizable women in classic horror as the Bride of Frankenstein in the 1935 film. And her iconic moment was only for the last five minutes of the movie. Elsa Lanchester was an actress who knew how to command a screen, even with no lines. So, join us, as today we discuss the actress and her starring role. 

Recommended in this episode: Rachel Harrison's Cackle

Next Episode: Bell, Book, and Candle

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 Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Mina Harker makes it to the final battle against the vampire, even though she fell victim to his bite along the way. Her best friend Lucy Westenra wasn’t that lucky. A vivid character in her own right, she succumbs to Dracula and becomes a vampire. Even more disturbingly, she preys upon children. The methods the men use to stop her are gruesome: she is staked, and her head is removed. To top it all off, the men seem more disgusted by her forward and unladylike behavior as a monster than by her vampiric exploits. In Gwendolyn Kiste’s story “The 8 People Who Murdered Me (Excerpted from Lucy Westenra’s Diary),” we get Lucy’s story from her perspective. She breaks down how she became a victim and almost “a footnote in a story that’s not my own,” but it turns out that Lucy may use her immortality to take control of a life that wasn’t necessarily hers while she was mortal.  

Links mentioned in ep:

The story:

https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/the-eight-people-who-murdered-me-excerpt-from-lucy-westenras-diary/

On Lucy Westenra's character:

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/why-do-so-many-dracula-adaptations-screw-over-lucy-westenra

 Recommended in this episode: W. Scott Poole's Wasteland

On  the next episode: Elsa Lanchester and The Bride of Frankenstein

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 this 1988 horror comedy, Cassandra Peterson plays her best known role, the Gothic horror host queen, Elvira. In this film (which was co-written by Peterson), Elvira must move to a conservative small town in Massachusetts in order to take care of the affairs of a recently deceased aunt. Elvira’s scandalous ways soon shake up the town, and not everyone wants--including the evil Chastity Pariah--wants her around. Join us as we discuss the movie classic Elvira: Mistress of the Dark.

Recommended in this episode: LulaRich, Malignant, and Vivien Chien's Noodle Shop Mysteries

Up Next: "The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpted from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)” by 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. 

You know these women. You know their long black dresses, usually with dangerously plunging necklines. You know their jet black hair and “vampy” makeup. You know their sinister sense of humor. They are the horror hosts who made B-Movies on television a fun, and sometimes scandalous, affair. That’s right, today, we are discussing Maila Nurmi and Cassandra Peterson, the women better known as Vampira and Elvira. 

Recommended in this episode: The Chair on Netflix; Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror by Scott Poole and Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson

NEXT EPISODE: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988 film)

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. 

Laura Hunt has been murdered, her body disfigured by a close range shotgun blast. When Detective McPherson joins the murder investigation, he becomes fascinated by the murder victim, and he quickly collects a small group of four suspects. One is Waldo Lydecker, the man who claims he made Laura, from her career to her personal appearance; one is Shelby Carpenter, the shiftless man she might have been about to marry; and one is her aunt, Ann Treadwell, who was in love with the scoundrel Laura was about to marry. The fourth suspect is Laura Hunt, because, spoiler alert, Laura is alive.

Recommended in this episode: The White Lotus and T. Kingfisher's The Hollow Places

Next Up: Horror Icon Vampira 

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. 

Content Warning: We do discuss sexual assault and murder in this episode, but not in great detail. Still, we wanted to place a warning for those who might be triggered by such content. Here's the number for the Sexual Assault Hotline, for those who may need it: 1-800-656-4673.

We all know the words: “In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.” That’s, of course, the famous opening to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, the television show that introduced us to the characters Stabler and Benson. In her novella, “Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law and Order SVU,” author Carmen Maria Machado takes Stabler and Benson through a cosmic horror nightmare. It’s a full 12-season journey, with ghosts. 

Recommended in this episode: Kaiju movies (Gamera!) and Ted Lasso, season 2 

Up Next: the 1944 film Laura, based on the novel of the same name by Vera Caspary

Women in horror short film fest: www.13minutesofhorror.com 

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.