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emptied the contents of my tote + updating my tea log

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I made a post similar to this a few years ago, with what I considered at the time to be seminal examples of good midwestern horror. You can find it here.

Since then, I’ve read and seen a lot of other great examples, so I thought I’d make a follow up. This is not comprehensive by any means, just some recommendations I’ve read/watched in the past year or so. Also, some of these aren’t even Midwestern, but they fit the same general vibe, so I’m reccing them anyways.

Books

Storm Kings: America’s First Tornado Chasers - Lee Sandlin. Non-fiction concerning the evolution of our understanding of tornadoes and the scientists who developed the methodology behind the categories of extreme storms in Tornado Alley. Great character sketches, and some good bouts of prose here and there. Read this one in the waiting room at the Oklahoma airport.

The Wendigo - Algernon Blackwood. A classic novella from one of the masters of the genre. This is short, eerie, and sparse. Read this on a dark, rainy night in front of the fireplace or read aloud to your friends in an isolated hunting cabin in the middle of the night.

N. - Stephen King. Short story from the King about liminal spaces, cosmic horror, and the desperate, doomed attempt to protect this world from mad, unknowable forces. Read this one right after your early-morning walk through bare countryside in thin January.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson. Yes, this is more New England than Midwestern, but hey, what are you, the genre police? I’m not going to leave the one and only Shirley off of this list. Two sisters live alone in an empty mansion after the mysterious death of their entire family due to a poisoned meal. Suspicious villagers, terrible cousins, and mischievous cats. Read this one while avoiding your extended family at Thanksgiving dinner.

The Troop - Nick Cutter. A troop of Boy Scouts and their Scout Master set out for a weekend hiking trip on an isolated island and discover a biological threat that sets them against each other, and eventually, themselves. Super gory, short, nasty, great B Movie schlock. Read this one at the height of summer when the cicadas won’t let you think, lying on your back on the dock, one foot bravely dangling in the dark water of the lake below.

The Croning - Laird Barron. Oh, this one got to me. Spans the fifty-year marriage of an absent-minded professor and his brilliant, driven researcher of a wife and the dark secrets they carry with them over the years. Cults, cosmic horror, and cruelty. Read this one in the car on the long drive to your new wife’s research location while you ignore the sinking feeling you can no longer trust her.

Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado. Excellent short story collection about women and the trauma inflicted on their psyches when their bodies are not their own. Best story in the collection is “Especially Heinous”, a horror-inspired description of a Law and Order: SVU-esque show that forefronts the lingering trauma that the victims and investigators experience due to the violence they’re confronted with. Machado is a great Twitter follow, too.

North American Lake Monsters - Nathan Ballingrud. Another short story collection with absolutely gorgeous prose. Characters are confronted by monsters, both internal and external. Love is an intense force in the world, both positive and negative. Adored this collection.

The Dark Dark - Samantha Hunt. This past year was very short story-heavy, so I’m now passing the savings down to you. Less horror and more magical realism, these stories are full of dissatisfied women trying to find meaning in their lives through unsuccessful marriages and families.

Universal Harvester - John Darnielle. Yes, that John Darnielle. A small-town video store clerk in Iowa tries to unravel the mystery of strange, unexplainable footage appearing on VHS tapes returned to his story that he thinks might be related to the disappearance of his mother years before. Don’t go into this book expecting hard-core horror, but more existential sadness and the messy fumblings toward human connection.

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places - Colin Dickey. Another nonfiction book where every chapter takes one haunted place somewhere in the US and tells the story, but this isn’t your average schlocky ghost tale. This book is far more interested in why we as humans conjure up spirits in the first place, why ghost stories are important to our psyche, what they do for us, and how they help us remember things that shouldn’t be forgotten. This is an excellent book.

Movies

Blue Ruin (2013, dir. Jeremy Saulnier). From the director of Green Room, this is one of the most realistic revenge thrillers I’ve ever seen, with tense action scenes, realistic violence, and a traumatized protagonist that doesn’t turn into an Emotionless Murder Machine ™, but rather reacts like a real person might.

The Lodge (2019, dir. Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala). A woman spends a weekend with her recently-widowed fiancee’s two children in an isolated, snowed-in cabin. She is the only survivor of a suicide cult, and the isolated location preys on all of their weaknesses. Cold and isolated and quite eerie.

Sleep Has Her House (2017, dir. Scott Barley). Fair warning that this is an experimental film, and a bit hard to lay your hands on, but it is Highly Recommended. As Highly Recommended as can be. An empty landscape suffused with lingering darkness, an oncoming storm that has no escape. You definitely have to be in the mood for something slow-paced and eerie. I suggest headphones and watching this on your own in darkness. It’s an experience.

Pyewacket (2017, dir. Adam McDonald). Another lesser-known horror movie that is absolutely fantastic. A teenage girl obsessed with witchcraft/heavy metal summons a demon to murder her mother. The synopsis sounds a bit schlocky, but it’s really upsetting and scary, and there are some great emotional undertones to the mother and daughter’s relationship. Also it’s just freaky as hell.

Days of Heaven (1978, dir. Terrence Malick). It doesn’t get more Americana than this. Rolling wheat fields, clouds of locusts, turn-of-the-century portraits. Not a lot going on plot-wise, but it’s absolutely gorgeous because they only shot for 20 minutes a day exclusively in the magic hour.

Ravenous (1999, dir. Antonia Bird). This website says they love homoerotic cannibals, but where you all when Antonia Bird needed you in 1999? Shame. No but seriously, this is one of my favorite movies. The rare snowy Western. Great stuff.

The Ritual (2017, dir. David Buckner). Yes, again, this is a British movie, but again, I’m recommending it anyway. This is probably the most well-known of the movies I’m going to recommend, but it feels like a lot of people skipped it? One of my favorite folk horror movies. Fantastic atmosphere, eerie pacing, and stellar monster design. I’m always going to bat for this flick.

I don’t have as much to say about these but rapid-fire recommendations at the end:

TV: Stranger Things (I know everyone’s watched this, but season 1 really is excellent), Atlanta, Outcast.

Music: Grizzly Bear (Shields, Painted Ruins), Orville Peck, Phoebe Bridgers, Tune Yards, All Them Witches.

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Forest Guardians

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👁👁

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The Tale of the First Witch

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Happy Crowy Yule! It's a reall whose who of Yuletide.

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Pre-Dracula Vampire Literature Masterpost Part I: pre-1880s - 1849

Before 1800

“Der Vampir” (“The Vampire”)by Heinrich August Ossenfelder (1748) [Vampires.com] [University of Victoria - German]

“Lenore” by Gottfried August Bürger (1773) [GoogleBooks - Multiple Translations] [University of Tampa - Multiple Translations] (not explicitly about vampires, although it does concern the re-arisen dead)

“The Bride of Corinth” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1797) [GoogleBooks] [Project Gutenberg] [Wikisource]

“The Old Woman of Berkeley” by Robert Southey (1798) [GoogleBooks] [Famouspoetsandpoems.com] (not explicitly about vampires, although it does concern the re-arisen dead)

1800-1819

“Wake Not the Dead"attributed to Johann Ludwig Tieck (1800) [Project Gutenberg] [SFF.net]

Thalaba the Destroyerby Robert Southey (1801) [GoogleBooks: Vol 1. | Vol. 2] [Project Gutenberg]

“The Vampire” by John Stagg, in his Minstrel of the North (1810) [GoogleBooks] [Archive,org] [The Literary Gothic]

The Giaour by George Gordon Byron (1813) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org] [Polish Online Literature Library] [The Literary Gothic - Excerpt]

“A Fragment of a Novel” (aka “The Burial: A Fragment”) by George Gordon Byron (1816) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org] [Project Gutenberg] [SFF.net]

“Christabel” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1816) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org] [Project Gutenberg] [Erudit.org] (not explicitly about vampires)

“The Vampyre” by John Polidori (1819) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org] [Project Gutenberg] [SFF.net]

1820-1830

“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats (1820) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org] [Poetryfoundation.org] (not explicitly about vampires) 

“Lamia” by John Keats (1820) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org] [Bartleby.com] (not explicitly about vampires)

Lord Ruthven ou les Vampires (Lord Ruthven or The Vampires) by Cyprien Berard (1820) [Archive.org - French] [Black Coat Press - English Translation ($)]

The Vampire, or The Bride of the Isles by  J. R. Planché (1820) [The Literary Gothic]

Le Vampire (The Vampire) by Charles Nodier (1820) [Munseys - PDF]

“Vampirisimus” by E.T.A. Hoffman (1821), from his Die Erzählungen der Serapionsbrüder (The Serapion Brethren) [GoogleBooks] [Project Gutenburg] [National University of Central Buenos Aires - Spanish]

Smarra ou les Demons de la Nuit (Smarra, or the Night of the Demons) by Charles Nodier (1821) [Archive.org - French] [Project Gutenberg - French] [Rilune.org - French] [Amazon.com - English Translation ($)]

Han d’Islande (Hans of Iceland) by Victor Hugo (1821) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org: Vol. I | Vol. 2] (not explicitly about vampires, although a major character drinks blood for the sake of revenge)

La Vampire Ou La Vierge De Hongrie (The Vampire or The Hungarian Virgin)  by Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon (1825) [Gallica.bnf.fr: Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Vol. 3 - French] [Black Coat Press - English Translation ($)]

Der Vampyre und seine Braut (The Vampire and his Bride) by Carl Spindler (1826) [GoogleBooks - German] [Bibliotheque-vampires.de - German]

La Guzla, ou Choix de Poesies Illyrique (The Guzla, or a Selection of Illyric Poems) by Prosper Merimee (1827) [GoogleBooks - French] [Archive.org - French] (A literary hoax that purports to be a collection of folklore)

Der Vampyr (The Vampire) by Heinrich Marschner and Wilhelm August Wohlbrück (1828) [Stanford University - Libretto] [Archive.org - German Score] [Archive.org -  German Recording] [Zeno.org - German Libretto]

Der Vampyre, oder die Totenbraut (The Vampyre and the Dead Bride) by Theodor Hildebrand (1828) [GoogleBooks - German]

1830-1839

“The Eve of Ivan Kupala” (aka “St. John’s Eve”]by Nikolaj Vasilevic Gogol (1832), from his Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka  [The University of Adelaide]

“The Vampire Bride” by Henry Thomas Liddell (1833) [GoogleBooks]

“The Viy” by Nikolaj Vasilevic Gogol (1835), from his Mirgorod [The University of Adelaide]

“La Morte Amoureuse” (“The Dead Lover,” aka “Clarimonde”; “The Beautiful Vampire”; “The Dead Woman in Love”; “The Dead Leman”) by Théophile Gautier (1836) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org] [Project Gutenberg] [Université du Québec à Chicoutimi - French]

“Ligea” by Edgar Allan Poe (1838) [GoogleBooks] [Project Gutenberg] [Poestories.com] (not explicitly about vampires, although it does concern the re-arisen dead)

Sem’ya Vurdalaka (The Family of the Voursalak) by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1839) [Az.lib.eu - Russian] [Amazon.com - English Translation ($)]

1840-1849

Der tote Gast (The Dead Guest) by Heinrich Zschokke (1840) [GoogleBooks]

Upyr (The Vampire) by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1841) [Az.lib.eu - Russian] [Amazon.com - English Translation ($)]

‘The Vampire” by James Clerk Maxwell (1845) [GoogleBooks] [Poemhunter.com]

Varney the Vampyre, or, The Feast of Blood by James Malcolm Rhymer (sometimes attributed to Thomas Preskett Prest) (1845-1847) [University of Virgina] [Project Gutenberg - Incomplete]

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847) [GoogleBooks] [Archive.org] [Project Gutenberg] (not explicitly about vampires, although Heathcliff is accused of vampirsm)

“La Dame pâle” (“The Pale Lady,” aka “The Carpathian Mountains”; “The Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains”) by Alexandre Dumas and Paul Bobage, in Les mille et un fantômes (The Thousand and One Ghosts) (1849) [Project Gutenberg - French] [Wikisource - French] [Amazon.com - English Translation ($)]

Adapted from this forum post. Original poster has not read all works listed, but has applied descriptive/helpful notes where possible.

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366 Prompts For 2024:

One word prompts for 2024 (all 12 months) and some alternatives. These are mostly horror / fantasy aimed.

January (31):

Behold

Justice

Oak

Weave

Hook

Waggon

Torch

Jinx

Prey

Must

Lit

Keep

Vanquish

Yarrow

Intended

Tomb

Marsh

Leather

Blanket

Kin

Lordling

Promises

Heath

Rot

West

Under

Sworn

Rusted

Transformation

Quest

Pond

February (29):

Midwinter

Oath

Croak

Blush

Nimble

Malady

Deal

Roots

Willow

Orders

Moss

Lantern

Portent

Lovelock

Mourning

Horned

Keys

Earn

Remedy

Bog

Yearning

Lace

Trunk

Coiled

Linger

Soothsayer

Revenge

Oleander

Revered

March (31):

Metal

Pride

Gunpowder

Inheritance

Master

Brandish

Enchanted

Path

Sacrifice

Tailor

Crypt

Remain

Toad

Understanding

Legacy

Archway

Mirror

Omen

Home

Fur

Dust

Bow

Necklace

Sly

Permanent

Grin

Aim

Nest

Hex

Church

Valour

April (30):

Masonry

Inquiry

Ledge

Years

Hospitality

Clay

Priestess

Sunken

Lavender

Trust

Waters

Guilt

Dusk

Protection

Musket

Castle

Flee

Ancient

Value

Charm

Fever

Penance

Silk

Foxhole

Ornament

Tradition

Meld

Hare

Well

Pest

May (31):

Moonrise

Sea

Wander

Absolution

Bark

Ridge

Crackle

Sacred

Bind

Frozen

Thatch

Naming

Elder

Wealth

Dappled

Reading

Father

Cathedral

Tent

Grey

Payment

Enshrine

Tales

Velvet

Cell

Guide

Dawn

Mines

Riddle

Falling

Clock

June (30):

Vixen

Stolen

Worth

Tar

Alchemy

Fickle

Barrell

Harrow

Pyre

Chest

Worship

Steps

Armoury

Tear

Den

Ladder

Ruins

Bargain

Snake-leaves

Corn-doll

Garnet

Eccentric

Telescope

Antler

Stone

Break

Laden

Tower

Chain

Rook

July (31):

Masquerade

Pines

Mother

Herbs

Limb

Prize

Rescue

Scales

Melody

Shore

Tempest

Appease

Queen

Hermit

Separated

Bear

Righteous

Chimney

Storm

Manipulate

Boots

Apple

Rings

Crafted

Trail

Bleak

Dear-heart

Sanctify

Feast

Gathering

Door

August (31):

Luck

Display

Greed

Autumn

Found

Wildfire

Sleep

Grandfather

Watch

Hidden

Lookalike

Whimsey

Thicket

Runes

Horseshoe

Smoke

Awaken

Gargoyle

Wig

Poison

Thousand-fur

Shatter

Barrow

Tempt

Flag

Mercy

Web

Beast

Candle

Hunt

Serpent

September (30):

Belladonna

Magician

Birch

Reflection

Sight

Elaborate

Captive

Rope

Glass

Decades

Blade

Sorrow

Finickity

Carving

Stag

Fairy-tale

Spark

Blackthorn

Mountain

Century

Fury

Question

Claws

Fangs

Decay

Gift

Shipwreck

Blessed

Harvest

Crown

October (31):

Troll

Vines

Scattered

Prayer

Hatchet

Coat

Fireside

Grim

Sealed

Walled

Healing

Cobbled

Secure

Forest

Blind

Constellation

Shroud

Regal

Helm

Shadowed

Ward

Sinking

Hills

Goldsmith

Silver

Entwining

Soldier

Courtship

Guest

Defy

Crone

November (30):

Bones

Fear

Talisman

Song

Witness

Cloak

Plague

Hearth

Returned

Testament

Ceremonial

Yearning

Written

Silhouette

Gilded

Boundary

Hunger

Stranger

Fiend

Dungeon

Huntsman

Want

Birdsong

Wish

Hierophant

Favour

Dreaming

Coal

Brother

Fields

December (31):

Bottles

Curse

Horizon

Supplies

Wallowing

Hodge-podge

Thorns

Wisdom

Trinket

Warmth

Timber

Honest

Ritual

Welcome

Branches

Disguise

Bound

Gallows

Shield

Window

Finality

Tinder

Starlight

Winds

Bridge

Fortune

Tracks

River

Guardian

Summon

Warmth

Alternative Prompts:

Cunning

Puppet

Hound

Brambles

Eldritch

Garden

Eldritch

Cosmic

Bells

Tainted

Sleigh

Sect

Glowing

Coven

#writing #writing prompt #prompt list #january prompts #february prompts #march prompts #april prompts #may prompts #june prompts #july prompts #august prompts #september prompts #november prompts #october prompts #december prompts #horror #horror writing #horror prompts #creative writing #fiction writing #short stories #fanfic