THE FIRST HORROR BOOK I REMEMBER READING

All the Marilyn Ross Dark Shadows novels (well, the ones with Barnabas Collins) and then Dracula and The Exorcist, which I remember reading simultaneously.


THE FIRST HORROR FILM I REMEMBER WATCHING 

It was either The Frozen Dead or Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster, in the Langley Theatre in Hampton, VA, during a spook show where a guy in a monster suit carried off a young woman in a bad, blonde wig.



THE GREATEST HORROR BOOK OF ALL TIME 

For me, always and forever ‘Salem’s Lot.


THE GREATEST HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME 

The Exorcist. There is still no comparison. I also believe that The Shining by Kubrick is the last truly great horror film.


THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME

Undoubtedly Shakespeare.


THE BEST BOOK COVER OF ALL TIME

I have fond memories of the 1976 embossed, all black paperback cover of ‘Salem’s Lot, with a single drop of red blood. The paperback cover of Jaws is a close second.


THE BEST FILM POSTER OFF ALL TIME

Exorcist, Alien, Blazing Saddles, M*A*S*H and Animal House.


THE BEST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN

Ghostflowers.

THE WORST BOOK / FILM I HAVE WRITTEN

Spelljammer: The Ultimate Helm (under the pseudonym of Russ T. Howard). The final book in a D&D series that I knew absolutely nothing about. I decided to just have fun with it, wrote a couple of friends into it, and I wrote the action scenes by channeling Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.

THE MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF ALL TIME

Two completely different films. The Sweetest Thing, a comedy that grabbed me when I caught it on TV and would not let me turn it off; and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which may still be Spielberg’s most powerful, impactful film—Ray Bradbury called it a religious film—but people tend to ignore it.


THE MOST UNDERRATED BOOK OF ALL TIME

The Elric series by Michael Moorcock. These fantasies—actually, the whole of his Eternal Champion mythos from the ‘60s and ‘70s—are far better and more imaginative than anything Tolkien ever dreamed of.

THE MOST UNDERRATED AUTHOR OF ALL TIME

There are so many little authors that almost no one has heard of, such as Davis Grubb or Charles Beaumont. But I also think James Lee Burke, for all his bestsellers, is underrated. He’s the best writer in America.

THE BOOK / FILM THAT SCARED ME THE MOST

Film: The Exorcist
Books: ‘Salem’s Lot and The Search for the Green River Killer


THE BOOK / FILM I AM WORKING ON NEXT

The Enigma Club (already written and being sent around by my agent); Shades, a horror novel.

It’s the Quiet Ones You Have to Watch Out For by Stuart D. Monroe


I started out intending to go in one very pointed direction- my tale of getting to my diagnosis (bipolar disorder, for what it’s worth) and how I got there. I was going to use the rawness of my tale to illustrate the importance of destigmatizing mental health issues and utilizing some self-analysis to understand when it’s time to get help. I suppose, in some ways, I might even still get there. Unfortunately, the senseless tragedy of Uvalde happened right here in my home state of Texas, and it set me off down a dark mental path that redefined the nature of this article.

What I’m going to say next will initially shock. Hang in there with me, though…you’ll be picking up what I’m throwing down before too long. I promise.

As a mentally ill person, I empathize with the shooters who arm themselves and commit these horrible atrocities in an attempt to douse the flames of rage they have in their souls.

See? I told you it was a rough statement to digest. And I can already hear people trying to say that I sympathize with school shooters, which is miles away from what I said. Empathizing doesn’t involve feelings of acceptance; you’re not condoning a damn thing! When I say empathize, I mean it in the Merriam-Webster’s sense of the word:

Empathy: (noun) The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.

In short, I get it. I just do. Prior to my 2nd grade year, my parents moved us from our idyllic, nuclear family scenario in Clemson, South Carolina to an apartment in Hanahan, South Carolina (a suburb of historic Charleston). They had their reasons, and I’m not here to judge them. The result, though, was a strange new place away from our large extended family. And the next eight years of school were a hell of bullying, fear, and finally rage.

During that time, my Dad and Mom split. Mom fell apart. There were some damn rough patches, to say the least. Through it all, the bullying continued. I wasn’t the literally the lone poor kid in a virtually all-white, well-to-do school full of snobs, but it damn sure felt like I was. My only “live action” friend was my brother, Chris. My best friend was Stephen King, and my sanctuary was the school library. My cathedral was the movie theater; my fellowship occurred with the cases on the video store shelves and the copy of Fangoria or WWF Magazine in my back pocket.

I was a lonely kid, and I became an extremely angry kid who stayed shunned and on the outside. I never made real friends during those formative years. Even the small group of pseudo friends I had in class only kept my company for my class clown antics and stellar grades (manic, anyone?). I was okay to be used, but I was never invited to any birthday parties.

You starting to pick up what I’m throwing down yet?

The end of 6th grade approaches, and I’m being bullied by a big bastard whose name I can’t even recall anymore. He sucker punched me with one of those ubiquitous brass ducks you used to see on people’s glass end tables in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. It didn’t knock me out, but it damn sure put me down on all fours in the dirt with blood dripping out of my notrils. A funny thing happened then- the fear went away. The world got quiet and extremely calm for a few seconds, and then a burning hot poison came boiling up from behind some door in my head that had been previously shut. The curtain came down, and I don’t recall the fight. I was told by a seriously freaked-out teacher that I was snarling and digging my hands in the dirt before I jumped up into his face and went to work.

That happened a few more times. That started to happen every single time someone looked at me cross, and my discipline record grew exponentially. I earned every bit of my reputation as the school psycho. By the time I adopted a devil worshipper persona in the mid-90’s, it was getting really bad. The thought of guns, fortunately, never crossed my mind because…if I’m being brutally honest…I enjoy the up close and wet work. One kid called my future wife (24 years strong!) a slut, and he got hurt very badly. I got expelled and sent away after being pulled out of the classroom by a handful of my fellow football players with blood covering me from fists to elbows and a tooth embedded in my knuckles.

Now I know you’re picking up what I’m throwing down.

It was my freshman English class when it happened. My all-time favorite teacher, Mrs. Morris, gave us an open assignment to say whatever you wanted to say to your classmates. It just clicked. This was the moment that I was going to obliterate everyone and tell them what they’d done to me…and what I wanted to do to them. I didn’t hold back on what they deserved. Mrs. Morris, to her credit, let me have my say. Fun fact: it was the first time I ever dared to speak in front of a class in school ever.

I ended that class period with thirty letters of spontaneous apology. They came up to my desk, one by one, and you could see on their faces that many of them were seeing me for the first damn time! Despite all my violence in school, I was still invisible to the majority of them. Talk about a revelation! That told me more about those quiet kids, those bullied kids, those forgotten kids than any news report ever could.

The lesson stuck. I didn’t kill the sorry motherfuckers with a gun…even though I wanted to. I never lashed out physically again; the energy had gone more or less out of me when it came to that particular crowd of people. I got my shot in, and it was a damn good one that I’m sure many of them still remember. I sure as shit hope they do.
​
I just can’t shake how many kids there are out there like me, suffering through the combination of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness and bullying that are just waiting to explode. I feel that. Some days I still feel the ghost of it, and my brain is screaming at me that we’re doomed to keep repeating this lesson until we collectively pick up what I’m throwing down.

We welcome Ginger Nutter, Amber Logan to the site to mark the cover reveal of her new novel, The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn, along with an exclusive excerpt from her novel.  You can find the gorgeous cover after the excerpt. 

Cracked doesn’t always mean broken.

Grieving her mother’s death, Mari Lennox travels to Kyoto, Japan to take photographs of Yanagi Inn for a client. As she explores the inn and its grounds, her camera captures striking images, uncovering layers of mystery shrouding the old resort—including an overgrown, secret garden on a forbidden island. But then eerie weeping no one else in the inn seems to hear starts keeping her awake at night.

I jolted awake when the car came to a stop after its long, silent drive. The two front doors closed with solid thuds, but I sat alone in the dark for a moment longer, groggy, and disoriented. The car jostled as the driver unloaded my bags from the trunk, and Ogura-san’s cold figure disappeared inside the inn. I grabbed my camera bag and scrambled out of the car.

The moment I stepped out into the night, the cold air hit me like a slap to the face. I’d been wrong to think that surviving Chicago winters would make everything else feel warm by comparison, but at least this cold came with an invigorating crispness found only in areas far from airports and population density; it reminded me of camping. I spun in a slow circle and no streetlights or storefronts or neighbors interrupted my view of the black night. I breathed in deeply, until a shiver wracked my body.

The building in front of me was traditional, wooden, with a single-story, peaked roof. The structure itself was almost entirely obscured by overgrown, wayward bushes, as if nature itself was bent on swallowing the property whole. The only illumination, save for the pallid moonlight, came from a worn red paper lantern hanging from the covered entrance, shedding its feeble light on walls that were corroded, peeling, as if made of aging parchment.

I was reminded of an art exhibit I’d seen years ago. The gallery’s walls had been covered with large, unsettling photographs of small-town haunted houses, the kind of properties that were only mentioned in whispers and that spawned urban legends. This façade was so forsaken, and so vastly different from the grand entranceway I had envisioned, that I began to wonder whether there’d been a mistake. But then I saw it—a battered wooden sign hanging by the front doors, carved with the name “Yanagi Inn,” and my stomach sank. I was in the right place.
The driver was standing beside me, luggage in hand, waiting. I ducked my head in apology (what was I apologizing for?) and followed him down the short path to the inn’s entrance. The granite walkway was lined with rounded black stones, the rock beds so infested by weeds I feared stepping off the path lest they reach out to trip me. There were no signs of life or movement, no other sounds besides our own hollow footsteps as we approached the inn.

Inside, all was silent and still. We walked through the sparse lobby, with its musty scent and smattering of chairs that looked to be from the 1970s. We passed an unmanned front desk with a worn leather guestbook on the counter and a wall of framed newspaper reviews behind it. We only paused to remove our shoes where the tiled floors of the lobby stepped up to a raised level of tatami matting.

The hallways were dimly lit, and the dry scent of dust and heating elements permeated the air. No one spoke. I followed the driver in socked feet, and he dragged my luggage through the narrow halls, following Ogura-san, although I couldn't see her. The silence was unnerving, accustomed as I was to the near constant commotion of living in a South Loop Chicago high-rise with thin walls and energetic neighbors.

But this silence wasn't the quiet found in relaxing vacation spots; it was more like being trapped in a jar with a lid dampening all outside noise. A muted, deadened soundlessness which made me step even more lightly so I wouldn't be the monster to disrupt it. I half expected to turn the corner and encounter the creepy twin girls from The Shining. I shuddered; why had I let Thad convince me to watch that movie?

After a few turns we came to an abrupt stop and found Ogura-san standing in front of an open door. The driver placed my luggage inside, bowed, and disappeared down the hall before I had a chance to properly thank him. I was loath to break the silence anyways.

A teenaged maid, dressed in a paler blue version of Ogura-san’s kimono, was bustling about the room. She had pushed aside a low table laden with small, covered bowls and was laying out a futon and bedding on the tatami matting.

"Yuna-chan," Ogura-san broke the silence with a stern tone. "Lennox-san would like to retire now."

Yuna spun around, apparently unaware that she had company. Her long ponytail slipped over her shoulder as she bowed. "Good evening, Lennox-san," she said in heavily accented English.

I glanced over my shoulder; Ogura-san had already disappeared down the hall. "Oh, you can call me Mari," I replied softly in Japanese.

A smile of relief spread across Yuna's round, youthful face as she straightened. "You speak Japanese?" She spoke in a slight dialect, one I didn’t recognize.

I returned her smile, though I’m sure it looked tired, strained. "I spent a lot of my childhood here."

Yuna's brow furrowed slightly as she took in my frizzy light brown hair and hazel eyes. "Forgive me for being blunt, but you're not half-Japanese, right?"

I chuckled and waved a hand in front of my face. "No. My family lived outside Yokohama because my father was an American expat working for Toshiba.” I set my camera bag on the floor, rolled my shoulders to relieve the strain. “I went to an international school, but my parents refused to live in an expat haven, so we lived in a normal neighborhood, had Japanese friends.”

"Oh. Why did you move back to America?"

I froze. Did I really want to get into all that right now, with a complete stranger, no less? I looked at my watch, hoping maybe the girl would take the hint. "Well, my parents separated and—"

"Yuna-chan." The dark specter of Ogura-san reappeared in the doorway. "I'm sure our guest would like to retire for the evening."

Good god, yes, thank you. I never thought I’d be relieved to see Ogura-san again.

"Of course, Ogura-san." Yuna's face flushed, and she hurried to arrange the bedding. "What time would you like me to bring breakfast?"

"I don't even know what time it is now," I said with a sigh. "I'm sure my sleep schedule will be off. How about nine?"

I heard a quiet “Tsk” sound behind me. I turned, but Ogura-san was gone.

Yuna nodded, either ignoring or not noticing Ogura-san’s disdain. She showed me the notecard with wifi information, then lifted the lids off the bowls on the table to reveal a variety of individually wrapped rice crackers and, I realized with a pang to my heart, mandarins. "I'm sorry we didn't have a meal ready for you. The kitchen was already shut down."

I walked Yuna to the door. "No worries, I certainly understand. My apologies for arriving so late. I hope I haven't disturbed any other guests." I was reminded of the eerie silence of the dark hallways I'd walked down. Were there any other guests?

"Oh, no need to worry about that." Yuna waved a hand in front of her face and chuckled. "Well, good night...Mari-san." She winked and left the room, sliding the door closed behind her.

I sank into the floor chair beside the table. She seemed like a nice girl, and it was good to have a friendly face here in this foreboding environment, but I had no more energy left to maintain a pleasant façade. I picked up a mandarin, but then replaced it in the bowl. Their presence was just a coincidence, but it still unnerved me. Instead, I unwrapped a large rice cracker and enjoyed a savory, if slightly stale, bite.

I let my gaze roam around the room. Why did a teenager even work in a dilapidated place like this? A low table with a scuffed black top and two matching floor chairs, each with a threadbare red cushion. A single futon mattress with old-fashioned floral bedding laid out on the tatami floor, a standing paper lamp beside it. Several sliding doors leading to a private bathroom, a closet, and presumably out to a veranda. The room’s only decorations were a scroll painted with a stylized kanji symbol and a vase of fresh pine branches, red winter berries, and bright white chrysanthemums. At least the flowers were fresh and new.

The space felt more like some forsaken grandmother’s house than the esteemed ryokan I’d envisioned, but at least it was clean.

After a quick stop in the bathroom (with its disappointingly regular Western toilet), I stripped off the cardigan and jeans I'd been wearing for god knows how many hours and stared in the mirror. Bags under my eyes, my hair a stringy mess, my face greasy. Too angular, haggard. I looked like shit.

If only I could blame it all on international travel.

Too tired for a shower, I threw on pajamas and switched off the shoji paper lamp. When I flopped down on the futon it emitted a faint floral scent, just as you’d expect at a grandmother’s house. The mattress was firm, perfect really—the kind of bed I'd always wanted to sleep on when we lived in Japan, but Risa and I both had frilly pink princess-themed canopy beds—which Risa loved.

But I didn’t.

My body was heavy, sluggish, but my mind wouldn’t stop whirling. I was in Japan again, after so many years. I would wake up tomorrow in a strange bed with new surroundings, new obligations, new people, and…

I needed my sleeping pills. But no, Risa had given me a hard look when she’d found the bottle in my luggage and handed me the bag of melatonin lozenges instead. But I’ve always hated having something in my mouth when I’m trying to sleep. It feels like an obvious choking hazard, like giving a grape to an active toddler.

Whatever. I closed my eyes, practiced my breathing exercises again. Breathe in, one-two-three, breathe out, one-two-three.

My heart rate slowed, my mind settled. I focused on the silence in the room. Somewhere a clock tick, ticked away the seconds. I started to drift off into a fuzzy realm filled with the steady hum of airplane engines and the quiet rustles of a hundred passengers shifting in uncomfortable seats when another sound invaded my mind.

A low, mournful keening.

It sounded like a far-off wounded animal, a whining dog. This was an isolated place—could there be coyotes? My eyes opened slowly. Were there even coyotes in Japan? I held my breath, listened with ears attuned to the eerie, distant sound.

No, it wasn’t a howl. Was someone crying?

Mom.

I was a child again, lying in my princess canopy bed, pillow pressed against my ears to block out the sound. A whimper in the matching bed against the far wall; Risa must’ve heard it, too.

‘Go to sleep, Risa,’ I whispered, and she fell silent. But the weeping from our mother’s room continued…

It’s not Mom, Mari.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

My thoughts flew, perhaps rashly, to the young maid. As I strained to hear the whimpers filtering through the thin walls of my room, I clenched my jaw to keep my own emotions in check; I'd spent too many nights balanced on the brink of inconsolable tears not to relate. Yet what would a young girl like Yuna (for she couldn't be older than 16 or 17) be doing in a place like this so late at night? Did she live here?

I opened my eyes again, stared at the dark ceiling somewhere above me. Maybe the cries really weren’t human—a fox? Some kind of bird?
​
Or maybe they were just in my mind—childhood memories, emotional projections.
Or premonitions.

Cracked doesn’t always mean broken.

Grieving her mother’s death, Mari Lennox travels to Kyoto, Japan to take photographs of Yanagi Inn for a client. As she explores the inn and its grounds, her camera captures striking images, uncovering layers of mystery shrouding the old resort—including an overgrown, secret garden on a forbidden island. But then eerie weeping no one else in the inn seems to hear starts keeping her awake at night.

Despite the warnings of the staff, Mari searches the deep recesses of the old building to discover the source of the ghostly sound, only to realize that her own family’s history is tied to the inn, its mysterious, forlorn garden . . . and the secrets it holds.

​Author Bio:
Amber A. Logan is a university instructor, freelance editor, and author of speculative fiction living in Kansas with her husband and two children—Fox and Willow. In addition to her degrees in Psychology, Liberal Arts, and International Relations, Amber holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

Recently, I had a story out in ‘The Book of Queer Saints’ (edited by Mae Murray), a well-received anthology touted as ‘thirteen tales of queer villainy’. While ‘Morta’ is a straight-up Horror story, it also serves as a tongue-in-cheek dig at the queer teen high school romance that seems so prevalent in LGBTQ+ entertainment these days.
Forgive me. I’m not the only gay with a bad sense of humour.

Right up front I’ll say I have no problem with queer romance. Hell, I enjoyed Heartstopper (despite its somewhat squeaky-clean approach). Granted, I’m a middle aged queen and perhaps a more jaded member of the target audience. My school years under Section 28 and later during apartheid in South Africa are a horror that still evades my own fingertips on the keyboard. Besides, according to Amazon, I write ‘Erotic Horror’, don’t I? In this essay, Horror is the place I’m coming from, but I think the same applies to all queer entertainment as a broader discussion.

An idea I keep seeing, as I venture into the darker recesses of queer lived experience in fiction, is that ‘people don’t want negative queer-themed stories’. Yes, it’s a thing. The odd review that one-stars a story as a ‘downer’ (it’s a Horror story, come on). Other writers who tweet to say that our genre stories should all have happy endings. In its most hostile manifestation, I’ve even been told – and I quote – to ‘f*** off with your gay trauma’. A few have suggested – and to a writer who’s published a fair amount of ‘dark shit’ – that publishers ‘don’t want’ these kinds of stories anymore. Still others say that this stuff won’t sell because of ‘negative’ themes. If Horror is the province of the non-conformist, then lately it also feels like the last bastion of queer catharsis in genre literature.

To my mind, it’s important to note a fundamental distinction in the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope and be mindful not to weaponise it against queer creatives of any stripe. Honestly, it’s fine if folks don’t want to read or watch dark queer entertainment. No one needs my permission. In light of the historical scope, I have to say I often find the notion that darker queer stories aren’t welcome or somehow detrimental a gross oversimplification. And one that’s usually – and oddly – advanced in an exclusionary manner.

On the whole, folks appear to be referring to the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope that has lingered long into the modern era. For those who don’t know, the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope is the portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters in entertainment that generally tends to result in the suffering and/or death of one or both of the characters in question. In its worst iteration, one of the characters may come to realise that they aren’t queer at all and have merely fallen under the spell of ‘perversion’ or ‘seduction’ (‘queer seduction/corruption’ being a prevailing delusion among bigots everywhere), then continuing life along the heteronormative lines that have ‘saved’ them once this or that troublesome queer is out of the picture. Either way, it’s clear in the presentation that being queer is seen as morally wrong and not to be supported.

In 1948, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope frames his implicit gay characters as heartless villains. Brandon and Phillip strangle poor David, their former classmate, to death in their Manhattan apartment – and as an intellectual exercise to boot! The film hints that the murder had a gay motivation, either unspoken jealousy or desire. Another classic example is the 1961 film The Children’s Hour (also a Horror movie), adapted from Lillian Hellman’s play of the same name. Two schoolteachers in a private boarding school are accused of having an ‘unnatural relationship’ by one of the resident girls. It doesn’t end well. The leads (a young Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine) undergo an ordeal of doubt, confusion and guilt, which culminates in suicide. In the 80s, we find Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, which frames queer experience in the shadow of AIDS as a dreary and inevitable act of martyrdom.

Throughout this period, we find the queer-as-villain employed the most enthusiastically, from Mrs Danvers in Rebecca to Norman Bates in Psycho to Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Dr Robert Elliot in Dressed to Kill to Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Even Jareth, the gender-bending Goblin King in Labyrinth, is portrayed as a child-snatching baddie. And don’t get me started on Disney.

Such renditions were the direct result of twentieth century laws and their enduring aftermath. The Hays Code was the informal name for The Motion Picture Production Code, adopted in 1930 and advancing a set of rules to govern Hollywood movies for over three decades, the toxic effects of which prevail to this day. Along with a general ban on portraying crime and violence in a positive light, the code outlawed topics considered ‘perverse’ and stated that they couldn’t be depicted in any tolerant, affirmative or compassionate way whatsoever. Quelle surprise that such topics included homosexuality – and unsurprisingly, up there alongside bestiality, paedophilia and rape. Historically, that was the gutter where society at large placed queer people, heedless of the danger it placed them in or the suffering it caused.
I wish I could say we’ve entirely shaken off such outlooks since.

Art and entertainment reflect the times. The times reflect art and entertainment. It’s a cycle that has dictated much of queer rep for the past hundred odd years. In terms of visibility, queer folks have never enjoyed an egalitarian status and been excluded from much of the industry, especially in terms of creative influence and corporate power, which has played a big part in how we’re regarded and thus treated i.e. as less than human. Living in the here and now, we can all thank our lucky stars that times have changed for the better in our own era, however tenuously it may seem at times. All the same, and to illustrate the point of this essay, it’s advisable to remember our history. And to honour the voices of those who’ve come before us.

All queer artistic expression under systemic oppression has been marshalled, censored, criminalised and directed by bigots and their enablers. That’s simply a fact. The above is one aspect of the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope, historically speaking, but the issue invites deeper inspection. Going further back, it was the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 that condemned homosexuality outright as an unlawful ‘perversion’, and which set the tone for oppression and exclusion in the modern era. Back then, in a climate of investigation, paranoia and arrest, some queers were disseminating pornography under pseudonyms (The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, Jack Saul) while Oscar Wilde himself went to prison (and later died in poverty) thanks to the scandal surrounding his affair with Lord Douglas.

It was Wilde’s ensuing case for libel that triggered the outrage that saw out the Victorian age, much of the condemnation stemming from public reaction to his ‘shameful’ gothic Horror novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Looking into the past, we see that Wilde wasn’t the only queer writer attempting to express himself in a highly reserved, sanctimonious and punitive society. Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood, Pat Barker, Allen Ginsberg, Patricia Highsmith – to name but a few... All speak to us from those times, in varying shades of experience, and grace the long and fine tradition of queer literature. They shine like a rainbow at night, bright in the darkness. Present even when one couldn’t see them.

It’s important to note that all of these writers (and filmmakers, artists and actors besides), were working under the enforced bigoted laws and exclusionary codes described in this essay. All of them, in fiction and elsewhere, were forced to ‘bury their gays’. To bury themselves. These heroes and heroines of a much less enlightened age speak to us and symbolise the line between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ queer representation. It’s a line one suspects is often overlooked, or ignored, or that modern readers are simply unaware of. Sure, there are plenty of pernicious ‘Bury Your Gays’ tropes out there, from Braveheart where Prince Edward’s lover is flung out of a window to the violent dispatching of a Two Spirit character in Lovecraft Country. On the more sympathetic side, we have Brokeback Mountain, A Single Man and Moonlight.

Your mileage may vary in relation to these cinematic outings, sure. There are a wealth of examples out there which I leave to readers to explore. The above serves to illustrate the different aspects of the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope in the mainstream and to highlight the significance of gaze, approach and intent – nuances that often seem lost in the drive to advance the current evangelicalism of ‘positive’ queer rep.
We need to acknowledge that there’s a world of difference between ‘spectacle’ and ‘catharsis’. These days, the two are often conflated. Queer artists writing under oppression and taking care not to portray anything remotely positive about queerness because it was illegal and dangerous to do so isn’t the same as majority voices portraying queer folks in entertainment for ‘shock value’. Or framing our experience as inherently negative. Or punishing queer characters simply for being queer due to a bigoted outlook, religious, legal or otherwise.

The latter fall under the heading of ‘spectacle’. The queer as ‘pervert’. The queer as a perpetrator/victim of immorality. The queer as a cautionary tale. Or a punching bag. These are works inspired by prejudice and hate, chock-full of stereotypes and in most cases an effort to enforce queerphobia via cultural means.

On the other hand, queer artists portraying trauma in their work qualifies as ‘catharsis’. We see the queer artist making sense of their world, reaching out from the shadows, creating a record or a guide. Perhaps these works are a plea for understanding or a way to wrestle with one’s pain and thereby exorcise it. Perhaps it’s a call for a better world. Whatever. It is valid.

Ultimately, The Children’s Hour condemns queerness as an aberration, a moral misstep that can only lead to suffering. Brokeback Mountain depicts the experience of gay love in a socially hostile environment (hence the ‘wilderness as refuge’ motif). The first film hails from a biased point of view in the hope of impressing fear of the other and provoking moral panic. The second, while undeniably a downer, portrays a grim reality in the hope of fostering understanding and compassion. Today, we have Heartstopper to impress on us that being queer is something that everyone should aspire to, because it’s fabulous, fun and most of all, fashionable. The evangelicalism, admittedly, is understandable. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is also a book that all young queer folks should go and read.

What does all this have to do with Horror, you may ask? Well, approach matters when it comes to queer representation, as much as it matters who gets to tell our stories and why. We should ask why some say that our experiences under oppression no longer matter. We should be able to ask why queer sex and the daily reality of homophobia are deemed inherently ‘negative’ when shown in entertainment. Is their erasure for the comfort of creatives who fear their works won’t fly if they feature them? Or for the comfort of a mainstream audience who’d prefer not to be reminded of the world we actually live in and how queer people get off? It’s OK to ask these questions. We should look to the past and be careful we’re not falling into the same trap.

Of course, history is changing. It’s changing all the time. Now we get to see queer characters in Horror films in healthy, loving relationships (Nia DaCosta’s Candyman). We get to see queer Horror novels on the shelves of bookshops (Manhunt Gretchen Felker-Martin, Red X David Demchuk, The Book of Queer Saints Mae Murray). In mainstream entertainment, we see iterations of queerness that aren’t focused on trauma or darkness at all – and that’s all well and good.

I mean it. I embrace, respect and support the space for queer joy. Even if I don’t always write it.

Still, there’s a danger in applying standards and expectations to queer artistic expression, and for the reasons mentioned above. A long history of censorship and suppression at the hands of a prejudicial regime and a morally averse society doesn’t recommend that we accept further restriction and shepherding in art and entertainment. For obvious reasons. Purity culture and the sanitation of queerness too closely echoes the laws and codes that have come before. Given time, such rigid standards could easily work against us. Why not? They always have in the past.

In conclusion, it isn’t good enough to say that all queer rep has to be sweetness and light these days in order to qualify as ‘positive’. Any more than it is to frame the darker, more cathartic works of our imagination as ‘negative’ – and by extension, culturally verboten. Queer catharsis has its place too. Queer Horror has its place. As in all things, it’s how you go about it. Queer stories can act as a torch in the darkness and a survival guide. Where would I be without the phantasmagoria of Clive Barker and Poppy Z. Brite, for instance? I balance those books with Armistead Maupin and others. I’m open to all the shades of the rainbow. These authors not only inspired me to write. They told me I wasn’t alone. More than that, they told me my trauma was valid. And more than that, they showed me it was possible to succeed regardless.

Hear me out. I put it to you that queer expression itself is inherently positive. Queer survival, that innate act of rebellion, is positive. The fact I’m sitting here as a gay man and writing this for a prominent Horror website is the definition of positivity. When you get your words published, when people read your stuff, all of it flies in the face of oppression, you see. Criminal Amendment Acts, Hays Codes and ongoing bigotry et al. The truth is we live in days that millions before us would’ve wept to see. We honour and celebrate that with every single piece of art we make.
Hopefully, we can foster a genre in which all queer expression is welcome and regarded in that light: no less than the first time in history where queer voices get to express themselves in the mainstream without fear of oppression, legal punishment and widespread moral condemnation.

Write without chains. Write free.


Enjoy Pride.

Each month The Dark brings you the best in dark fantasy and horror! Selected by award-winning editor Sean Wallace and published by Prime Books, this issue includes four all-new stories:
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“Ppaka” by Angela Liu
“In Hades, He Lifted Up His Eyes” by James Bennett
“The Land Beneath Her” by Tegan Moore
“Linden in Effigy” by Kay Chronister
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James Bennett is a British writer raised in Sussex and South Africa. His travels have furnished him with an abiding love of different cultures, history and mythology. His short fiction has appeared internationally and his debut novel CHASING EMBERS was shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the British Fantasy Awards 2017. His latest story, In Hades, He Lifted Up His Eyes, is now available to read online at The Dark Magazine.