It’s summer! I know some of you wait for this time all year long, but this is my hell season. I hate being hot, my seasonal depression always spikes, and did I mention I hate being hot? Because I really hate being hot.

That said, I do try to make the most of it. For instance, I love going to the farmer’s market with my little family on the weekend, even if all we end up getting is coffee and a smoothie. I think it’s a good lesson for Evie to learn about small businesses, get out in her community, and practice ordering and paying for things. Plus, people always bring their dogs, so that’s always a plus! I’ll never pass up a dog snuggle.

Dennis and I also managed to sneak away to the drive-in for the first time in who knows how long. I forgot how much I loved doing this, and now it’s going to be a regular summer occurrence. We saw Obsession and Backrooms, which was the perfect double feature, and I can’t wait to take Evie (hopefully to see Toy Story 5 or Minions and Monsters).

Speaking of Evie, girl did some serious adventuring this month. She went to a week-long summer camp at the Science Center, did all kinds of messy science, and made tons of friends. I caught two movies at the Rangos Theatre: Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope and Wings Over Water. Then we stayed late one day and explored a Cold War submarine; Evie had a blast and told me she wants to take naps on it, so there’s that.

My brother and his family also came in for a long weekend, so we got to spend some time together as a family. Evie rode the quad, played with her little cousin, and then me, her, and my dad all camped outside for the night, which Evie loved. She keeps asking me to go camping and hiking and fishing again, so needless to say, I guess I know what we’re doing for the rest of summer!

On the Writing/Teaching Front:

• My flash fiction piece “Sligchan” was published in Issue #64 of Blink Ink: Midsummer Magic.

• My poem “Good Morning, Wolf--” is now live with Nightmare Magazine. Special thanks to editor, Wendy Wagner. Read it here.

• I moderated the virtual panel Women and Werewolves: Exploring Female Rage through Monstrosity with panelists Lindy Ryan, Stephanie Rose, Shannon Kearns, Christa Carmen, and Gwendolyn Kiste. This was part of the StokerCon 2026 programming, and if you attended, I hope you checked it out. We had a great time and covered many timely and important topics.

• StokerCon, in general, was a blast. I got to see so many friends, introduce former students to the horror community, and just soak up the brilliance of my horrifyingly creative colleagues. Plus, Evie even made an appearance as The Bride of Frankenstein at the mass signing, which was a hit for everyone! Here was my schedule:

  • Attended Terror from the Vault: Exploring the Horror Studies Collection

  • Presented at the Ann Radcliffe Conference as part of the “Strangely Are Our Souls Constructed: On Frankenstein” group. I specifically focused on the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, directed by James Whale.

  • Reading alongside Cynthia Pelayo and Francesca Maria.

  • Moderated The Roots of Dark Poetry panel

  • Panelist on The Hounds of Hell: Dogs in Horror panel

  • Attended the Bram Stoker Awards Ceremony, where I presented the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Poetry to Linda Addison and Jamal Hodge for their collection Everything Endless.

• I finished teaching two graduate classes, which, with everyone going on, feels like more of an accomplishment than usual. I start teaching two new classes on Monday, but thankfully I have a few days off (coupled with a long family weekend), so the R&R will be a nice reset for me!

• I also finished another course toward my psychology degree: Social Psychology. I really enjoyed this one–honestly, I’ve enjoyed all my classes so far to be honest–and while I’m taking a term off, I’m looking forward to jumping into another class in the fall.

This month, I read:

• The Fourth Wife by Linda Hamilton

• The Mean Ones by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne

• Short stories: “NoMouth” by Marianne Kirby; “A Magic Kingdom” by Bruce Mcallister

On the media front:

• Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Mary Shelley (2017), The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026), Obsession (2026), Backrooms (2026), Apex (2026), Forbidden Fruits (2026), The Bride! (2026)

• Secrets of the Octopus (2024): Evie and I did a week-long animal study of the Octopus and had so much fun! This mini-documentary series was the perfect addition to our coursework, and we both learned a lot.

• Four Seasons (2026): This is such a great show. It’s an honest, raw look at marriage, human connection, and the relationships and friendships we build, and it’s just so refreshing to see that because there’s not a right or wrong way to navigate this type of stuff. The journey is different for everyone.

• Widow’s Bay (2026): This was the cozy horror I didn’t know I needed! It was like John Carpenter’s The Fog meets Storm of the Century. If you haven’t watched it yet, do yourself a favor and check it out!

Short Films:

• Theodor (2022) by Maraike Kraemer, Susanna Orincsay, Alexandra Lermer, and Katrin Mader.

Podcasts:

• Stuff You Missed in History Class, “Elsa Lanchester: Becoming the Bride, Pt. 1” and “Elsa Lanchester: Becoming the Bride, Pt. 2”

• The Monsters That Made Us, “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935)

• My Victorian Nightmare, “Passion, Poison and Betrayal: The Death of Charles Bravo,” “The Horrifying Confession of a Haunted Killer: Thomas Bedworth,” “The History and Hauntings of The Lemp Family Mansion”

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

To Hear the Call

My childhood was a dead dove,
its neck snapped with poetry in its mouth, 
honey gluing its wings.

          I didn’t fly until I became a wolf.

That first blood, I gave birth to myself
in the forest, ripped the umbilical cord 
with my teeth.

	  I didn’t have a mother until
	  I became my own.

But when the trees prayed, I nursed 
from the stars, my body waning,
a hag stone, a wish.

	  I never cried until I saw the spider
	  have to remake its web.

The home a mirage, I lived in doll houses
made of bones, my bed a collection of furs,
still warm, still wet.

	  I never slept until I saw the witch
	  crawl into my chest.

Her hands, my ribs, the breath of curses
in my veins, my body a coven, a midnight
meeting in the woods.

	  I never knew I needed to scream
	  until I slashed my own throat.
 

*This poem was previously published in the HWA Poetry Showcase, Volume IX.

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

Plus, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Maybe…

That said, I’m still trying to keep my soft, slow mornings sacred. This week, Evie has been home with me, and we’ve been waking up and watching the National Geographic channel together while we make breakfast, have our milk/coffee, and start to acclimate to the day. Today, though, we decided to switch things up and collage together for a bit, which was a blast! It’s definitely something I’ll be adding to our craft routine now.

Next week, though, we return to our usual scheduled programming, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t (a little) excited. I miss the quiet mornings when I can lock myself in my bedroom and meditate with the dogs in my lap. I’m ready for a slow, intentionally made matcha in the afternoon, followed by a return to my yoga classes in the evening. I haven’t been to a cacao ceremony in what feels like forever, and I’m desperate to get back to her and spend some time communing with her spirit.

And I’m ready to write.

Oh, am I ready to write!

Some things this summer I’m looking forward to that aren’t work:

• Beginning my annual summer painting

• Goat yoga with my mom and Evie

• Coffee dates with local friends

• The Frick Museum’s upcoming French Moderns exhibit (and book club!).

• Seeing the Sharif Bey Homecoming exhibition at the Warhol

• Taking a day to explore the Carnegie International

• Taking Evie to her first drive-in

• Weekend trips to the farmers’ market

• Spending time with Juniper, our bonsai tree (yes, I play her music)

• Nature crafts with Evie

• Drum circles in the park

• Bonfires and savory s’mores

• Stargazing and night mothing with Evie

I’ve been studying astrology more closely lately, and it’s been teaching me a lot about myself, especially now that I’m considering the positioning of my Mercury, Saturn, and North Nodes to see the bigger picture. It’s telling me that being a workaholic is part of my nature, that I’m going to keep learning, teaching, and being a student until I can’t anymore, and that a big part of my life is building community (even when I try to convince myself that I’m a loner). For those interested in learning more about how they operate (and why), I recommend the book I Don’t Believe in Astrology by Debra Silverman. It’s fascinating. Oh! And pick up a copy of Astro Poets: Your Guides to the Zodiac by Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky.

Until next time, expect me to be writing poetry in the woods, sipping peppermint tea at sundown, and easing into the night in a long, airy dress, barefoot and dancing under the stars. But don’t worry, I’ll likely have an opposum on my shoulder, nettles in my teeth, and a pit bull or two lounging at my side while we howl at the moon.

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

I had some requests for a recap of what we discussed, so I’m going to include bullet points, quotes, and recommendations below. I’ll also provide a list of authors (outside of Edgar Allan Poe) who would be helpful to read.

I hope you’ll find all of this as inspiring as I did.

Quotes:

• Cynthia Pelayo stated that poets are prophets, and I’m still chewing on that almost a week later. She also said that Gothic is what you’re scared of in the room, but the romantic is what you’re afraid of in yourself.

• John Shirley spoke about how irrationality is another way of perception.

• Leticia Urieta talked about how poetry asks questions we don’t have answers to.

• Linda Addison talked about the magic of call-and-response poetry and the musicality of connection in writing.

• Grace Reynolds discussed the interiority and scaffolding of the Gothic and how it gives us permission to linger in dark places.

Poets to Read:

• Dante Alighieri, Charles Baudelaire, Christina Rosetti, Elizabeth Barnett Browning, Ernest Dowson, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Burns, Thomas Gray, Thomas Parnell, Robert Blair, Edward Young, Alfred Tennyson, William Blake, John Milton, Mosab Abu Toha, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Anna Akhmatova, Vasko Popa, Maria Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam, Julia de Burgos, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Alejandra Pizarnik…

Specific Poems Mentioned:

• Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market"

• Alfred Tennyson’s “The Kraken.”

• W. B. Yeats’ “The Stolen Child”

  • Yeats had a wonderful history of writing about fairies, so please be sure to check out those works specifically if you’re not familiar with them.

• Anna Akhmatova’s “Lot’s Wife”

• Alexander Pushkin’s “Devils”

• Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells,” “Annabel Lee,” “The Raven,” “The Conqueror Worm,” and “The City in the Sea.”

Topics Covered:

• How the work of dark poets countered and confronted the more logical, rationalized thinking of the Enlightenment period and paved the way for the more sensual, imagistic art of the Romantic period.

• The difference between Gothic and Romantic poetry.

• Themes in Victorian literature and how they set the stage for modern horror.

• The work of the Graveyard (or Churchyard) Poets.

  • If you’re interested in this topic, I recommend picking up a copy of The Graveyard School: An Anthology edited by Jack G. Voller

• How the sublime features in horror.

  • If you’re interested in this topic, I recommend picking up a copy of The Sublime by Philip Shaw.

Also, if you’re interested in learning how to write dark poetry, I edited a craft book, Writing Poetry in the Dark, which features some of the most successful contemporary genre poets discussing how to create dark and fantastical poetry. You can read more about it (or pick up your copy) here.

Seeing my name amongst legends never gets old. I’m so grateful.

Does anyone else feel like May lasted…forever?

I’m in a weird state of existing right now because I feel like I’ve lived two full lives this month, and I’m just exhausted, currently battling a four-day migraine, and trying to get my life together for summer and everything that entails. Mostly that’s a good thing, though: the spring semester is over (erupts into a pile of smoke), I’m able to focus on more creative work for a bit, and I have big plans for my little one over the next few months. I just need to get over this middle state of help-I’m-burned-out-and-need-to-sleep-for-two-weeks.

That said! Because things have been so non-stop this month, a lot of cool stuff happened.

I started the month off celebrating Beltane with my yogi friends. I went to a cacao ceremony and participated in ecstatic dance, which was kind of a spiritual rave. Some people danced, some did yoga, and others played instruments or twirled scarves. Normally, this wouldn’t be my thing, but I’m very much trying to move outside of my comfort zone these days, and if I’m being honest, I had a blast (and a good workout!). We finished the night off by standing barefoot under the full moon, basking in the smoke of braided sweet grass, and doing a light meditation in the dark while the trees swayed and the energy hummed around us. It was one of the most beautiful nights I’ve ever had, and I’ll remember it forever.

I’ve been talking a lot about the sound healing sessions I’ve been attending lately, so for Mother’s Day, I wanted to bring my mom along to share in the experience. We attended a group sound healing massage, which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. It was so relaxing, and I had the best sleep of my life afterward. I’m curious about doing a one-on-one session now, and that might be something I look into to help me realign now that the semester is over.

My little family and I also jumped in the car and took a mini road trip for a long weekend. We rented this treehouse-like cabin, hiked, watched movies, built puzzles, did yoga in the woods, and went fishing. We stopped at The Troll Hole Museum on our way back (Evie loves this place and has been asking about it) and spent some time at the Beech Creek Garden and Nature Preserve.

Then, because I can never have enough nature time in my life, we promptly attended the summer flower show at Phipps, which was–you guessed it!-Alice in Wonderland themed! For those of you who don’t know, Alice is a big part of my life. It’s one of my favorite books, it was the theme of my baby shower and Evie’s nursery, and tea parties are some of my favorite things to do. When we woke up that morning, I put on the movie for us to watch, brewed some tea, and then we had a tea party luncheon at the house before getting all dolled up in our Alice-themed outfits and heading out to the show. It was pure magic and everything I could have hoped for and more.

On the Writing/Teaching Front:

• Because I was so stressed this month, and I have massive math anxiety, I swapped my statistics class out with social psychology, and I’m much, much happier now. I just finished my midterm this week, and I don’t know how I’ve already made it through half a class, but I’ve learned not to question these things. Plus, if my homework is researching the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment, I have nothing to complain about.

• I moderated the virtual panel Women and Werewolves: Exploring Female Rage through Monstrosity with panelists Lindy Ryan, Stephanie Rose, Shannon Kearns, Christa Carmen, and Gwendolyn Kiste. This is part of the StokerCon 2026 programming, and if you’re attending, I hope you’ll check it out. We had a great time and covered many timely and important topics.

• As I wrap up this month and look ahead, I’ll start editing my forthcoming anthology (more information coming soon!), as well as preparing for StokerCon. Below is my schedule:

  • Wednesday, 6/3: Terror from the Vault: Exploring the Horror Studies Collection

  • Friday, 6/5: Presenting at the Ann Radcliffe Conference as part of the “Strangely are Our Souls Constructed: On Frankenstein” group. I’m specifically focusing on the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, directed by James Whale.

  • Friday, 6/5: Author reading alongside Cynthia Pelayo and Francesca Maria.

  • Saturday, 6/6: Moderating The Roots of Dark Poetry panel

  • Saturday, 6/6: Panelist on The Hounds of Hell: Dogs in Horror panel

  • Saturday, 6/6: Bram Stoker Awards Ceremony

This month, I read:

• The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

• Magic Maker: The Enchanted Path to Creativity by Pam Grossman

• Short stories: “The Remorse of Professor Panebianco” by Greye La Spina; “Leonora” and “The Canal” by Everil Worrell; “The Spiders You Swallow in Your Sleep” by Wendy Nikel

• I also wanted to highlight a CNF piece by my friend and colleague Chris Girman titled “What to Do With a Cocksucker Tattoo.” A brilliant, raw, emotional piece. I hope you’ll all give it a read.

On the media front:

• The Dead Don’t Die (2019), Heresy (2024), Send Help (2026), The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

• The Scream Murder: A True Teen Horror Story: When I started watching this, I thought it was about the Gainesville Ripper case that inspired Wes Craven to write Scream; I was somewhat familiar with that case, but was soon horrified to realize this docuseries was about a completely different case, one that focused on the murder of Cassie Stoddart by two of her classmates who were trying to recreate the Scream movie. Jesus Christ.

• A Class Divided: I watched this powerful documentary as part of my Social Psychology course. Here is the description from Frontline PBS: “The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups and gave them a daring lesson in discrimination. This is the story of that lesson, its lasting impact on the children, and its enduring power 30 years later.”

Short Films:

• “Possibly in Michigan,” written by Cecelia Condit (1983)

• “The Smiling Man,” written and directed by A.J. Briones (2015)

• “Salt” written by Jed Shepherd & Rob Savage, directed by Rob Savage (2017)

• “V” written by Ellie Gocher, directed by Jimmy Dean (2019)

• “Tulip,” written and directed by Phoebe Wahl and Andrea Love (2021)

• “Close Your Eyes,” written and directed by Andy Chen (2022)

• “The Changing Room,” directed by Sam Evenson (2022)

• “The Littles” written and directed by Andrew Duplessie (2025)

Podcasts:

• My Victorian Nightmare, “Victorian Death Superstitions & Medical Miracles,” and “Dark Floriography & The Demonic Sallie House”

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

Here are some swaps/adjustments we’ve done so far:

Kitchen/Bedrooms/:

• We got rid of almost all the plastic in our kitchen: glasses, Tupperware, cutting boards, you name it! We have some surviving pieces here and there, but for the most part, we’re all glassware, stainless steel, ceramic, and wood now. I thought this would be annoying, but it’s so aesthetically pleasing and grounding that I find myself enjoying cooking and just being in the kitchen so much more. Everything also feels infinitely cleaner, and after watching The Plastic Detox documentary, I was only confirmed in my decision to start doing this years ago.

• Evie loves using straws, so we switched to compostable ones.

• We have stainless steel or glass water bottles almost exclusively now. We’re also very much on the electrolyte train now, so we have packets of those everywhere to make sure we’re always hydrated.

• No more seed oil sprays.

• Reusable grocery bags. I kept forgetting them for the longest time, but now I just have a bag full of bags in the trunk of my car, and this helps.

Vitamins/Wellness:

• I’m basically a vampire, so I have a prescription amount of vitamin D I have to take, but my family is also taking vitamin B, D, and elderberry supplements daily now, too.

• I’ve fallen in love with Beekeepers Naturals products, especially their throat spray.

• Dennis and I take ginger and turmeric shots at least twice a week. He hates me for this, but he knows it’s good for him, so he begrudgingly agrees, especially since we’re both workaholics and it helps our immune systems.

• I love all things mushrooms, so you know I’m on a steady diet of Lions Mane extract and Mudwtr. The one I’ve been really feeling lately is the coffee alternative with cacao and chai, especially since cacao ceremonies have become a regular part of my life now.

• I regularly open my windows and doors to let fresh air into the house. I’m a big believer in stagnant energy, and this (and washing my doors with peppermint essential oil) is something I frequently do. I also have selenite on most of my doorframes, but that’s more of a witchy thing (ha!).

Cleaning/Beauty Wellness:

• I switched to all cotton, organic tampons.

• I’m slowly in the process of switching out my shampoo and body washes now, too. I’m really enjoying the Giovanni hemp hair product line. The smell is divine!

• I use all bamboo hair brushes and combs now.

• Aluminum-free deodorant is a must.

• Wool dryer balls (with eucalyptus essential oil for added scent).

• For multipurpose sprays, I’m usually using something from Seventh Generation or Mrs. Myers. I like their hand soap, too, and once I get through the back stock of Bath and Body Works stuff I still have, we’ll likely be using those.

• I bought my first pair of Earthing Harmony brand ground sandals for the summer. I’m so excited to check them out, and they should be here next week! Eek!

I decided to write this all out because 1) I feel like it’s fun to share information and see what others are doing, but 2) I like to keep track of my various journeys so I can look back and see how far I’ve come (and take stock of what worked and what didn’t). I feel proud of this so far, and while it doesn’t seem like it would affect my creative life, it certainly has. I’m more focused, I’m sleeping infinitely better, and the brain fog seems to be lifting more and more these days. All in all, I feel more energized to write and make art and just be present in my mind, which is a truly wonderful feeling after years of insomnia, caffeine addiction, and chronic fatigue.

On my summer to-do list:

• Switch to bamboo tooth brushes.

• Switch to a plastic-free dental floss.

• Continue swapping out chemically loaded stuff in our bathroom (soaps, shampoos, plastic bath products, etc.).

• I bought this beautiful handwoven basket the other day, and I’m planning to use it for all my produce now (so I can avoid plastic bags at the supermarket). I’d like to grab some cotton produce bags, too, just in case.

• I’d love to learn how to make my own laundry detergent, so if you have any good resources, please let me know!

• Explore red-light therapy and head back to the salt caves.

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

My doctor scribbled in her notepad
"What do you want to talk about today?"
     I was already crying
     I ate all the cough drops on the table when she wasn't looking
     Her dog was asleep on my foot.

I just left my one-night stand in the parking lot.

Frustration wore on her face like the foundation she forgot to wear
"Are the nightmares back?"
     I spun my ring around my thumb
     I thought about how you said I wore too much jewelry
     I tongued the scar on the inside of my cheek.

The tarantulas are everywhere.

Her right foot tapped against the carpeted floor
"You know it's okay, right? That none of this is your fault?"
     I didn't believe her.
     I felt its legs crawling up my shoulder.
     I watched it watch me. 

I could have stopped it. I could have said no.

Fifty minutes passed like fifty seconds. 
"Same time again next Wednesday?"
     I nodded my head. 
     I picked the spider off my cheek.
     I swallowed the web it had spun around my mouth.

The silk tasted like semen and blood. 

About Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare:

Roll the windows down, wipe the blood off your cheek, and turn the music up. Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare by Stephanie M. Wytovich is a collection spattered with dirt and blood, sage and corpses. The poems inside are confessionals and dirges, their stories the careful banter of ghosts and sinners over tequila at the bar.

These pages hold the lyrics to the beautiful grotesque that Wytovich is known for, but here she writes with a raw honesty that we haven’t seen from her before. This new direction takes readers to hospital rooms and deathbeds, showing the mask that was skinned off her face time and time again. There’s a brutality to her lines that cuts with the same knife she fantasized about, her blood and tears mixed in with stanzas as she talks about suicide and abuse, heartbreak and falling in love.

Written during a time when the road was her home, these poems were sung under the stars, screamed in the woods, and carved into trees. They are broken bottles and cigarette butts, stale coffee and smeared lipstick, each its own warning, a tale of caution.

Listen to them carefully.
They very well might save your life.

What They’re Saying:

“Like a candy apple wrapped in razor wire, Sheet Music will make you bleed with every bite, but you won’t be able to stop….simply outstanding.” —Maria Alexander, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Snowed

“…a mixed tape of atonement played along a roadway of righteous sin, where the crimson line of the horizon is either the dawning of redemption or the pyre of bridges set aflame. One cannot learn to write with such brutal honesty as Stephanie M. Wytovich, it must be earned. And the lessons hurt. This is the raw voice of angst and alienation from one of the most esteemed authors of dark poetry, operating at her peak of ability. Strap in and hold on. It’s a harrowing ride.” —Brian Kirk, Bram Stoker-nominated author of We Are Monsters

“You might think you know what you’re getting into with this collection of haunted road trips, erotic regrets, and dangerous, devious desires, especially if you’ve read Wytovich’s other books of poetry. But this Acoustic Nightmare feels far more personal and profound than her earlier dark works…” —Michael Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning poet and author of Grave Markings

“Wytovich gives the reader an enticing mix of poems written as personal confessionals…Check it out!” —Marge Simon, co-author of Satan’s Sweethearts

“A heart-juddering ride along serpentine nightmares paved with intimate evocations of self-torment, poisoned kisses, and lying tongues.” —Erik Hofstatter, author of Rare Breeds

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

Today, however, I would like to share a piece I created last summer.

Enter: The Wolf Garden

This piece is so special to me because I have a deep, profound relationship with wolves, and I wanted something that portrayed the echo of their spirit. I very carefully and intentionally collected specific items to construct this piece of art, and it’s one that hangs in my office above a haunted antique photograph I thrifted in graduate school (which is definitely its own story for another time). Here, though, I used dried roses from my garden, moss agate chips, and wolf hair that I bought in Salem, MA, which was ethically sourced from a wolf sanctuary.

Background: For the past four years, I’ve been immersed in shadow work. I’ve been communicating closely with plants, practicing meditation, working with tarot, and partaking in rituals when I feel called to. This has led to underworld journeys, animal spirit workshops, and ecstatic dance, and the information I’ve collected on this path has been transformative and so very beautiful. It’s taught me that I can’t solely exist in darkness, that my rage is sacred, and that I’m happiest when I’m living in tune with the natural world.

Throughout it all—the dreams, the epiphanies, and the tears—the wolf has been by my side, a forever guide, their profile both around my neck and tattooed on my body. I’ve written poems, co-edited an all-female werewolf anthology, moderated panels, and sat with medicine women who have invoked their spirit. My hope is to spend some time at a wolf sanctuary this summer as a way to say thank you for the knowledge they’ve passed on to me and to pay tribute to one of the fiercest, most beautiful animals on this planet.

I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I do.

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

Blessed Beltane!

I hope you have a beautiful day planned and/or are recovering swiftly from your Witches’ Night festivities (as I am). I spent last evening in ritual with Pam Grossman and Janaka Stucky, and I plan to do some fire spells today, then attend a cacao ceremony for plant medicine and somatic movement tonight.

April was an interesting time for me. Before I get into my journey, though, I want to say we had such a beautiful Easer with our family. We took Evie on a Cottontail Comet Journey on the Western Maryland Scenic Line, and she (and her cousin) had a blast! We had an egg hunt, went out to breakfast, and then stopped at Rocky Gap National Park on our way home to let the kiddos splash in the lake, birdwatch, and vibe with nature. I really want to do more of those types of activities this summer, so hold me accountable!

On the home front, we finally painted our kitchen and downstairs bathroom. We went with this beautiful sage green color, and it really changed the energy in those spaces. I decorated with lots of plants, wood, and dried flowers, and it’s giving fairy tale and magic in the best of ways. But you guys know me: one step forward, two steps back. So the other morning, we (and our neighbors) were forced out of bed because of this horrifying squealing noise, only to discover that someone had hit our parked car outside the house, dragged it fifteen feet, and–you guessed it!--totaled it. Sigh. Never a dull moment here.

But I don’t want to wallow because April also brought with it some pretty powerful messages. Dennis and I went to hear Gustav Holst’s The Planets performed live, and Evie and I have been collecting pinecones and acorn hats and crafting up a storm. She’s also really into Maleficent lately–can’t imagine why!--and keeps asking me to invite her over for tea, so if anyone has the hookup, let me know.

That said, I’ve been writing a lot about my cacao experiences here lately, and there’s a good reason: the medicine is very much working. I spent three hours after the last ceremony in integration with my friend/healer, and what we discovered was truly wild. I’m on a tea regimen now, in addition to some other spiritual work, but I think the universe has some plans for me that I’ve always intuitively known but haven’t put forth or believed in until now.

Does this mean things are about to get weirder? Absolutely.

On the Writing/Teaching Front:

• My poem “Taurus Rising” is live in Bloodlust Magazine. You can read it in their second issue, ENVY.

• I’ll have a poem coming out with Nightmare Magazine this summer, and I can’t wait for you all to read it. It’s very pink horror…but with fairytales. More soon!

• I spent this month doing some prep for StokerCon, which meant studying for virtual panels, writing panel descriptions, and researching topics I’ll be speaking on at the conference. I’m so wonderfully looking forward to this June, and I can’t wait to catch up with so many people whom I’ve deeply missed.

• I also wrote the pitch/description for my WCSU Summer Residency lecture, which I’ll speak more on in the upcoming months. This is a topic I’ve been working on a lot over the past year, so I’m thrilled to present it in August.

• I submitted to a new-to-me journal this month, which is always exciting. I’m constantly on the lookout for exciting submission calls, and I love it when I can add a new journal or magazine to my submission cycle. I have an Excel spreadsheet that lists date | journal | submission title | response | additional notes, so I can easily look back on my experience with feedback, response times, etc. How do you folks track your submissions?

This month, I read:

• The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit

• The Night Guest by Hildur Knutsdottir (reread)

• The Dead Husband Cookbook by Danielle Valentine

• Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce

• Short Stories: “Great Pan is Here,” and “The Antimacassar” by Greye La Spina; “Some Kind of Blood-Soaked Future” by Carlie St. George; “Starfish” and “A Fine Show on the Abyssal Plain” by Karin Tidbeck; “In Connorville” by Kathleen Jennings; “Stones” by Nnedi Okorafor

On the media front:

• I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025), The Plastic Detox (2026)

• I rewatched Ginger Snaps (2000) to help ground me as I prepare to moderate the Women and Werewolves panel. Any excuse for this film, am I right? This is a good time to recommend the episode that Faculty of Horror did on this and Carrie: listen here.

• Something Very Bad is Going to Happen (2026): I loved this. Watch it. Just trust me.

• Trust Me: The False Prophet (2026): I watched Keep Sweet and Obey when it first came out and was shocked, and so going into this documentary, I felt like I had some idea of what to expect. Nope. This was a hard watch, but as someone deeply interested in cults and cult psychology, I felt it was necessary to watch.

• Search Party, Season 5 (2022): Well, I had to finish it, and I gotta say–there’s no part of me that could have predicted where this was going, ha. I do think the way they ended it was smart–it was a full circle moment that tied things up nicely for Dory’s character–but what a journey.

Podcasts:

• Medium in the Middle, “Reiki 101,” “How to be Aware of Spirit Signs,” “How to Use Reiki to Support Your Mediumship Practice,” “Akashic Records, What?” “Diving Deeper into the Akashic Records,” and “Spirit Guides 101: How to Receive Clear Guidance”

• My Victorian Nightmare, “Old Salem Prison Ghosts & The Murderous Wakemanite Cult,” “Fluffy Black Vampire Ducks,” and “The Curse of Cleopatra’s Needle and Greyfriars Haunted Kirkyard”

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

On the home front, I’m currently addicted to matcha, about to start a spiritual tea regimen, and have been watching the Gingersnaps movies to prepare for a Women and Werewolves panel that I’m moderating this weekend. This feels perfectly timed with all the work I’ve been doing with wolves lately, not to mention Howl’s nomination for the Bram Stoker Award.

Here in The Madhouse, we’ve been plotting, planning, and preparing for a summer of travel, new experiences, and creative explorations. The spring semester is winding down, I’m getting ready to start taking my applied statistics course (ugh), and I recently finished my short story collection (title TBA), so if you know any literary agents looking for weird girl folk horror, let me know!

Outside of that, some things I’m working on:

• I’m hoping to launch my Witch Lit class again, hopefully sometime late summer/early fall. I so deeply love teaching this class, and I think the hardest part for me is selecting material to support writers with in this four-week journey. But honestly, I think that probably means I need to create a follow-up course to it, so that’s something I’m flirting with and hoping to have more information on soon.

• I’m writing a lecture for summer residency surrounding themes of resurrection across genres. This also speaks to an essay I’m in the middle of on feminist themes in the 1935 version of Bride of Frankenstein.

• May brings the beginning of an editorial project for me, something I’m really excited about and looking forward to sharing with the horror community soon. RDSP and I will have more information on this in the upcoming months.

• Once I wrap up the semester, I’m looking forward to reading a handful of poetry collections for submission, review, and author interviews. This is always one of my favorite times of the year because I get to deeply court poetry, which is always what I want to be doing.

• I also like to do a large painting every summer, and I have my plans laid out—yay! Now I just need to order supplies and prep my materials, and then come June, the canvas and I? We’re going to dance.

But it’s not all work and no play—we all know how that plays out! So I’m taking a little mountain/lakeside retreat next month with my family to rest; I have a sound massage scheduled and plan to attend a gem show to pick up some cool pieces for my collection. There’s also a ton of museum exhibitions opening that I want to check out, grass I want to touch, and ballets I want to see. So as usual, if it’s weird, darkly spiritual, and artsy, I’m jumping in with both feet.

Which reminds me! I recently went and listened to Gustav Holst’s The Planets performed live, and it was spectacular. If you haven’t listened to it yet, check it out here.

Until next time, I’ll be processing underworld journeys, drinking rose tea, writing about ancient forest beings, and dancing with cardinals.

Stay strange.

In a chair next to a window, there is a girl,
a shadow, a wilting orchid. When no one
is looking, a petal drops, a rib pokes out,
a flutter of wings hits the glass like bodies
on pavement: the sound expanding, growing,
blossoming like cancer until it stops breathing,
the emptiness a pressed crow, a tarred feather,
all those little feelings marinating inside her
like grinding teeth and blood clots, the crowded
room now filled with nothing but ghosts.

About The Apocalyptic Mannequin:

Doomsday is here, and the earth is suffering with each breath she takes. Whether it’s from the nuclear meltdown, the wrath of the Four Horsemen, a war with technology, or a consequence of our relationship with the planet, humanity is left buried and hiding, our bones exposed, our hearts beating somewhere in our freshly slit throats.

This is a collection that strips away civilization and throws readers into the lives of its survivors. The poems inside are undelivered letters, tear-soaked whispers, and unanswered prayers. They are every worry you’ve had when your electricity went out, and every pit that grew in your stomach watching the news at night. They are tragedy and trauma, but they are also grief and fear, fear of who—or what—lives inside us once everything is taken away.

These pages hold the teeth of monsters against the faded photographs of family and friends, and here, Wytovich is both plague doctor and midwife, both judge and jury, forever searching through severed limbs and exposed wires as she straddles the line evaluating what’s moral versus what’s necessary to survive.

What’s clear though, is that the world is burning and we don’t remember who we are.

So tell me: who will you become when it’s over?

What They’re Saying

“Like a doomsday clock fast-forwarding to its final self-destruction, Wytovich’s poetry will give you whiplash as you flip through page after page. The writing here is ugly yet beautiful. It reads like a disease greedily eating up vital organs. The apocalypse has arrived and it couldn’t be more intoxicating!”
—Max Booth III, author of Carnivorous Lunar Activities

“In this hauntingly sensuous new collection of poetry, you’ll long to savor every apocalyptic nightmare you have ever feared. Blooming in the beauty of destruction and the terror of delight, Stephanie M. Wytovich’s poems remind us that we feel the world better, love the world better, when we recognize the ephemeral nature of everything achingly alive beyond our mannequin minds. Here, we are captive to our deepest velvet snarls, zombie songs, and radioactive wishes, at the mercy of a neon reaping. Reading this collection is like dancing through Doomsday, intoxicated by the destructive, decadent truth of desire in our very mortality. In these poems, you will find revelry in the ruins of everything you once held dear — and you will love it to the last as you watch the world unravel around you.”
—Saba Syed Razvi, author of Heliophobia and In the Crocodile Gardens

“Beautifully bleak, Stephanie M. Wytovich’s latest collection posits scenarios of the apocalypse and the horrors to come thereafter with language like fragrant hooks in your skin. Vivid, each word a weight on your tongue, these poems taste of metal and ash with a hint of spice, smoke. She reminds us the lucky ones die first, and those who remain must face the horrors of a world painted in blisters and fear. Leave it to Wytovich to show us there’s beauty in the end, just beneath all that peeling, irradiated skin.”
—Todd Keisling, author of Ugly Little Things and Devil’s Creek

“Set in a post-apocalyptic world that at times seems all too near, Wytovich’s poems conjure up frighteningly beautiful and uncomfortably prescient imagery. Populated by a cast of unsettling, compelling characters, this collection is one that stuck with me.”
—Claire C. Holland, author of I Am Not Your Final Girl

“A surreal journey through an apocalyptic wasteland, a world that is terrifyingly reminiscent of our own even as the blare of evacuation alarms drowns out the sizzle of acid rain, smiling mannequins bear witness to a hundred thousand deaths, and “the forest floor grows femurs in the light of a skeletal moon.” Stephanie M. Wytovich’s The Apocalyptic Mannequin is as unsettling as it is lovely, as grotesque as it is exquisite.”
—Christa Carmen, author of Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked

Today in The Madhouse, I’m excited to welcome Mikayla Randolph. Mikayla Randolph (she/her) was born and raised in New Hampshire, where she received her bachelor’s in communication. After working in tourism, which allowed her to travel abroad, she set her sights on writing to explore fictional worlds as well. Her favorite stories are ones that pit complicated, vulnerable characters against the darkest parts of themselves and, even with bleak or ambiguous endings, dare the readers to find hope. She lives in California with her husband, two dogs, and an overwhelming pile of books to be read. Not Your Final Girl is her debut novel.

And what a debut it is! You folks know me: if it’s a slasher, I have to be there, so when CLASH asked if I was interested in an advance copy of this book, it was an easy, immediate yes.

Not Your Final Girl is a feminist slasher novel fueled by female rage and haunted by gruesome murders, and in this contemporary reimagining of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, there can only be one Final Girl.

Summary:

Darcy and her high school friends haven’t gathered together in seven years. After a tragic murder on prom night, the group graduated and never looked back. But when the lakeside cabin they spent their summers at is put up for sale, they reunite for one last hurrah.

Darcy hopes it will be an inspiring weekend that will help them all move on from their shared trauma. But Ashley, her biggest tormentor and the group’s manipulative self-appointed leader, is sure to stir up trouble. After a first day filled with jealousy, heartbreak, and unexpected guests, tensions are bursting, and the feud between Darcy and Ashley resurfaces.

The reunion takes a sinister turn when a masked killer slaughters one of their own. Cut off from the outside world with the death toll rising fast, the terrified friends turn on each other and uncover long-buried secrets. Someone is seeking justice for their past betrayals, and with friends like these, no one is safe in this dark-femme slasher for fans of Maeve Fly by CJ Leede and The Indian Lake Trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones.

I hope you’ll enjoy this interview about horror tropes, character subversions, and okay, sure, lots and lots of gore. Be sure to comment below and let me know your favorite slasher!

SMW: Hi Mikayla! Welcome to The Madhouse Review. Since this is your first time joining us here, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what drew you to horror in the first place?

Mikayla: Hi Stephanie! Thank you so much for having me. I’m honored to be here!

I’m a multi-genre writer based out of California. It’s a bit cliché, but I was carrying around notebooks in elementary school filled with stories, so my debut publishing in May is a dream come true!

It’s funny, but horror’s always been a tantalizing fascination for me because I’m such a scaredy-cat. Ever since I was a little kid, the haunting images would keep me up at night, but I’d hear about different scary stories, books, or movies, and I’d want to experience them for myself. It became a bit of a game, seeing what I could handle. As an adult, I married a horror fanatic who deepened my love for it further, and now I’m constantly immersed in the genre.

SMW: What was your writing process/experience like for Not Your Final Girl?

Mikayla: Not Your Final Girl was such a fun, chaotic writing experience! Once I had the idea, I completed a brief outline and wrote a quick first draft as part of National Novel Writing Month. For half the month I was traveling through New Zealand, so I was writing on the plane, waking up early in the hotels, and even clacking away on my laptop as we drove past sheep-spotted rolling, green hills.

SMW: In her 1992 book, Men, Women, and Chain Saws, Carol Clover coined the term “final girl” with the following description: “She is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stager, fall, rise, and scream again. She is abject terror personified. If her friends knew they were about to die only seconds before the event, the Final Girl lives with the knowledge for long minutes or hours. She alone looks death in the face, but she alone also finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued or to kill him herself.” We’ve seen an evolution in this definition since Clover first wrote about it, and I’m curious what first drew you to the trope and made you decide to tackle it in the first place?

Mikayla: I love this question! Ever since I first read Clover’s essay in college, I’ve found it fascinating and wanted to explore the characterization in some capacity. Slashers have always been my favorite horror movies. In part because they seem the easiest to survive. I’m too pampered to do well in the zombie apocalypse, and how does one fight a ghost, anyhow? But Ghostface can be stabbed, Leatherface can be outrun, and even Mike Myers can be decapitated (well, so long as they don’t recover it after). The Final Girl became an aspirational figure, often starting as a smart, observant, rule-follower who’s consistently underestimated. As she transforms, she rises, slathered in gore, and triumphs.

However, as I grew older, it felt as though the goalposts kept moving. Or I outgrew my naïveté. All the ways the pedestal was too high became clear to me, in part thanks to Clover’s landmark essay. The Final Girl wasn’t accessible. She was cloaked in impossible double-standards and cast in a way that intentionally distanced her from entire populations of women. It seemed as though every woman I met had a reason for why they couldn’t see themselves in this role. Too fat. Not white. Not virginal enough. Too loud. There were countless reasons. Between that, the other misogynistic undertones of the characterization as Clover pointed out, and Roe V. Wade being overturned enraging me, I was inspired to write my own version of the infamous Final Girl. Or not, depending on how you interpret the novel.

SMW: The novel follows a group of friends: Darcy, Ashley, Kai, Lettie, Nate, and Spence who are all meeting at Lettie’s family cabin in the woods for one last hurrah before it’s sold. However, two surprise additions, Eliza (brought by Nate and Kai) and Su-ah (Ashley’s girlfriend) join the party, too. This throws a wrench in the group dynamic as Su-ah is a complete outsider, and Eliza represents a tie to a shameful secret the group shares. Here we have a lot of horror tropes with characterization: the athlete, the lovers, the mean girl, the innocent, etc. We’re getting Evil Dead vibes, I Know What You Did Last Summer feelings. Who was your favorite voice to write it, and (without spoilers!) how did you work to subject the character tropes commonly associated with slashers?

Mikayla: As soon as I knew I was going to write this, I started listing the slasher tropes to fill my cast, craft the setting, and establish plot points. For each one, I also noted ways I’d love to see the tropes inverted, or playful ways they could be woven together. Once I was writing the different POVs, it was so much fun! It allowed me to jump between different styles while deepening the nuances of the character. It’s really hard to choose a favorite voice—I love them all! Even if some are meant to be unlikeable—but if I had to choose, I’d say Ashley. The way she thinks is so different from how I do that it made it a real challenge and spurred a lot of self-reflection. For example, she’s such a confident leader that she’d never weaken her statements with words like “just” or “maybe,” unless it was for a strategic reason. Meanwhile, that’s a horrible trait I’ve adapted after a lifetime of being taught to do so in order to be more “likeable” and less “bossy.” It’s been freeing to catch that in my day-to-day language and autocorrect thanks to her influence.

SMW: Something that I appreciate about this book is its exploration of female rage. In Carrie Sessarego’s essay “Validating Rage: Women in Horror” via Clarkesworld Magazine, she writes: “Fighting back, using violence, being angry—these are virtues in horror. When Rosemary spits at her husband, when Nancy sets Freddy Krueger on fire, and when Grace punches the child who just shot her, the audience rejoices, even if the heroine’s victory is only partial or temporary. What did you learn about the genre, and possibly about yourself, while writing about this topic?

Mikayla: That’s a great article, and I love that horror provides this validation for female rage. We have a lot to be rage against! When I finished reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles, my first thought was that the events could be moved to modern times without much adjustment, and that made me furious. It’s revolting that roughly 130 years after that book was published, women are still suffering such mistreatment and judgment. I poured my rage into Not Your Final Girl and discovered setting it free felt wonderful. It was cathartic and helped me further question how I may have been diminishing myself in order to obey a patriarchal system. This was especially true for writing from points of view that were less like my own lived experience. It was rewarding and challenging to explore those POVs, seeing what I may have overlooked in my day-to-day life, and I hope that’s led me to be a better ally.

SMW: As a slasher fan, something I loved about your book were all the Easter eggs thrown in for genre fans. We get some Friday the 13^th references, some Nightmare on Elm Street allusions, and most importantly, we see a beautiful nod to Ghostface from Scream. So, in the spirit of all things murderous and masked, I have to ask…What’s your favorite scary movie?

Mikayla: Thank you, but also, oh no, maybe I shouldn’t say. I know it’s a betrayal of my beloved slashers, but my favorite scary movie is The Thing. It’s perfect! I could rewatch it endlessly. The practical effects are amazing, the psychological dread is palpable, and the ambiguous ending is haunting. The blood test scene is still one of the tensest scenes of all time.

Slasher specific, Nightmare on Elm Street is my favorite. Oddly, I saw New Nightmare first, loved it, and went back to the original, which blew me away. It’s so creative, fun, and eerie. Tina’s hallway scene still spooks me. Someday that’ll be my Halloween costume, I swear.

SMW: What takeaway do you hope your readers leave your book with?

Mikayla: While I want readers to have fun, I also hope they walk away wanting to be kinder to one another. That may be odd for a slasher, but especially now it feels we are so easily led to judge others harshly when we don’t know what they’re experiencing. I believe leading with empathy is the way forward.

SMW: What is one piece of advice you have for aspiring horror authors?

Mikayla: It’s probably the most common advice, but don’t give up. It’s said so often because it’s true! This book did not have an easy querying process, and I have a hundred rejections to prove it. I’ve shelved other books that I outgrew or that didn’t get offers, so I know how excruciating it can be. With Not Your Final Girl, the difference was that I kept going. I believed in this unusual, confrontational novel, so I kept searching for another opportunity. When agents said no, they wanted something more traditional, I sought publishers that preferred subversive literature or took big swings. It’s tempting to walk away, but just like a Final Girl, you’ve gotta keep fighting.

SMW: What authors are you currently reading? Are there any books coming out this year that you’re especially looking forward to?

Mikayla: Right now, I’m currently reading On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Schofield, which is fantastic. I’m a big fan of CJ Leede and Rachel Harrison, both of whom have new books this year which I’m really looking forward to reading. CLASH is also releasing Meat Bees by Dane Erbach this summer, and I can’t wait to read that!

SMW: What’s next for your readers?

Mikayla: I recently finished my next novel, Those Witches Burn. I like to think of it as a witchy X-men by way of Rachel Harrison and with a hint of noir. I’m querying it now, so fingers crossed on forthcoming news.

Book Blurbs:

“Mikayla Randolph’s twisty slasher is a wonderfully gritty take on the Final Girl trope. Packed with horror, camp, and friendships gone wrong, this novel offers an engaging story that will have readers burning through the pages in suspense. Packed full of mystery and buried secrets, Randolph’s cast of characters will be sure to leave a bloody mark.” —Sara Tantlinger, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil’s Dreamland

“Not Your Final Girl sneaks up on you and throttles you from behind. Super twisty, super clever, super fun. A stellar debut.” —Sam Rebelein, Bram Stoker-nominated author of Galloway’s Gospel

“There’s no end to a woman’s rage, and Randolph stokes that fire beautifully. A fearsome debut!” —Stephanie M. Wytovich, Bram Stoker award-winning author of Brothel and On the Subject of Blackberries

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

April means we’re pushing toward the end of the semester, and that I’m starting to plan summer projects and adventures (which is always fun). That said, March was good to me in terms of filling my cup, celebrating another trip around the sun, and bringing some new routines and practices into my life.

I did a lot of self-care to ease into 37. I went to an Animal Spirit workshop, where we focused on connecting with the wolf, honoring the moon, and accepting pack energy and all our beautiful bits of feral energy. I kept up my yoga practice, got a glorious massage, and have epically continued my meditation routine–which I even did in a salt cave one day! I’ve also been using this dream elixir, and it’s been sending me on some weird journeys; it already has my seal of approval.

Fun fact! I did some research on the number 37 because I was curious to gain insight into what the year ahead might hold for me. Interestingly enough, it’s a number of creative abundance and spiritual enlightenment, which is exactly how I’ve been feeling as of late. I just finished a big writing project. I’ve been working on inner peace and opening my third eye for well over a year now, and every time I pull a card, it’s about manifestation or creating, usually based on some ancient wisdom.

I spent some time with friends talking about literature, life, and everything in between. I’ve been feeling really grateful for my little community of people lately, especially because we can do things like have three-hour coffee dates and never have a lull in conversation, or shop for plants together and just be in awe of nature in complete silence. Dennis and I also went out for tapas and cocktails the other night, and I can’t even remember the last time we did that–it was light and fun and just nice to be out and about. It’s a good reminder for me that I don’t have to remain hidden away in my office all the time. This little recluse can and should fly even now and again.

Speaking of–it’s been slowly getting nicer outside, so we’ve already been on two picnics this year, and Evie is loving it. It’s always so fun to just pack the basket and head to the park, and it’s something I’m looking forward to doing more this year with her. I’m even hoping for some plen air painting dates (but I might be getting ahead of myself, ha). Either way, it’s fun looking at all the different quests I have planned for her this summer–I know she’s going to have a blast, and even though the Cookies and Cocoa experience at The Inn on Negley this month had some hiccups, I love that as a four-year-old, she’s getting exposed to new and exciting things, even if we do have to always have a change or two of clothes on us (and apologies at the ready for spills).

On the Writing/Teaching Front:

• I finished the last story I was working on for my short story collection. It feels wild to have this finished, but I’m looking forward to whatever comes next. Onward!

• I have been nominated for the Point Park University Distinguished Teaching Award. This is a huge honor, and even more wonderful is that it’s my second nomination. I feel emotional and incredibly thankful for my students. I love being a teacher.

• My poem “The Keening” will be included in Night Lights, a new horror anthology from editor Lindy Ryan. This is a dream, as the book was marketed as “Goosebumps for adults” and as a love letter to the horror that raised us.

• My poem “Taurus Rising” has been accepted to Bloodlust Magazine. More soon!

• I wrapped up edits on a project for a client. I won’t be taking much freelance work over the next few months, as I’ve just picked up another 8-week course to teach. I’ll update as my schedule evolves over the next few months.

This month, I read:

• The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling

• Not Your Final Girl by Mikayla Randolph

• Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

• The Man Who Couldn’t Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought by David Adam

• Short Stories: “Dregs” by R. Diego Martinez; “Rest Stop” by Pedro Iniguez; “The Doll Problem” by Angela Liu; “Twelve Facts About the Dermestid Beetle” by Marisca Pichette; “The Black Stone Statue,” “The Cat-Woman,” “The House of Shadows,” “Mommy,” and “The Web of Silence” by Mary Elizabeth Counselman; “The Curse of a Song” by Eli Colter, “The Deadly Theory” by Greye La Spina

On the media front:

• One Piece, Season 2 (2026): This show has me in a weird chokehold. There are some moments when I dislike it (I really hated Mr. 5), and others when I’m sobbing and amazed by its storytelling (hi, Chopper!). I’m looking forward to season 3.

• Search Party, Season 1-4 (2016-2021): There are five seasons in this show, and while the episodes are short, I’m feeling a little burnt out. Seasons 1-2 were strong, and I was deeply invested; Season 3 started to make a weird departure, but I was still kind of here for it, and then Season 4 just went in a totally different direction, and while I still remain attached to the characters, I think I need a break before finishing the show. All in all, I like it, and I recommend it, but maybe don’t binge it as I did/have been doing.

• Bodkin (2024): I was still in the mood for a detective show, and since it was labeled as a comedy, too, I decided to give it a go. I don’t know that comedy played a heavy role in this show, but I did enjoy it, even if the ending didn’t necessarily land for me.

• The Beauty (2026): They should be ashamed of how they ended this. What a joke.

Podcasts:

• Weird History, “The Crazy Science of Skull Bumps,” “The Venice Courtesan Who Slept with Kings, Wrote Erotic Poetry, and Beat the Inquisition”

• My Victorian Nightmare, “The Horrific Thames Torso Murders,” “Trunk Murders and New England Vampires

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

I love medical history. It’s one of my favorite topics to geek out over, especially if we’re talking about the Victorian era. In fact, one of the reasons I ended up on track for a psychology degree was because I just kept taking classes to learn more about science, philosophy, and how it all intersects with the occult, history, and gender politics. Some of my favorite reads have been The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, and Gory Details: Adventures from the Dark Side of Science by Erika Engelhaupt (to name a few).

This is all to say that a few years ago, I put a book on my TBR titled Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz. I didn’t know much about it other than that it was about a woman who wanted to become a surgeon in 1817 Edinburgh, and to do that, she needed to pair up with a resurrection man. Outside of that, the book's cover was striking, featuring a girl in a beautiful red dress fanned out to resemble an anatomical heart.

Stephanie-coded? I think so.

What I liked most about the novel was not the grotesque nature of the surgical theatres or the layout of skills one needed to rob a grave—although, those were all wonderfully done—but rather the sense of empowerment I got from the main character, Hazel Sinnet, as she bravely challenged societal norms and gender roles by following her scientific curiosity and passion for healing.

All in all, Hazel was my kind of woman. She wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, whether that required digging up bodies herself, treating the Roman Fever, or sneaking into medical lectures under a pseudonym, dressed in her dead brother’s clothes. I appreciated that she didn’t shy away from hard work or even give up when things took a wrong turn, and while the relationship with her mother (and family, in general), broke my heart, it also wasn’t surprising considering the time period; Hazel was expected to be a show piece, something that twirled and laughed and bore children while reading romance novels and drinking tea in their spare time.

Jack Currer, though, is from a different walk of life, and similar to Hazel, he isn’t afraid to get dirt under his nails. The difference, though, is that for him, bodies mean survival. He meets Hazel one night while she’s trying to sneak into the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, and the two of them form a quick friendship, which eventually leads to a budding romance. I love that Schwartz uses the title to speak to both a love of anatomy and a love that comes from loving anatomy. And while I wouldn’t classify this book as a romance novel, per se, it did have one of the most romantic lines I’ve heard in quite some time:

“Someone should tell you you’re beautiful every time the sun comes up. Someone should tell you you’re beautiful on Wednesdays. And at teatime. Someone should tell you you’re beautiful on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve and the evening before Christmas Eve, and on Easter. He should tell you on Guy Fawkes Night and on New Year’s, and on the eighth of August, just because.”

Swoon.

If you like your historical fiction with some blood and missing eyes, or your young adult fiction with strong female characters who fight for their dreams—and their love—this is the book for you. Myself? I’m looking forward to its sequel: Immortality: A Love Story.

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

Judgement
by Stephanie M. Wytovich

I walked through 
the  Underworld
buried treasures
beneath my tongue, 
the black waters 
of memory
a shallow grave—
	
        I bathe in my shadow,
	split the chariot in half.

Can you slit my throat 
to hear the dirge
of spirit? Awaken 
the wheel, this sacred
quiet, stillness—
	
        I stew in the act of now,
	pull swords from my eyes.

Death is a siren
bubbling in my veins,
each tooth ripped out,
the bloodied mouth
of closed gates crying—
	
        my womb is barren
	but the monster still breathes.

Today in The Madhouse, I'm thrilled to have Jessica McHugh here to chat about her poetry collection The Quiet Ways I Destroy You. However, before we jump into that, it would be remiss of me not to mention her other collections, Strange Nests and A Complex Accident of Life, both of which are absolutely inspiring and grotesquely wonderful. Do yourself a favor and pick them up when you get a chance, and if you're interested in getting a black-out poem commissioned, too, you read more about how to do that here.

SMW: Hi Jessica! Welcome to The Madhouse. I have to tell you. It’s been so wonderful watching you blossom as a poet, and I was over-the-moon excited when you reached out to me about your upcoming collection The Quiet Ways I Destroy You. Can you talk a little bit about your draw to black-out poetry and how/why it’s become your preferred method?

JM: That’s such a huge compliment coming from you, Stephanie. You’ve been a major inspiration to me as I’ve evolved as a poet, so thank you for that, and for having me back in The Madhouse. It definitely feels like coming home again.

I’ve been a writer all my life—poetry, short stories, I even started writing novels in 4^th grade—but I’ve always craved visual art too. When I was a kid, I played around with watercolors, charcoal, all kinds of weird sketches, but my visual art abruptly stopped in middle school due to bullying from my brother & his friends. I don’t know why they ridiculed me over my paintings and not my stories—less effort for them, I guess—I’m just grateful they didn’t steal more creativity from me.

It wasn’t something I thought a lot about over the years. I always said “I can’t draw” in discussions about visual art rather than get into the truth, so eventually I came to believe it. I came to believe a lot of incorrect things about myself, it seems. Just a few months before I discovered how much I enjoyed making blackout poetry, I seriously contemplated stepping away from writing as a career. I just wasn’t having fun anymore. It‘s wild. I had no idea what was right around the corner, or how deeply it would nourish my artistic soul.

Blackout poetry satisfies both the writer and visual artist in me, allowing me to communicate through words, color, erasure, clutter, illustration, and sculpture. As someone whose encounters difficulty expressing my feelings verbally, this artform accesses places of my psyche that require more glitter than words to express.

It also has a high celebrado payoff. I feel accomplished when I find a poem. I feel accomplished in a new way when I complete the artwork. Another sense of accomplishment comes if it’s published, and yet another if I sell the piece. In that celebrado sense, for me, it beats novel writing to a pulp.

SMW: This collection used Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women as its primary resource. What is your connection to the novel? And what about it called to you at this point in your life?

JM: I think Little Women is the caul in which most female-identifying humans are formed...which is an idea I explore further in this collection. From the book to the musical to the many film adaptations, it has always been a part of my life. The 90s score basically plays in my head non-stop. In high school, I got an A+ performing a mixed-piece monologue during which I transformed from Tatania at the height of rage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream into Beth March during her legendary death knell. At one time or another, I have been Marmee, the four March sisters, Hannah, Sally Gardiner, and more. But I feel like I could’ve only seen it now, as a 40-year-old bisexual woman whose body has been mandated, whose friends and family suffer under the bigoted policies of cowardly, ungodly men and their parasitic followers. Now I see the power of this story, and how it teaches us to recognize the power in our individuality as well as the shared spectrum of womanhood.

SMW: I’d love to hear a bit more about your artistic process with the collection and with the form in general. How do you go about selecting colors, creating the art, staging the poems? Is it spontaneous? Which comes first—the poem or the art?

JM: The poem always comes first. So much of the words’ orientation on the page influences the shape of the artwork, so it’s something I have to be very sure about before I start coloring. However, it’s not exactly rare for me to have all my colors ready and then change the entire poem in the last seconds. When I’m making a collection, I tend to write all of the poems before I add a drop of color so I have a more complete picture of what I want the artwork to communicate, so there’s sometimes months between writing and coloring. ForThe Quiet Ways I Destroy You, it was almost a year. And I ended up cutting 40+ poems from that group before the blackout process began.

Sometimes I get ideas about colors and shapes while I’m making the poem or looking over it months later, but I don’t usually get a full sense of the piece’s personality until I’m ready to black it out. It might look like I'm just staring at a piece of paper like an idiot when I’m figuring out the artwork, but I’m essentially evaluating all the tiny and not-so-tiny ways the poetry translates to colors, shapes, illustrations, and sculpture. And as annoying as this might sound, I see it, kind of like one of those Magic Eye illusions, but the hidden images are associated with the words already floating around in my mind. I do like to play with opposing imagery and subverting expectations when it comes to the interpretation of the words, though.

SMW: I noticed a lot of blood imagery throughout with allusions to menstruation via phrases and words like “hammered strawberries,” “turning red,” seeds, etc. Personally, I love that we’re out in the world talking about our periods now and that the stigma attached to them is slowly being removed and challenged (even if pink tax still exists! *eye twitch*). When it comes to horror though, how does menstruation factor in with topics such as body horror, the monstrous feminine, witchcraft, female rage, etc.

JM: While not every woman menstruates, I think we’re all attuned to a certain feeling that we lose a lot of blood in the process of becoming women. Whether it’s coming to terms with that monthly agony and the subsequent loss of it at a certain age, whether it’s all the ways we can birth children or lose children, the surgeries we require for our outsides to match our insides, the surgeries to prevent our bodies from killing us in hundreds of ways.

Menstruation itself is quite fascinating to me, though. I learned about it fairly early from my mom, who was a nurse, so I was really excited, then quite impatient, for it to happen. It seemed like I was going to experience something magical, though I had no evidence of magic affecting my friends who got it before me. Of course, I regretted that excitement once the reality of cramps and shits, mood swings and ruined clothes, finally set in, and I loathed it for years. When I started using a Diva Cup, some of that magical feeling came back. I’d always seen my period once it was soaked into something, which I quickly disposed of, but it was different in the cup. There was so much of it, crimson so dark it was almost black. It pours like oil on the first days, but its consistency and color changes as the days pass, and you really get to see how beautiful and disgusting it really is. AND MAGICAL. The biology of it, the extraordinarily natural blessing and curse of it...menstruation basically encompasses all horror genres. You want body horror—hey I've A1 steak sauce is oozing out of me by day 4, honey, come and get it. You want a haunted house story—my walls are literally bleeding over here. And you can get into all kinds of fun areas of witchcraft and cults with menstruation viewed through a lens of sacrificial blood. It’s a fun topic to splash around in.

SMW: Your poem “The Happy Times, Finished” reads: “Go to bed./ Try to sleep in spite of the great trouble.” I read that and my heart dropped in my chest. You know I love how much your work challenges and confronts the patriarchy, and my head immediately went to Roe V. Wade being overturned here…in addition to, well, a million other horrible things happening in the world right now. As we both know, horror has always been political, but I want to know how you specifically use it as a platform for activism, particularly with your poetry.

JM: I am both overjoyed and devastated that you recognized the inspiration behind this piece. It was created on the day Roe v Wade was overturned, in direct response to it. As Marmee says, “I am angry nearly every day of my life,” and though she hopes not to feel that anger, I embrace my own, just as I embrace my glee and my sexuality and my silly gooseness.

I feel powerless in a lot of ways that terrify me, but art makes me feel like I have control. It allows me to express the things I’m both scared to say and that I feel will fall on deaf ears no matter how loud I yell. It does that on an intimate level, but it’s bigger than that as well.

That’s one of the main reasons the sections in this collection are divided in 4 parts. The poems in the 1st part are mostly an I / You POV to show that we start this journey alone. The 2nd part is She / Her / They to illustrate how we watch and meet other women who inspire us. The 3rd section is in We / They POV and encourages embracing the vast spectrum of womanhood, joining together, and becoming something more complicated, something to be feared. Which is how we wind up back in the 1st person POV in the last part, with little hints of they, she, and we, because even though we have united, we are still individuals in the complex root system of womanhood.

SMW: With a story like Little Women, I appreciated how you challenged notions of femininity, womanhood, sisterhood and gender. Can you talk a little bit about how you handled this? Was it conscious or subconscious in its fluidity and conception?

JM: I approached the collection knowing I’d be embracing different kinds of femininity as it pertained to the March women, but it wasn’t until I was pretty deep into it that I realized the overarching story was much bigger than expected. I already had poems written for Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, but I started to add as many other female characters from Little Women as possible. Speaking from so many different points of view allowed me to explore all these little rooms in myself, where I composed from places of rage, love, fear, and fulfillment, sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously. At one time during the writing, I was under the impression that Marmee / Mother was the mycorrhizal fungi that connects us—and she is still a strong unifier in the collection—but after I hit the 100^th poem, I realized the story of Little Women itself is what seeps into our roots and joins us, no matter what kind of woman we are...or will be...and that kind of support from our fellow sisters is what allows us to feel free.

SMW: To build on the above, I loved seeing a focus on awakening throughout: an awakening to self, to sexuality, to rage. I attended the Queer Canon panel at StokerCon ’23 recently and they talked a lot about whether queer joy as a place in horror. How do you think your collection speaks to and handles that?

JM: To quote Eric LaRocca during that Stokercon panel, “THERE IS NO ROOM FOR JOY.” I kid, of course. To be frank, as a bisexual woman in a straight relationship, I often feel like I’m not queer enough, or that I shouldn’t be allowed to label my work as queer even though it is unquestionably so. In this collection, I threw those fears aside and embraced everything that I am without apology. Honestly, I’m not sure there’s a single queer poem in this collection that doesn’t exude joy...and maybe a little vengeance. As far as little rooms in myself go, that was a wonderfully cathartic one, and I hope these poems help others feel the same.

SMW: Something I’ve always admired about how you work is that you’re always finding time to write. You write at your job, on your off time, at conventions. It’s such a bright light to see someone love what they do so much and it’s inspiring to writers, no matter where they’re at in the career. How do you keep that love affair—or perhaps marriage would be a better word here—with and to writing so fresh and passionate and exciting?

JM: There are ups and downs, to be sure. As I said before, I considered stepping away from my writing career in 2018. But writing itself...I don’t think I could ever step far away enough; it would always be nipping at my heels. I think the enduring passion of this inky marriage (I agree, it does feel like that) comes from curiosity. I keep wanting to find out what other stories and characters and sticky icky things lurk in my psyche and figuring that out brings me an immense feeling of comfort and joy. As for the frequency of my work, I honestly don’t know what to do with my hands otherwise. Ally Wilkes said much the same at Stokercon when I noticed her knitting socks at the bar. I write to occupy my hands, to explore my mind, to fill the empty spaces, to calm me in awkward situations, to distract me from grief, to perk me up when I’m feeling tired. It is the cure-all for nearly every bummer in my life, and though I’m sure we’ll have our skirmishes until the end, I have no doubt our obsessive love will get us through.

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

The Murder Next Door: A Graphic Memoir by Hugh D’Andrade

This was a fascinating and harrowing read about how childhood trauma follows us into adulthood and manifests in different ways: socially, emotionally, and psychologically. Half therapy session, half anxiety attack, this graphic novel explores what happens when, at 10 years old, you find your next-door neighbor crying over his mother, who had just been murdered inside their house. My heart broke at how D’Andrade explored his PTSD through this memory of violence, all while discussing how it affected his views on masculinity. A tough read, but an important one. Especially if you’re studying to be a therapist.

Maids by Katie Skelly

Have you heard of the Papin Sisters? I hadn’t, but I’m well aware of them now! This was a wild read about two French sisters who were live-in maids for the Lancelin family. Long story short, they murdered both the mother and the daughter of the house… and in quite a gruesome fashion. I’m always interested in true crime stories that have a religious undertone/influence to them, and while the graphic novel only briefly referenced it, I’m intrigued enough to want to research their early life some more, especially because I know at one point they were both in the Bon Pasteur Catholic Orphanage at one point (which was known for it’s strict and austere punishments). There’s a French film titled Murderous Maids (2000) about the case that I’ve added to my watch list. If you’ve seen it, let me know what you think!

Talking to Strangers: A Memoir of My Escape From a Cult by Marianne Boucher

I’m fascinated by cults, so this was an auto-read for me once I found it. It wasn’t until watching How to Become a Cult Leader on Netflix a while back that I was introduced to the Unification Church, a religious group founded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Boucher talks about her experience of being found by two members and slowly being indoctrinated into their group. All the hallmarks were there: love bombing, a sense of belonging, followed by isolation and removal from support systems (family and friends). It’s one of those things that seems to happen slowly and then all at once, and for Boucher, that’s exactly how it went. Her memoir specifically included how Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer helped Boucher’s family remove her from the cult, and I’ve made a note to look into her research and writings a bit more because her work saved so many people. You can read more about her here.

February. Oof.

I had big plans, but then I got this weird bronchial strain that took me out, and then possibly turned into laryngitis? All I know is that I sound like I’ve been smoking two packs a day for 50 years. But maybe that was my last shedding before the fire horse picks me up? Or maybe I’m just in my sea witch era.

Either way, I mostly stayed away from the yoga studio this month (and my body feels it). I did manage to start up a solid meditation routine, though, and I’m in the flow of it and enjoying the results. I usually do it first thing when I wake up, but I’ve also started doing it before bed, and I’ve definitely noticed a shift in my mental clarity. If you’re interested in reading more about this and how it can help your creative practice, David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity is a great read, and I highly recommend it.

Even though I was mostly forced into hibernating this month, I did manage to sneak in two coffee dates before Ursula took my voice. I also whisked Evie away to the Caffeniated Cat Cafe, and she had a blast. She so desperately wants a kitten, but we’re firmly a dog house, so this is the next best thing. She gets to play and love on some foster babies, and I get to watch her have fun, grab a coffee, and support a local business.

On the Writing/Teaching Front:

• A roaring CONGRATULATIONS from Lindy Ryan and me to all the absolutely fabulous contributors: HOWL is an official Bram Stoker Award Nominee! We could not be more proud of this fierce, feral anthology from women in horror!

• I received my contributor copies of The McNeese Review today. My poem “Cockroach” is included inside.

• I finishedthe coursework for my Criminal Minds class. This was an intense term. I wrote papers about insanity, postpartum psychosis, and profiling psychopathy, and tried to solve the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum heist from 1990. My brain got a workout, I learned a bunch, but now I’m safely retreating into some light reading for a while to recover.

• I’m finishing work on a freelance editing project, and then diving into some manuscripts for review. My desk is filled with potential, and I’m excited to work through it. More soon!

This month, I read:

• Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher

• Love Letters to a Serial Killer by Tasha Coryell

• Uncanny Valley Girls: Essays on Horror, Survival, and Love by Zefyr Lisowki

• The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist’s Personal Journey Into the Dark Side of the Brain by James H. Fallon

• Short Stories: “St. Dymphna’s School for Borderland Girls” by Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece; “The Nölmyna” by David Erik Nelson; “Autogas Ferryman” by Champ Wongsatayanont; “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoaghim; and “Observations About Eggs from the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa” by Carmen Maria Machado.

On the media front:

• Honey Don’t! (2025), Together (2025), Borderline (2025), My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

• The Beauty (2026): All you need to know about this is that I’m hate-watching it.

• Dept Q (2025): I so wonderfully love a fictional angsty cop, especially if he’s rarely liked but has a big heart when it matters. Insert Matthew Goode as Detective Carl Morck. While the mystery here was intriguing and suspenseful, what sold this series for me was the characterization. I was truly invested in so many threads and arcs here that I’m absolutely locked in for future seasons.

• This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist (2021): So I did a project on this for my coursework this term, and let me just tell you–I fell down the rabbit hole with this one. From podcasts to documentaries to books…I’m in deep. What an absolute wild ride! If you’re interested in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum case and haven’t watched this yet, I highly, highly recommend it.

• His and Hers (2025): A quick watch and a great show if you’re looking for something psychological or suspenseful. I’m also happy to report that I was able to successfully guess both twists, which is a goddamned miracle because I am notoriously wrong about everything in these shows, so I’m taking a victory lap on this one.

• Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model (2026): I’m angry–for lots of reasons. I used to watch this show ALL THE TIME as a kid, and I was angry then, too. Tyra needs to take more accountability. Actionable accountability. And this documentary needed, like, another 3 episodes (minimum) to even begin to do these girls justice.

Podcasts:

• The Witch Wave, “Loretta Ledesma, The Death Witch,” “Ronald Hutton, Professor of Paganism and Witchcraft”

• My Victorian Nightmare, “The Mysterious Exhumation of Elizabeth Siddal,” “Madam Tussaud’s Macabre Origin Story”

• True Crime Creepers, “The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist–Part 2,” and “The Yates Family Murders”

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman-in-residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.

At the Altar of Death and Goddess
by Stephanie M. Wytovich

Place a coffin nail on my tongue, 
lick the honey from my eyes. You anoint
my feet, beg to swallow the spiders 
hanging from my breasts—
 
I am your offering, your mourning 
bouquet, my stomach filled with the coins 
of your ancestors, my flesh payment,
the stigmata of your nightmares,
all those bleeding holes that drip, drop, draw
the stares of saints and succubi—

They smell the cologne of your hate, 
worship at the altar of my corpse, their knees
bruised, that black-blue		summoning 
the trumpets, alerting the hounds—

Take a bite of my throat, pray
for silence: 

the black crow is screaming, 
the waters rising up.

If you enjoy and appreciate my work here in The Madhouse, you can support my Substack by subscribing, or you can “buy a coffee” (or two!) for our madwoman in residence: me! As always, I appreciate your time and support. Stay strange.