On Grifters
Everyone deserves to have a seat at the table, and that seat can’t be tricked away from us by some faithless cis white politician’s grift. At least it shouldn’t be.
What, Exactly, Is Queer Literature?
Once I gave queer authors the keys and stopped worrying about what, exactly, queer literature meant, my students’ work taught me something about what queer literature actually is: a lens on the world.
After the Green Ribbon
The story of the girl with the green ribbon was once a generic tale of horror. Now, it is about about gender.
Creating Scenes for Discovery
Storytelling is like the TARDIS in ‘Doctor Who’—the narrower and more specific we get on the outside, the bigger it gets on the inside.
I Didn’t Want to Miss Baby Night
Children appear in horror all the time because to parent one is naturally terrifying.
Ingredients of a Goosebump
All the things I would have shielded my younger self from, they crop up in books, too. And they are not the monsters with the glowing eyes.
The Handbook for the Recently Deceased
In the film ‘Beetlejuice’, death is exaggeration. To die is to become a different size, to be viewed as grotesque by an outside observer.
Revise Toward Praise, Not Away From Criticism
Revising toward praise gives a writer a direction to go, something to build to instead of something to run from.
The Mothers and Their Daughters; The Leavers and the Stayers
I love to be a leaver. To be the one that steps out into the unknown, even as I am terrified.
We Are All Still Children
A lot of my fears have been made real by the last year. And somehow, some way, I have returned to an insatiable appetite for things that scare me.