Science Fiction by women and about women

Right now, I'm in the middle of traveling through the guts of a Peter Straub book, Lost Boy, Lost Girl. The writing is some of the most imaginative I've seen so far in a book included in the 'horror' genre, but after I finish it, I REALLY want to switch up (because I've been reading a lot of horror lately), and settle into a good, meaty scifi story, preferably dystopian. I love the horror and scifi genres, have for over fifteen years, but I notice that they still tend to be a somewhat (well, more than somewhat) male-dominated genre.



So I was really happy to come across this list of science fiction tales by female authors, because as I said in a previous post of mine on women in speculative fiction--I love seeing what ideas women bring to the genre! I love seeing women front and center. The future belongs to all of us, so all of us should be well-represented, ya' know? Here is a list that includes books written by female authors of different cultures, backgrounds, and races. It's an excellent beginners' compilation showcasing some of the best and brightest of the women in the genre, but also demonstrating the breadth and complexity that can be found in a scifi book. Spanning from Europe to Africa to China, they tell very diverse stories but the connective tissue is the exploration of women's experiences within circumstances that are often completely beyond their control. Which is, interestingly, reflective of the situation many women find themselves in in real life, minus the fantastical scenarios.





11 Sci-Fi Books Every Woman Should Read by Crystal Paul

An author who was one of the few women of color in speculative fiction was Octavia Butler. Her writing came along at a time where narratives of Black women in the genre were pretty scarce.

I still have so many of her novels on my ginormous 'to-read' list! One of the novels on the list which I want to read immediately is Parable of the Sower. This book centers around a young woman with a spectacular ability to identify with the misery and pain of others like it was hers. The story is set in a dismal Los Angeles (only nine years from now, actually) where the privileged live behind walled communities and the rest...well the rest have no money, no work, no home and are ANGRY rampagers.

First of all, this is the kind of unique, socially conscious perspective I was talking about a few posts back, about how and why I love exploring the female voice in scifi literature. The protagonist Lauren Olamina, seems intruiging--a young Black woman featured in the kind of story that you don't often see revolving around the power and brilliance of women of color. Lauren's belief is that "God is change" and leads a form of spirituality around this conviction called Earthseed. This is right in the midst of violence and upheaval in this nightmare L.A. born out of economic and government collapse. Octavia Butler was a trailblazer in bringing the narratives of people of color to scifi in a fresh and highly original way. Butler's imagination soared in a genre where it was greatly needed. This is probably number one on my 'to-read list' now. When I finish it, I'll ultimately post a review both here and at Goodreads.

During the course of my journey as a reader and aspiring writer of speculative fiction, I've often tried to find stories that reflect the experiences of women, especially women of color, in a way that is exciting, unique, and outside-the-box. Along with Octavia Butler, I'm also interested in further exploring the work of author Alaya Dawn Johnson. 

She published a young adult novel I MUST READ called Love is the Drug about a young woman of color from a well-to-do family in Washington, D.C., who is drugged and ensnared in government intrigue in the middle of a flu pandemic sweeping the globe. Seriously. The plot sounds like a summer blockbuster waiting to happen.

When I first started becoming interested in writing speculative fiction, one of Alaya Johnson's short stories was one of my early inspirations...Shard of Glass and the biracial girl who is at the center of a desperate and supernaturally-based escape from danger with her mother, was one of the works of fiction I read that actually gave me a good amount of encouragement as a mixed-race aspiring writer in the genre. I believe what a female writer of color with creativity, consciousness and most importantly--PASSION--can accomplish through their writing in the genre is virtually limitless. I recommend any aspiring scifi/speculative fiction writer of color to read this story. The plot is thrillingly crafted and the twist at the end is superbly written. Her name isn't on the Buzzfeed list above--I just HAD to mention her work and how powerful I felt her writing was. You can read the story here.


Along with this Buzzfeed list and those like it, I also recommend checking out the lists compiled over at my main literary hang-out, Goodreads, for more titles both featuring female characters and/or written by women. I'm always on the hunt for more! 

Happy reading!

Women Writers & SciFi

As a reader and a writer who loves to explore the world of speculative fiction, the bizarre and the unbelievable, I think that stories within the genre are often specifically shaped and influenced by the gender of the author.

What I mean by that is, that female scifi writers frequently bring a unique 'vision' to the science fiction universe. As women who live in a society which contain many historical and social imbalances, we are often forced to navigate through life observing the important areas OF life (work, politics, relationships, so on...) through the eyes of people who are not automatically deemed 'insiders'. This perspective on life becomes even deeper and more complex, when it comes to the experiences of women from different cultures, racial communities, nationalities and lifestyles.

Science fiction is a genre with NO limits. Anything you can imagine can have a form of legitimacy within the pages. The sheer freedom of this storytelling can bring out the best in writers, unlock their hopes, their fears, their anxieties, and their utmost creativity. All of the constraints, categorizations and limitations which are found in contemporary society, can be thrown off like the shackles they are when it comes to envisioning the future. I think this is why there is such a unique narrative female scifi authors bring to their storytelling.

The science fiction novel which was one of the books that convinced me to embark on my own writing journey was the penultimate scifi work from a female perspective, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

I traveled to this nightmare world of misogyny, oppression, and injustice, The Republic of Gilead. I followed the suffering and ultimate victory of the protagonist, Offred, used as a 'breeder' and denied as a human being with rights. Before I read Atwood's work, it didn't necessarily occur to me that science fiction can be used as an expression of protest. But the themes in The Handmaid's Tale such as violence against women, hypocrisy and sexual exploitation could all be found, in different contexts, in our own world. Her novel made a statement on present injustices and transformed them into a parallel universe, the worst qualities of humanity that could be taken to the final level if freedom was allowed to be eradicated and fear allowed to dominate a population.

To me, science fiction can be political and significant literature--and the visions of those writers who have been historically marginalized have the capability of bringing a level to the writing that is multi-layered and profoundly complex. A quality of creativity that pierces through the surface.

This is definitely NOT me saying that I don't love, admire, and enjoy the science fiction of male authors in the genre. Far from it! Rod Serling and Richard Matheson, just two examples out of many, are creators I've viewed as two of the greatest writers of fantasy and scifi of the 20th century. Their exploration of the human spirit and the darkness and catastrophe which often follows behind, was writing on the highest level.

What I'm saying is that our experiences shape our creativity. The way the world reacts to who we are influences the way we see the world in return...and our destinies.

Women in science fiction can have a powerful voice because of our place in a society that has traditionally assigned varying levels of 'worth' to a woman, a society that has been both greatly unjust and greatly transformed. How we use this voice is of the highest importance not just for modern readers and writers but for the continuing transformation of our society and for the benefit of the women who will come after us.

Have women writers been discriminated against? Such things are hard to quantify or prove, although most women in the field can cite occasional instances of sexism (the editor who declares that sf by women doesn't sell; the disgruntled author who scents a feminist conspiracy when his novel fails to win awards; the claim from an old-time fan that the values of Hard SF are being destroyed by female editors with an innately feminine preference for fantasy). More recently, a number of women writers of Hard SF have talked online about the difficulties of being accepted as a woman writing in this area, and the perceived benefits (to publishers at least) of using a gender-neutral name in this subgenre.

On the whole the "Old Boy Network" of sf has been largely receptive to any women who care to join, even if various generations of male writers and editors have expressed surprise at sf's attraction to women writers and readers. Even after 40 years, there are still significant segments of the sf community that remain oblivious or indifferent to the work of women writers. Whether this stems from ignorance or implicit bias against women's writing, the result is the same: a view of the history and contemporary state of sf that fails to acknowledge the contributions of women in the field.

- See more at: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/women_sf_writers

"Past Lives" A Short Story by V.G. Grace

Vincent woke up cursing and shielding his eyes from the glaring whiteness of the early morning sunlight, which wrenched its way into the fog in his head.  The last thing he remembered was the disembodied face of his wife.

"Laura!" he bellowed, his voice careening off of the tall oak trees that circled the camp site he had chosen for last night's fishing expedition, "Where the hell are you? I want my coffee!"

He waited for her to come rushing towards him clutching a canteen of hot coffee, and standing quietly before him with her eyes peering downward. He would sip it quietly for a few moments, waiting for the beads of sweat to appear and trickle down her smooth pale forehead, smelling her fear, relishing her fear, before he eventually pounced. It was always the highlight of his mornings.

Grunting with effort, Vincent struggled to lift his girth off of the ground, almost falling flat on his face. Then, looking around, he noticed that this morning, unlike all other mornings, Laura was not rushing towards him, on call to carry out his day's commands.

"Laura!" he shouted, "Better be in front of me in the next five seconds or it's gonna be a kick in the ribs instead of a slap to the face. Your choice!"

Nothing. The birds went on singing, their blissfully oblivious chirps the only sound in the overwhelming quiet of the forest.  A moment later, a raccoon waddled out from behind a pine tree and sniffed the air curiously. His glossy black eyes widened almost with a human look of fear and he ran up the tree, scurrying up its branches.

Not once in their two year marriage had she ever had the nerve to disobey him. She knew what the consequences were. He'd made sure of that the first month they were married. Irritation rapidly transformed into rage, that familiar sizzling pop of violence, which crackled through Vincent, erupted, and searched for a target.

"You're in for it!" he screamed into the silence, as he started stomping through the woods towards their cabin,

The small wooden vacation cabin had been in his family for the past fifty years of Vincent's life. Once the representation of his family's final achievement of the American dream, the promise of many successful times to come, it had become the last possible refuge for him after a string of economic failures and the nightmare of one woman.

Vincent kicked open the cabin door and began to scream out his wife's name again when he suddenly froze at the sight lying before him.

The well-worn furniture that had crowded the small living room had disappeared. The woven rugs Laura had bought at a flea market in town and which he had allowed to be one of her few contributions to the cabin's decoration, had vanished. On the wall, where the usually bright sunflower patterned wallpaper was now peeling off into greying flakes, the old photographs featuring dour, unsmiling relatives from Vincent's side of the family, had inexplicably vanished. In every corner, there were tangled, dusty piles of cobwebs, its whiteness shimmering underneath the ray of sunlight which shone through the living room's newly broken window, absent of the curtains that had been covering it since his wife had sewn them a year ago. Instead of the bright, cheerful interior that welcomed Vincent every dawn, it looked untouched and abandoned, as if it had long been languishing in darkness and isolation instead of it being the familiar and comfortable home he had lived in for the last fifteen years.

'What the hell?" Vincent mumbled dazedly.

He stumbled backwards into the corner, feeling something soft brushing up against the back of his neck. He whirled around to see a large black widow spider descending from the ceiling.

He growled and lunged at it in one fell swoop, throwing the spider to the ground where his massive leg came down with a mighty stomp.

Grinning with the satisfaction that only an act of violence brought him, he lifted his leg up from what he expected to be the mutilated remains, but like only a gentle breeze had knocked her down, the spider in its eight-legged spindly entirety, scurried off from the site of her near-murder and disappeared up the peeling walls.


Before the confusion could hit him, Vincent's vision suddenly blurred, turning into a swirling haze. Yelping in pain, his eyes screwed tight with water trickling down his cheeks and he clutched his ample belly, dropping to his knees. The pain was becoming more intense by the second. It was as if a swarm of bees were buzzing, buzzing, buzzing through the recesses of his mind, stinging the fleshy parts along the way.

"Stop. My head! What's happening? Wha---leave me alone! Leave me ALONE!" He shrieked into the shadows of the cabin.

As swiftly as it had started, it stopped.

Vincent opened his eyes to see the bright wallpaper with its cheerful yellow flowers back as it had been. His comfortable easy chair with the ever-familiar butt imprint of a million beer and football nights was sitting there like always, almost mocking him with its sameness. The cabin was filled with the soft glow of the antique porcelain lamps his mother had brought over from the old country, illuminating the cabin amidst the shadows of outside. It was no longer the early morning sunshine but the weak moonlight streaming in. He glanced at the television set back in front of his worn in, broken-down easy chair to see glimpses of an old black & white sitcom he loved to watch while eating the enormous dinners he demanded his wife  cook every night. She's causing all of this, Vincent thought. She slipped something into the food. Vincent's heart began to thump as if he was running a marathon, and cold sweat trickled down his multiple chins onto the hardwood floors.

"Yeah, that's right," he said out loud as if to reassure himself, "This is all an hallucination."

He turned to his left and there was his wife, standing with her back to him. Her bony spine protruded through the thin fabric of her tank top and her frail shoulders bobbed up and down frantically as if she was in the middle of hyperventilating.

Vincent stomped over to her, his rage at full-throttle.

"Hey!" he barked, "Just what do you think you're doin' to me, bitch?"

She still stood with her back to him, her loud breathing not skipping a beat. Her slender frame began to shake uncontrollably, her jagged breathing almost bouncing off of the walls, a sharp sound of long-buried agony ripping, tearing into the air like a thousand needles.
 

"I've had enough of whatever tricks you're pullin'. Maybe you slipped somethin' in my dinner last night or maybe you put some kinda hex on me. Whatever it is, it's gonna end right here. Turn around and start actin' normal!" he yelled.

With her back still turned, Laura lifted a revolver, that she had been clutching tightly, desperately, to her right side, and aimed it directly in front of her. It glinted beneath the moonlight--her body was no longer trembling.

"You-you LIED.  You said you were going to be a good husband to me, give me a good life." she whispered. "You said you were going to make me happy, happiness like nothing I've known before." she shook her head, " Just misery like nothing I've known before. Cruelty like nothing I've known. You lied because no woman would have you...you're garbage on the inside."

Vincent lunged then for his wife, his beefy arms eager to wrap themselves around her thin neck and choke the life out of her, choke the defiance out of her, choke the words out of her. Just as his fingers came near her throat, he felt a violent jolt and stared at the wooden floor beneath him.  He looked up, dazed, to see that he was crumpled in a heap at her back. Her arm was still outstretched, pointing the gleaming pistol in front of her. She had not even flinched. Suddenly cutting through the seemingly endless moment of silence was a pathetic, begging voice.  A male voice. His own.

"Baby...honey...please think for a moment about what you're doin!" the voice wailed.

"On your knees," Laura said quietly.

Vincent went cold all over, as if ice water was flowing through his veins straight into his heart. Beyond her gun, he stared into the wide, frightened eyes of his mirror image. Cradling an arm where a gunshot wound had created a raw bloody hole in the meaty part of his massive shoulder, the second Vincent's thinning hair was matted with sweat, which had mingled with the tears, both from shock and from pain, that were spilling from those bug-eyes.

"Can't be happening." Vincent muttered as he stared, numbly, at the duplicate of himself pathetically kneeling on the hard wooden floors, almost as before a religious icon.

"Oh GOD, I don't wanna die!" the wailing voice of his double shrieked.

"Shut up." Laura replied.

"It just can't be happening," Vincent repeated.

"Please, baby" the quavering voice of his double pleaded, "Put the gun down. We can get past th--"

"I told you, SHUT UP!" she suddenly screamed, her voice reverberating through the walls.

She placed the pistol against his sweaty temple.

"This is the end of you, Vincent" Laura said, "You hear me good? END. No more hurting me, no more putting your hands on me, making me feel dirty, like I'm not human."

"You whore!" Vincent roared behind her and his double, as he charged like an angry bull towards her again, landing ineffectually at the back of her scuffed tennis shoes.

"I'm begging you--" the second Vincent pleaded.

"You caused me to lose her. Our child." Laura went on, tears spilling from her eyes, her knuckles turning white as she tightened her hold on the gun.

Vincent struggled to get to his feet. The air felt thinner and the buzzing in his head came back, slowly at first, a muted throb.

The second Vincent reached out his hand to her, his eyes pleading.

"Baby...you're right....I've treated you like no man ever oughtta treat a woman. I swear to God, I'll change and make life better for you. Please put the gun down."

Laura said nothing, her hand still pointing the gun at his head. She began openly weeping.

Vincent was clutching his head, moaning now, the throbbing turning into an electric strumming, slowly reaching a shattering crescendo.


"Everything will be different," he went on, his voice repentant, "We'll have another baby, move outta here. We'll both go to counseling just like you wanted!"

Her arm still pointed the gun at him, but the fingers slightly loosened its iron grip. The corner of her mouth began to quiver.

Reaching out both hands to her now, ignoring the blood steadily streaming down his arm, the second Vincent edged closer.

"I'll be a good husband, the kind of husband a jewel like you deserves, baby. We'll be happy...I'll put the gun to my own head and pull the trigger if I ever get out of line. I SWEAR to you!"

As if she was a deer in the headlights, Laura stood there, frozen and suddenly unsure.

Her arm lowered slightly.

"Maybe--" she said haltingly.

Then he leapt upon her, bending her arm backwards with all of his strength, his garbled howl of victory piercing the darkness of the cabin.

She desperately thrashed in his grasp, then reached out and deeply slashed his doughy face, her long fingernails scraping his flesh from the chin to the eyeballs.

There on the floor, Vincent gazed on as a useless bystander in numb horror, his sight clouding over, struggling to hold onto his consciousness. It was all getting very hazy...


Vincent shrieked, his hands instinctively covering the deep red slash marks on his face, dropping to the floor, half sobbing-half screaming in pain.

Laura grabbed the gun and crouched down, ramming it into his mouth.

"Goodbye, Vincent," she said sadly, her face inches from his, "May you be trapped in the kinda hell you created for me." She then pulled the trigger with a decisive click.

Vincent did not hear the blast or see the back of his own head splattered against the sunflower-patterned walls. Instantly, he was catapulted into a vast empty whiteness, his body vibrating like a massive machine.

Chuka-chuka-chuka-choo, chuka-chuka-chuka-choo, chuka-chuka-chuka-CHOO.

He tried to scream but nothing came out except the electronic hum radiating from his head to his fingertips. He looked upwards and saw her face. She contentedly smiled down at him, her eyes radiant and sparkling. He tried to reach out for her but his limbs were paralyzed. He tried to speak, but his voice was gone.

Suddenly he was free-falling downwards, into a flourescent glow, further away from her face until it became a distant speck.

Vincent opened his eyes.

He started cursing and shielding himself from the blaring sunlight. It was a beautiful day, the birds cheerfully singing their early morning song.

"Laura! Where the hell are you? I want my coffee!" he bellowed.

My Thoughts as a Writer

I often feel that my mind overflows with ideas. There are always new worlds to explore in the literary field. Unique perspectives. Fantastic themes. Exciting opportunities to share pieces of your mind, heart...and soul.

I've read a lot of novels of a mix of genres; science fiction, thriller and suspense, mystery, historical fiction, etc. All of these works have made an impression on me, inspired me, and some have even gone far in changing my outlook on life itself.A few of the books that have moved me as both a reader AND a writer are "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, "Toyer" by Gardner McKay, and the cornerstone of my reading experience and my own personal awakening as a writer who wants to make a difference in my work..."The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood.

                                                       

                                                      

                                                       

Books that take my mind and heart to places I was not expecting, have been a special part of my existence since I was seven years old. Studying the worlds crafted, the protagonists, their hearts, minds, and motivations, was a constant passion and joy as I went from one book to the other.

What makes a story good? What makes a story gripping? What makes a character a person that you identify with and genuinely care about? What moves the plot further, taking it from one gradual step to another, building it into something powerful, grand and...unforgettable?



This is what I try to explore and analyze in my reading and my writing. Two of the biggest inspirations in the literary world who have helped to shape my perception of the construct of 'fiction' itself are Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone, and Stephen King, who of course is a juggernaut amongst not only writers, but creators as a whole.


Writing for me, is a personal journey...it takes you out of the often dull realities of life, the mundane every-day details, and is something that gives you unlimited power.

Why do I use the word 'power'? Because ever since I started writing seriously, and realized this was a path I wanted to follow, I've felt more personally empowered than ever before. There is something inherently freeing about creating landscapes, new realities, and characters, (in a way, entirely new human beings--those who may not exist in real life, but are very much alive in your and the reader's imaginations).



The power and the freedom to create exciting and intricate new realities is particularly true for two of my favorite genres: science fiction and horror.

As Stephen King once said, "Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

The light and the shadows that are within us all, the writer has this magnificent opportunity to throw into a jumble of words that are somehow gonna come together at some point, and fit into this one 'whole same'. Thoughts stewing in your head are gradually pieced together letter by letter, in a way that actually can affect other human beings.

To scare them, to thrill them, to excite them, maybe even to move them.

That is ENORMOUS to me!


With horror and science fiction, what I especially love about these genres, is that in the realm of fantasy, honest aspects of who we are, what make us human, with all of its messiness and complications, can be sharpened and enhanced into something, with the right writer, that worms its way into the recesses of your brain and stays there for some time.

Look at the characters in the film, "The Shining", based on King's seminal novel. It featured a struggling former alcoholic father, a strained but cautiously hopeful mother, and a confused, frightened little boy.

And just before I go on, I'm a fan of the 1997 Stephen Weber adaptation. I personally think it's the best version.

What made us give a damn about the Torrance family? What made them into three-dimensional, flesh and blood characters who we invested our time and emotional energy into watching? They weren't just a random family plunked down into the middle of a haunted house. They weren't 'stock characters' who could be interchanged with any number of middle-America stock characters to be used as the hapless victims of creepy ghouls.


You could just watch "13 Ghosts" if you wanted that.


The demons and haunts of "The Shining" didn't come from a shallow place of scare tactics. they weren't evil ghosties for the sake of shock and gore.

What made "The Shining" into the lasting horror masterpiece it was, was because it took from the classics of horror (the haunted house, the beleagured family, the creepy isolation) then proceeded to go past these tropes and shape them into something new. Every time I watch the film, either version actually (although this seems a LOT more readily apparent in the '97 remake), it is obvious that the internal torments (alcoholism, spectre of abuse), that were already haunting NOT only Jack Torrance but every single member of the family, were strengthening, fueling, the evil energy of the Overlook. Stephen King took these characters' real human battles and emotional trauma and intertwined that with the activity and atmosphere of a place. It makes me wonder if another family besides the Torrances, a happy family with no history of dysfunction, had become the caretakers of the hotel, what the outcome would've been?

Another example of humanity, first and foremost, being the cornerstone of truly GREAT horror, was Richard Matheson's 1954 classic of a man struggling to survive in an infected nightmare of a world...I Am Legend.


Robert Neville was a regular man plunged into an extraordinary set of circumstances. The memory of humanity, that's since disappeared because of a worldwide vampiric plague, was something that he's held onto for dear life even as the character evaded his former neighbors and scavenged for supplies in the desolate suburban neighborhood he lives in. One that became a special kind of "graveyard".

The core of this book is the struggle to maintain and preserve humanity---through the every-day little details of Robert Neville's life like sitting down and eating dinner, to showering and grooming himself even when many readers would probably be thinking to themselves that they'd be wallowing in their own filth or jumping off of the closest bridge.

Maintaining humanity, even in a small way, even in his desperate corner of the world, was treasured by Neville, and showed up not just in the details of his day-to-day existence but his attitude towards the disease that's created the hungry mutants stalking his doorstep each night.

In his spare time, the character read and researched, trying to understand the root of the disease that caused his old world to go extinct. Neville's manifestation of humanity was in his lingering, persistent unwillingness to accept total personal defeat.

I think Matheson does something very important with the plot and characters in I Am Legend; going back to what I mentioned about how an imaginative writer particularly has the opportunity to invent NEW realities in scifi and horror. It's on no better display than this book.




 Everyone's familiar with the tired vampire cliche of a dark, scary mansion, shape-shifting bats and Bela Lugosi hamming it up in a cape, but Matheson's spin on what makes a vampire function, takes on a whole new approach to the concept of death and immortality.

This is old-school writing at its finest. Fans of sparkling vamps need not apply--this was dark, haunting, powerful writing which mixed up the old tropes and finally threw them out the window.

"According to legend, they were invisible in mirrors, but he knew that was untrue. As untrue as the belief that they transformed themselves into bats. That was a superstition that logic plus observation had easily disposed of. It was equally foolish to believe that they could transform themselves into wolves. Without a doubt, there were vampire dogs; he had seen and heard them outside his house at night. But they were only dogs."

 By doing this, you look upon the vampires in a whole new light; you recognize their danger to Neville's existence, but you realize they were not evil. They were a desperate and pathetic lot who, in the end, (spoiler alert!), turned out to not even be Neville's ultimate threat.

"As he was pulling on his shirt, he heard Ben Cortman cry out, 'Come out, Neville!' "

"And that was all. After that, they all went away weaker, he knew, than when they had come. Unless he had attacked one of their own. They did that often. There was no union among them. Their need was their only motivation."

What ties these two stories together, one film version, one literary, and what makes them tales I am constantly amazed at, two authors managed to take two very extensively plumbed genres, 'the haunted house' and the 'vampire', flip it around, turn it inside out, and made us feel alllll of these emotions through it.

They are a couple of examples of the BEST kind of horror and scifi. It's the kind of storytelling I aspire to, my personal inspiration, and some of the best representation of art to me.

Through my writings on "Between The Shadows", I hope to share some of my own passion and art through storytelling. I hope you'll come along with me for the journey, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to make you feel a little something along the way too.