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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14h

I haven’t! I’ve heard of it but haven’t gotten around to it. Gonna have to finally check it out!

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14h

Yesssssss

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14h

I favor the folkloric ghosts—the ones whispered about behind church pews and in hollow places, passed down and patched over generations. Yet I love when an author peels that fabric back and lets the old haunt breathe through something new.

#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 15h

Listen to the Symposium’s finest vocalist, as their tenor bends the living into unnatural angles and swivels them into the air! Tell us, what ghosts do you prefer? Of the folkloric tradition, or those invented by authors? And why?
#HorrorWritersChat

Question Three

Art by Jelle Husson, featuring a haunted monastery of many sharp-tipped towers scraping at the midnight sky. The largest is in the centre of the structure’s roof, whose walls are painted white. The monastery is located above a hilly terrain of dark stone and dark green moss. A stony, twisting road leads to the monastery.

It is always a delight to see our violinists perform! How the living bend their splintering bones as they float above us all! Tell us, our ghostly compatriots – which of us are better? Of the folkloric kind? Or invented by our shadowy creators?

No links, covers, or self-promo! Leave that for the end! Quote the post & include the hashtag!

#HorrorWritersChat

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14h

The hollers and riverbanks of the Ozarks—those are my favorite haunts. Not the grand estates, but the forgotten places: collapsed barns, drowned bridges, and roadside churches still echoing with hymns no one remembers.
#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 15h

Now, let us begin! Let the flutes bleat and the trumps blare, snatching all the souls of the living away! What are your favourite haunts? Mausoleums? Lavish estates? What secrets do their wraiths protect within?
#HorrorWritersChat

Art by Jelle Husson, featuring a haunted monastery of many sharp-tipped towers scraping at the midnight sky. The largest is in the centre of the structure’s roof, whose walls are painted white. The monastery is located above a hilly terrain of dark stone and dark green moss. A stony, twisting road leads to the monastery.

Question Two

Ah, the performance has begun! Behold the souls of the living darting into the flutes and trumpets! Now, as you sip your ectoplasmic wine, tell us – what are your favourite locations for ghosts? And why?

No links, covers, or self-promo! Leave that for the end! Quote the post & include the hashtag!

#HorrorWritersChat

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 15h

>Steps from the mist, boots caked in Ozark mud.< I write horror that seeps up from the soil and monsters that look too much like family.
I hail from the haunted hills of southwest Missouri, and tonight my wraithful visage is a preacher’s ghost still clutching his sermon.
#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 15h

Be welcomed to the ethereal music hall! A stringed aperitif is in order… do tell the Symposium what do you write, from where… and what IS, indeed, your wraithful visage for tonight?
#HorrorWritersChat

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 6d

Eleanor’s Horrors
eleanorshorrors.substack.com?r=fm4th&utm_...

Eleanor’s Horrors | Eleanor Johnson | Substack

A series of essays about feminism and horror, literature and history, translation and transformation. Click to read Eleanor’s Horrors, by Eleanor Johnson, a Substack publication with thousands of subs...

eleanorshorrors.substack.com

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 7d

Ohhhh going to check this out for sure.

Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 7d

Thanks for another great #HorrorWritersChat! If you’re into dark folk/Midwest Gothic, follow along! I am also launching a YouTube video podcast—Nightmares and Narratives. Just interviewed Joe R. Lansdale! Also, i have a novella—KILLING MY FLESH WITHOUT YOU.

Eryn McCee @erynmccee.bsky.social · 7d

#HorrorWritersChat here you go, your chance to shine. Do repost others, too. We're all in it together.

there is no algorithm here, so visibility depends on engagement with others.
hit the questions, use the hashtag, share other writer’s stuff.
finally, have you got something to shout about? Now’s your chance.

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 7d

Right?!! So do i! So you have a story/book recs? It's not horror, but I'm currently reading (and loving) Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which i think could be characterized as a coming of age story.

Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 7d

Age always bleeds into the work. Whether my characters are 16 or 60, they carry some echo of my own unease—fear of endings, fear of irrelevance, fear of being forgotten. Fear of forgetting. Horror gives those whispers a body. In that sense, yes, we’re always speaking our fears. #HorrorWritersChat

Eryn McCee @erynmccee.bsky.social · 7d

#HorrorWritersChat

Ageing comes to us all, if we're lucky. And while we might not self-insert, our fears colour our horror.
Does it matter if our characters are young or old? Do our ages, and our feelings about ageing, slip quietly out of their mouths?
Do we speak our fears?
10 minutes to outro

In Horror, ageing itself can be terrifying or empowering.
What does it mean to you and your stories?

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 7d

Thank you. 🙏

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 7d

Coming-of-age doesn’t just belong to the young. Older characters can still have rites of passage—retirement, loss, confronting mortality, even facing the ghosts of choices they made decades ago. Their “becoming” may be smaller, subtler, but no less terrifying. #HorrorWritersChat

Eryn McCee @erynmccee.bsky.social · 7d

#HorrorWritersChat

Puberty or kids brings one element to a story. Hero's journey, finding themselves, etc. An older character might have that too. Or it might be entirely different. What say you?

Age brings history - regrets, resilience, trauma, wisdom.
how do you use an older character’s lived experience to heighten the horror in your writing?

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 7d

Older characters in horror aren’t just mentors—that's why I love writing the young challenged. They are haunted houses themselves — every wrinkle a hallway, every scar a locked door. #HorrorWritersChat

Eryn McCee @erynmccee.bsky.social · 7d

Gather close, #HorrorWritersChat bods, whether you creak, or not. And believe me, many of us creaked in our teens, it's all good.
Age is just one factor.
But it's an interesting one that we do overlook. How many of us actually have older characters in our books, that aren't the wise mentor type?

Horror is chock full of young characters. What about your older ones? How do they shape the story differently?

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 7d

I'm Ryan Thomas LaBee. I write dark folk horror, Midwest Gothic, and the occasional splash of splatter. 37 years old and still haunted by the Ozarks. #HorrorWritersChat

Eryn McCee @erynmccee.bsky.social · 7d

Here we go, #HorrorWritersChat!
Today is the 1st October, beginning of spooky season, if you ever let it end, and that means it's International Day of Older Persons.
I like the idea of it being International Longevity Day but it isn't that yet. Today is about ageing and horror.

roll call!
What’s your name, what do you write and ...
how old are you?
Don’t be shy. There’s a method to it.

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14d

The chants may fade, but the stories burn on. I conjure tales of Midwest Gothic—give me a follow if that's your vibe.

Tonight, I host a live interview with the legendary Joe R. Lansdale—join us here: youtube.com/@ryanthomasl...

#HorrorWritersChat

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14d

A.4)

“You rip out the tooth, its blood gleaming with opportunity.

Swallow it deep, forget all you knew with impunity.

Spit it to earth, where shadows will keep,

A name that was yours, now buried in sleep.”

#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

Our moonlit communion is soon coming to a close, but an outro shall be sung in a few moments.

But now, behold! “You rip out the tooth, its blood gleaming with opportunity.” Continue the sermon, through word or rhyme. Show us the darkness roiling in your soul.

#HorrorWritersChat

Artwork by Heesuk Kim, featuring an ominous cathedral under a pearly white moon and darkened skies. It’s windows are stained blood red.

Question Four

The Cabal offers you a passage: "You rip out the tooth, its blood gleaming with opportunity." Continue the sermon, with story, or rhyme. Depends on you.

No links, covers, or self promo! Leave that for the end. Quote the post & include the hashtag!

#HorrorWritersChat

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14d

Right? My fear as well.

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14d

A.3) To break free, the victim must carve out the one memory they cherish most and burn it to ash. The sacrifice isn’t blood, but love—the hollow ache of knowing they chose oblivion over remembrance.

#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

There is great power in subduing a wretch with a curse and a hex… but there is even greater power in the delusion of freeing yourself from them. Tell the Cabal what would the victim have to… remove… cut out… shear, if you will… from themselves to be free?

#HorrorWritersChat

Artwork by Heesuk Kim, featuring an ominous cathedral under a pearly white moon and darkened skies. It’s windows are stained blood red.

The Cabal inquires the depths of your cruelty... what would the victim have to sacrifice to free themselves of a curse/hex? How much would you demand of them? How painful would the sacrifice be?

No links, covers, or self promo! Leave that for the end. Quote the post & include the hashtag!

#HorrorWritersChat

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14d

I hope you do! I’d love to check your stuff out because I LOVE Appalachian set horror. Such a vibe.

Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14d

A.2) leaning into my own fears, my curse would be memory rot. Each dawn, the victim forgets something vital—a face, a voice, a name—until nothing remains. To cast it: their name on paper, drowned in river water, left under a dying tree. The pain is not death, but erasure.

#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

The Cabal is pleased with our worldly tendrils woven about this earth. But enough introduction; it is time for supernatural predilection. Tell us – what curses and hexes would you cast? What would they *need* to be cast? What… pain… would they unleash upon your victims?

#HorrorWritersChat

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Reposted by Ryan Thomas LaBee

J. Neira @jneiraauthor.bsky.social · 14d

Hoi! I'm J. Neira, a cozy horror author & slush reader for Graveside Press. & I'm from rural Minnesota but this week I'm in Mexico with my mom's family.
A curse which changes my personality is way more disturbing to me than one which causes physical harm. 😱
#HorrorWritersChat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

The Cabal welcomes you in tonight’s vengeful proclamations. Tell us, from where do you cast, what do you cast, and most importantly… what curse, or hex, is the most frightening to you?

No promotion! Only afterwards… or every food you’ll eat will sharpen into glass shards!

#HorrorWritersChat

Artwork by Heesuk Kim, featuring an ominous cathedral under a pearly white moon and darkened skies. It’s windows are stained blood red.

Question One

The Cabal inquiries introductions... tell us who you are, where are you from, and what curses & hexes are the most frightening to you?

No links, covers, or self promo! Leave that for the end. Quote the post & include the hashtag!

#HorrorWritersChat

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Reposted by Ryan Thomas LaBee

Eryn McCee @erynmccee.bsky.social · 14d

Going to try to do this in between edits and commute back!
I cast ... yeah let's not go there.
What hex or curse scares me most? The one done by someone who doesn't know what they are doing 😃

#HorrorWritersChat

And HIIIIIII Greeeeeeeee

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

The Cabal welcomes you in tonight’s vengeful proclamations. Tell us, from where do you cast, what do you cast, and most importantly… what curse, or hex, is the most frightening to you?

No promotion! Only afterwards… or every food you’ll eat will sharpen into glass shards!

#HorrorWritersChat

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Ryan Thomas LaBee @ohthatryan.bsky.social · 14d

Oooof… yeah.

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Reposted by Ryan Thomas LaBee

E. D. Jones (he/him), author and weirdmaster of Write Sinister @sinister42.bsky.social · 14d

Hello, Cabal. I'm E. D. Jones. I write horror, weird fiction, sci-fi, and urban fantasy, often with a bit of humor. The scariest curse would be one that screws with my perception of reality, so that I don't know who I am, where I am, or what threats lie in the darkness. #horrorwriterschat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

The Cabal welcomes you in tonight’s vengeful proclamations. Tell us, from where do you cast, what do you cast, and most importantly… what curse, or hex, is the most frightening to you?

No promotion! Only afterwards… or every food you’ll eat will sharpen into glass shards!

#HorrorWritersChat

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Reposted by Ryan Thomas LaBee

Rebecca Cantrell @rebeccacantrell.bsky.social · 14d

Rebecca Cantrell at a cauldron in Hawaii, bubbling up dark chants. The whole concept of curses and hexes is frightening--death and disaster out of the blue with no way to fight back and all control in the hands of your enemy. #horrorwriterschat

Gree_ @greethewriter.bsky.social · 14d

The Cabal welcomes you in tonight’s vengeful proclamations. Tell us, from where do you cast, what do you cast, and most importantly… what curse, or hex, is the most frightening to you?

No promotion! Only afterwards… or every food you’ll eat will sharpen into glass shards!

#HorrorWritersChat

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