The Monster She Wrote Podcast

Joyce Carol Oates's story "The Long-Legged Girl" (collected in Night-Gaunts) is part horror story, part cozy mystery…after all, the plot of the story revolves around a teapot. That tea contains poison, of course, but the sentiment is there nonetheless. Our story begins as a frustrated housewife hosts her professor-husband's young, gorgeous, and yes, long-legged student at their home.

NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.

Recommended in this episode: I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones and Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

Bonus Recs: Let Me Tell You and Come Along With Me

UP NEXT: Interview with Leslie J. Anderson (The Unmothers)

Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

Join Mel and Lisa as we discuss Tananarive Due's The Reformatory. When 12-year-old Robert Stephens is sent to Gracetown School For Boys, a reformatory, he finds himself in a nightmare. Like many children in Gracetown, Florida, he has a special ability to see ghosts, a "talent" which the warden exploits, charging Robbie with the task of getting rid of the "haints" of the boys who died because of the warden's cruel treatment.

NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.

Recommended in this episode: Stephen Graham Jones's I Was a Teenage Slasher and Julia Alvarez's The Cemetery of Untold Stories

UP NEXT: "The Long Legged Girl" by Joyce Carol Oates (collected in Night-Gaunts)

Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

Join Lisa and Mel as they discuss Lora Senf's The Clackity. Young Evie lives with her aunt in Blight Harbor–a seemingly quiet small town where everyone knows each other and looks out for each other. There's just one small problem: it is the seventh most haunted town in America. Nearly everywhere you go, there are ghosts. Most are friendly. Still, there are some places everyone avoids. Like the abattoir. But now Evie must go there to save her aunt, who has gone missing.

NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.

Recommended in this episode: Catriona Ward's Looking Glass Sound

UP NEXT: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

We have a bookshop.org shop set up. Now you can shop for all of your favorite horror books by women. You'll find Lisa's books, Mel's books, and the books you hear about on this podcast. Plus, bookshop helps small bookstores.

Find all of our favorite books at Bookshop.org shop now!

Mothers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are good, caring, and loving. And some are a bit more complicated. Sometimes it feels like a mother can be out to absolutely destroy your world–the mother at the heart of Gwendolyn Kiste's story "Your Mother's Love is an Apocalypse" (from the Mother Knows Best anthology) is of the latter ilk. Kiste explores the difficult mother-daughter relationship and asks the question: when does the responsibility of the daughter to take care of the mother end?

NEWS: We have a Bookshop.org shop now! Find all of our favorite books at our shop–and help out small businesses.

Recommended in this episode: Simone St. James's Murder Road and the anthology Mother Knows Best (which includes the story "Your Mother's Love is an Apocalypse")

UP NEXT: Lora Senf's The Clackity

Buy our books here, including our newest Toil and Trouble.

SPOILERS ABOUND! This novel contains a TWIST you don't want to ruin, so listen at your own risk.

Vesper Wright left home at eighteen to escape her family, who has been entrenched in a religious cult community for decades, and she hasn't looked back. That is, until she gets a wedding invitation for her childhood best friend's marriage to her high school love. She doesn't know who sent the invitation or if she is even welcome back home, but she finds that curiosity is too overwhelming and decides she has to attend. Whoever said you can't go home again must not have had such a toxic upbringing…

Recommended in this episode: T. Kingfisher's What Feasts at Night

UP NEXT: "Your Mother's Love is an Apocalypse" by Gwendolyn Kiste (the last story in the anthology MOTHER KNOWS BEST, which includes Lisa Kroger's own story "Almonds") Buy the anthology at your favorite local bookstore or online here.

Buy Toil and Trouble here!

Tananarive Due's "Summer" (from her story collection Ghost Summer) is set in her fictional town of Gracetown, Florida, where the humid and murky swamps hide bodies and demon leeches. It's not a place to raise a baby–or maybe it is.

Recommended in this episode: Shirley Jackson's Sundial and Netflix's Bridgerton

UP NEXT: Rachel Harrison's Black Sheep

Buy Toil and Trouble here!

Sisters Anna and Jennie live in a big house right on the Chicago river, where they are dealing with the grief following the aftermath of a family tragedy and the dead bodies that keep floating to the surface of the water. So join us as we discuss Cynthia Pelayo's Forgotten Sisters, a novel that is part ghost story, part fairy tale, and part real-life Chicago history.

Recommended in this episode: Abigail

UP NEXT: Tananarive Due's "Summer"

Buy Toil and Trouble here!

Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award® winning and International Latino Book Award winning author and poet. She is the author of Children of Chicago, The Shoemaker's Magician, Loteria, Santa Muerte, The Missing, and Poems of My Night, all of which have been nominated for International Latino Book Awards. Poems of My Night was also nominated for an Elgin Award. Her collection of poetry, Into the Forest and All the Way Through explores true crime, that of the epidemic of missing and murdered women in the United States. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, a Master of Science in Marketing, a Master of Fine Arts in Writing, and is a Doctoral Candidate in Business Psychology. Cynthia was raised in inner city Chicago, where she lives with her husband and children.

To learn more about her visit: www.cinapelayo.com and follow her on Instagram @cynthiapelayoauthor and TikTok @cynthiapelayoauthor

UP NEXT: We discuss Pelayo's novel Forgotten Sisters!

Buy Toil and Trouble here!

If you ever thought to yourself, "I wish Beauty and the Beast had aliens in it," then today's story is for you. In her short story "Beauty," Tanith Lee takes the classic fairy tale out of the castles and forests and into the stars.

Recommended in this episode: Ann Patchett's Tom Lake

UP NEXT: Interview with author Cythia Pelayo

Buy Toil and Trouble here!