B. Rae “Rusty” Grosz
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B. Rae “Rusty” Grosz
@braegrosz.com
2.5K followers 900 following 1.7K posts
She/They. Greyromantic. Aspiring bog body. Writer. You can support my work via https://ko-fi.com/braegrosz.
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An excerpt from “The Ku Klux Klan in Pennsylvania, 1920-1940” by Philip Jenkins
The genesis of the Klan in these attitudes is important for the question of ideological definition. There is some question in the literature about whether the movement can technically be described as fascist, but its historical origins were almost identical to those of European fascist movements. They, too, originated in reaction to the failed radicalism of 1919-1920, and advocated the rights of native labor in partnership with capital, against some insidious foreign foe. They too advocated a return to tradition, military virtues, and paramilitary structure. If a movement like the Ku Klux Klan in its Pennsylvania form had existed in contemporary Europe, historians would have no hesitation in calling it a fascist group on the model of Italy, Spain, or Germany.
January 11, 2026 at 3:39 AM
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In 1914, while working to unionize miners in West Virginia, Fannie was arrested.

“I am free and have a right to talk or walk any place in this country as long as I obey the law,” she said. “I have done nothing wrong.”

The UMWA circulated postcards with a photo of her in prison, looking unbothered.
Photo postcard of Fannie Sellins, reading a book while sitting in a jail cell
January 11, 2026 at 12:31 AM
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The gist — in 1919, they murdered Fannie Sellins for daring to object to them murdering Joseph Starzeleski. And they were allowed to get away with it, because they said it was her own fault, claimed she started a riot.
grainy old black and white photo of Fannie Sellins, a determined looking woman
January 10, 2026 at 11:32 AM
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"This is not a ghost-story. It is, as I said at the beginning, a story of the supernormal, not the supernatural... Of the physical phenomena we have had no adequate explanation... Of what transpired regarding the death of Arthur Wells..."

Sight Unseen (1916) by Mary Roberts Rinehart
#PhantomsFriday
Black and white illustration of men and women in evening dress, seated around a table and holding hands, in a dark room, all watching a medium closely during a seance. from the serial story "Sight Unseen" in Everybody's Magazine, June1916. Author, Mary Roberts Rinehart; illustrator, Frederic Dorr Steele. [Caption: “HOLD MY HANDS VERY TIGHT.” HER VOICE SOUNDED FAINT AND FAR AWAY. ]
January 9, 2026 at 3:12 PM
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Also, I admittedly haven’t rewatched either version since the first time I saw them, but to the best of my recollection, Wishbone the dog was a better Darcy than Macfadyen
Still of Wishbone the dog from the PBS tv series as Mr. Darcy
January 8, 2026 at 11:24 PM
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Watching Pride and Prejudice (1995) with friends and remembered the time that my sibling and I decided to count it as a Christmas movie and make Pride and Prejudice gingerbread cookies
Photo of gingerbread cookies decorated as Mary King, Jane, Bingley, Caroline Bingley, Mrs. Hurst, Mr. Gardiner, Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham, Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Bennet, Lizzie, Darcy, Georgiana, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Lydia, Kitty, Mary, Charlotte, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and Lady Anne
January 7, 2026 at 10:25 PM
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March 7th — I'm giving a free online talk for #RomancingTheGothic on Mary Roberts Rinehart, "the American Agatha Christie," with special focus on her supernatural mysteries and the inspirations behind them

Tickets: www.tickettailor.com/events/roman... or www.tickettailor.com/events/roman...
Portrait of Mary Roberts Rinehart c. 1921 wearing pearls and a flowy, elegant dress and surrounded by plants Black and white illustration of a woman sitting with her eyes closed and her arms stretched out on the table in front of her from the serial story "Sight Unseen" in Everybody's Magazine, June 1916. Author, Mary Roberts Rinehart; illustrator, Frederic Dorr Steele. [Caption: MISS JEREMY CAME OUT OF HER TRANCE WEAK AND LOOKING EXTREMELY ILL.] Cover of the Penzler edition of the novel The Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Rinehart, showing an illustration of a red oil lamp and a hand reaching toward it Article Clipping featuring a photograph of Mary Roberts Rinehart in pearls and an evening gown and the title "Mary Roberts Rinehart's PSYCHIC ADVENTURES"
January 7, 2026 at 4:55 PM
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How's my dog doing?

Chicory Updates 🧵
Fifteen-year-old Border Collie laying on an old blanket. She disapproves of photography, so she is looking to her left, refusing to acknowledge the camera or the person behind it.
January 7, 2026 at 1:21 PM
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Had to take my Chicory to the emergency vet today. Ear infection and Old Dog Vestibular Disease. She’s doing okay now and definitely thinks that I am being weird. Doesn’t believe me when I tell her that the drops are medicine and necessary and really are supposed to be in her ears.
elderly Border Collie licking her nose and disapproving of being photographed
January 5, 2026 at 2:31 AM
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The average American has three friends
18th century map of Fort Duquesne depicting the three rivers: the Ohio, the Allegheny, and the Monongahela
January 1, 2026 at 5:47 PM
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From now on, yinz must all address me as “Your Preeminence”
Screenshot featuring the word ‘preeminent’
January 1, 2026 at 3:49 PM
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For folks interested in writers from Pittsburgh, mystery novels, and/or spiritualism in the 1920s
Screenshot from a table on the Romancing the Gothic website with the following information: March 7th 2026 4pm and 9pm GMT An Introduction to Mary Roberts Rinehart B. Rae Grosz
December 28, 2025 at 12:51 AM
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More gingerbread cookie art
Photo of very pretty gingerbread cookies decorated as snowflakes, candy canes, snowmen, bells, a mitten, a holly leaf, a Christmas tree, and a small flying reindeer
December 22, 2025 at 9:32 PM
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I offer this sleepy face
Photo of an elderly Border Collie having an excellent snooze with a little pink blep of tongue sticking out
December 16, 2025 at 10:54 PM
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Gingerbread cookies count as art: Christmas Edition
Photo of gingerbread cookies decorated with red, green, and white icing to look like a mitten, a holly leaf, a Christmas tree, a candy cane, a snowman, a stocking, and snowflakes
December 14, 2025 at 8:39 PM
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🤞🤞All the best for Benny from me and Chicory
Photo of elderly border collie, resigned to having her picture taken, although she would prefer not to
November 17, 2025 at 9:26 PM
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#WyrdWednesday #WerewolfWednesday Reminder that Prince Caspian is canonically bitten by a werewolf.
Photo of page from Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis, including an illustration that shows a chaotic fight with a werewolf attacking a boy and text that reads “… ‘And I see who your companions are—a Hag and a Wer-Wulf!’ The next minute or so was very confused. There was an animal roaring, a clash of steel; the boys and Trumpkin rushed in; Peter had a glimpse of a horrible, gaunt, gray creature, half man and half wolf, in the very act of leaping upon a boy about his own age…” Photo of page from the book Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis with text that reads “… ‘Is King Caspian anywhere?’ asked Peter. ‘I’m here,’ said a rather faint voice. ‘Something bit me.’ …”
November 12, 2025 at 2:50 PM
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Using the Cambridge dictionary definition, most of my efforts are disconcerted
Screenshot of Cambridge Dictionary website. Text reads: disconcerted adjective uk /ˌdɪs.kənˈsɜːt.ɪd/ us /ˌdɪs.kənˈsɝː.t̬ɪd/ worried by something and uncertain:
November 6, 2025 at 1:00 PM
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Actual photo of the travesty that was my dog not getting petted while she slept last night
Photo of elderly border collie sound asleep
November 6, 2025 at 12:45 PM
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Chicory doesn’t like having her picture taken, but she begrudgingly allowed this one yesterday
Border Collie side-eyeing her person for hovering over-protectively and taking pictures, instead of relaxing and basking in the autumn wind
November 1, 2025 at 9:14 AM
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"Forgotten," by me

published by Horror Tree's Trembling With Fear horrortree.com/trembling-wi...
Forgotten When she was thirsty, she was parched. When she found an old tower, hidden buried in the ground, the word that came to mind was oubliette. And she hoped, when the rain started falling through the opening overhead, that it would be a deluge. She laughed as she tilted her head back to catch drops on her tongue, but they weren’t enough. She opened her mouth again for more and more, until she no longer remembered that it was her own voice echoing off the stone walls, no longer remembered anything but deep emptiness and waiting, mouth open, for more.
October 31, 2025 at 6:52 PM
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Made a new friend yesterday
Headless guy in an orange and purple flannel shirt and jeans sits holding a jack-o-lantern
October 25, 2025 at 10:43 AM
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"The Demon Lover" by Frank Cowan, from Southwestern Pennsylvania in Song and Story (1878)

Isabel receives mysterious visitations at night... 🦇

Read the full poem here: archive.org/details/swpe...

#PhantomsFriday
Screenshot of an excerpt from a poem THE DEMON LOVER From ten, when she kissed her fond mother goodnight, Until twelve, Isabel, at the window has sat, In the shaded light's gloom of a still, curtained room, When lo! through the casement there flutters a bat! A bat, in a suit of the unseen at night, On a wing of the silence that will not alarm, When behold! in the gloom of the still, curtained room, The wing of the bat has become a man's arm!
October 24, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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One of my favorites from the #AScareADay challenge

In Everil Worrell’s short story “The Canal,” the narrator realizes too late the vampiric nature of the pale, beautiful woman who lives in the darkness of the canal. Read and listen to it here: pseudopod.org/2019/05/17/p...

#PhantomsFriday
Illustration shows a pale, eerie woman standing in a darkness swirled with bat-like shapes. A man clings to her feet. Text reads “The Canal by Everil Worrell” and below that is a quote “Loathsome shapes flapped through the night”
October 24, 2025 at 10:47 AM
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Yesterday's #AScareADay read was "Two in One" by Flann O'Brien. In this story, a taxidermist kills his boss, then makes a skin-suit out of him. However, his plan to masquerade as his boss and cover up the crime goes awry when the dead man's skin fuses to his own and becomes permanent. #WyrdWednesday
It was as I lay in bed there, shaking, thinking, and smoking, that the mad idea came into my head. No doubt this sounds incredible, grotesque, even disgusting, but I decided I would treat Kelly the same as any other dead creature that found its way to the workshop.
October 22, 2025 at 12:24 PM