Monthly Archives

March 2014

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Mining Folklore

Mining doesn't have the “strike it rich” opportunities these days, but the folklore and legends are still a part of stories.  Many of the tales in America were brought over from Cornish and German miners who came to America to work in the silver, coal, and gold mines around the country. So let’s do some exploring!   Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine is a supposedly rich gold mine either in the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix, Arizona, or somewhere in Mexico. The legend goes that an immigrant named Jacob Waltz found the mine and then took his secret[...]

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Bad Writing as Inspiration: Happy Birthday to Me!

It’s my birthday today! So, because I love you all very much, I sat down and watched the seriously terrible 1981 slasher film Happy Birthday To Me. It’s bad. Really bad. And not even in that “so bad it’s good way”. Nope, just bad. But the film did leave me thinking about what we can learn from bad writing. By studying the places the script for Happy Birthday to Me went so horribly off the rails, what lessons can we apply to our own stories, particularly within gory tales of suspense and murder? (This review/analysis is going to be full of spoilers, but[...]

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Happy Birthday Cait!

Today is a very important day. Why? Because today, The Midnight Society is celebrating a birthday! Happy Birthday Cait Stuff! All of us at The Midnight Society hope that you have an amazing day. We hope there's cake. And dancing And guests... lots of them. Invited or not. And that you have a deadly good time! Happy Birthday Cait! With love and tombstones,[...]

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Victorian Valhallas: Cemetery Picnics

The Victorians had a very peculiar tradition of picnicking in cemeteries. After the death of Queen Victoria’s hubby in 1861, the entire country donned their mourning attire. For forty years. (To be fair, Victoria only asked her court for three years of goth gear. Moved by her dedication to Prince Albert, they persisted in continuing the tradition until the queen’s death, at which point the custom was put to rest, and so began the Edwardian period in Britain.) I’d like to say the tendency to accessorize all in black, cover the household mirrors with black[...]

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Medusa Lives On… through this terrifying lake

A lake filled with water so toxic that it can turn whatever touches it to stone? Sounds like something straight out of a fictional horror story—or a Medusa myth—but guess what, IT’S NOT! At least not according to this article at Smithsonian.com. Lake Natron, located in Tanzania, in east Africa, is comprised of an odd combination of salt, sodium carbonate decahydrate (soda ash), and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) which makes it extremely alkaline. This means it contains water with ph levels of 10.5 or even higher (um, excuse me, my nerdy is showing). Let[...]

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You’re a Weird One Playlist

I have a fun post for you today--a playlist! When most people want to listen to some songs that speak of ghosts or werewolves or dead folk, they turn to movie soundtracks. This is a great place to look, but I just knew there was more out there that I'd heard but wasn't putting together, and so, I built this playlist You'll find the occasional song from a movie here--in fact, Jump in the Line is really only included because of that scene in Beetlejuice--and a lot more that are just...quirky. Quirky and undead. The perfect playlist. A playlist for the strange and un[...]

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The Horror in Nature’s Landscape–Trees

There's just something about a tree. During the day, the tree brings us hope and beauty. They're perfect to lay beneath and snooze on a hot, sunny day. Even lovers take care to immortalize their love by carving into the bark of a tree. But then darkness comes. After dark, the noises made by the rustling of the leaves is enough to scare anyone out of their running shoes, let alone the way their shadows play in the moonlight. Just thinking about talking a midnight walk, leaves me scared to be alone. So many things can hide in and around trees. Plus, if you aren't[...]

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YA Horror Novels: Part One

If there's one thing most people can agree on about YA & NA literature, is that horror is not a largely represented category. So I wanted to make the first of many lists showing young adult and new adult horror. There are actually several awesome lists of YA horror on Goodreads, and you can find them here: Popular YA Horror, Scariest YA Book, and Young Adult Horror. Today I will focus on young adult horror literature and then next time, we'll look at some new adult horror. Behold the list in all it's horrific glory! Young Adult Horror Anna Dressed in Blood[...]

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Ghostly Graphic Novels

How much can we really know about the thoughts and motivations that go through another person’s head? Particularly if one of the individuals in question is already dead? These are the questions posed by two graphic novel ghost stories: Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks and Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol. Maggie has always been haunted. But since her mother left, Maggie’s ghostly friend has been hanging around even more than usual. The Reaper’s Widow doesn’t talk, just stares at Maggie with big haunted eyes. Which leaves Maggie wondering—what does th[...]

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You’re Not Afraid of the Dark.

All those silent, watchful things that we grew up with from the time we were children — the stories shared around campfires, at sleepovers,  secrets handed down from older siblings — we grew out of believing they were true, right? There’s nothing behind the cracked door of your closet, open two inches too far to show anything beyond the slat of pitch. There’s nothing under the bed that might reach for your ankles if you slipped from the covers to place your heels on cold floor. And certainly, there’s nothing waiting in your peripheral vision in a darke[...]