A quartet of total high school assholes frame a fellow student with stealing class dues. Their teacher assigns community service for the frames student… and makes the asshole quartet join him. Their assignment: assist elderly folks who are living in a strange underground apartment complex that’s pretty much absolute squalor. But the elderly don’t live… Continue reading “mon mon mon MONSTERS” →

THE SUCKLING is bonkers. Playing like a horror film made on the fly by a few amateur pro-life filmmakers, this movie is one of the weirdest flicks I’ve seen in a while. It’s an anti-abortion missive wrapped up in a monster movie/exploitation film hybrid. A teenage couple get pregnant, and they decide to get rid… Continue reading “The Suckling” →

With an opening scene that plays like some community theatre production of a horror stage play adaptation of Hooper’s “Nighthawks,” ALONE IN THE DARK establishes his campy-creepy fucked up worldview with a flourish. Hard to imagine the film going any other way, with three dedicated scenery-chewers in the mix: Donald Pleasance, Martin Landau and Jack… Continue reading “Alone in the Dark” →

Two issues in to FLAVOR, and I’m already eager to see where Joseph Keatinge will take this world. This second issue doesn’t have quite the propulsive force of the first, but it introduces a few new narrative wrinkles — a new character, a secret past for Geof, and the secret black market of Fishmongers. Xoo… Continue reading “Flavor” Issue 2. →

The first horror movies I fell in love with were slashers. I don’t get many genuine scares from a slasher film (although the first time I watched Halloween, it legit scared the shit out of me), so I never went to them for that. The really lazy ones can be campy fun, but the ones that rise… Continue reading Slashers are resiliency stories. So is queerness. →

Yesterday, I got my first “Hey! We wanna publish your short story!” email. First moment response: “FUCK YEAH! This is awesome! Feels pretty good. Validating. I must be a pretty good writer!” Second moment response: “But it’s probably not a big deal, really. I don’t think a lot of people know this magazine. And getting… Continue reading Stop apologizing for success. →

I’ve been thinking about HEREDITARY all weekend. I really admire its ambition. It’s bonkers and it’s over the top and it sort of throws everything at the screen. Some of it succeeds brilliantly. Some of it doesn’t. I like that. It takes confidence to allow failure to be a part of your storytelling. To commit… Continue reading Make it weird. →

She slammed into the train car at 4:58. He knew, because he was on his phone, texting Claire that he’d made it on the 4:59 train from New Haven and would be in New York by 6:40. Claire wouldn’t answer. She would still be asleep. But she’d wake up and wonder, so he’d save her… Continue reading 4:59 →

Bearded Fruit is the queer politics and culture podcast I create with my husband, Neil. We were on an extended hiatus, but have returned to the mic. Hopefully, we will be delivering monthly episodes. Here’s our return episode: “Pride.”

Had the great pleasure to chat with the folks over at the Hybrid Author Podcast about community and collaboration. Give it a listen and hear all the stuff I’m up to, with my favorite collaborator, Alex Giannini. Give the show a listen here.

Everything you do today in support of your writing makes today a successful writing day.  You wrote 3,500 words. You wrote 35 words. You sent that one query letter. You fixed that paragraph that was bugging you in that short story. You spent an hour reading to refill your tank. You sat for fifteen minutes… Continue reading Hey Writers: The One Thing You Probably Need to Hear Today →

There’s a great metaphor woven through Stephen King’s “The Outsider”: the cut-open cantaloupe that’s filled with maggots. It’s a clever metaphor for the novel’s titular Outsider, a metaphor he extends to a ghoulish conclusion in the book’s last act. But in its less on-the-nose way, it’s about the unknowability of other people. The potential for… Continue reading Horror Marginalia: “The Outsider” →

Six strangers who are carpooling to mostly unknown destinations are derailed when a tire blows on a desolate stretch of highway. In changing it, they discover that the tire was actually shot by an unseen sniper somewhere out there in the landscape around them, and that sniper is out to kill them. There are some… Continue reading Horror Marginalia: “Downrange” →

I was a little older than the target market for Goosebumps, so they weren’t an integral part of my horror childhood. But my writing partner and I are tackling some middle-grade horror, so I dipped my toe into the R.L. Stine pond. I find them really charming books, delivering just the right mix of creepiness… Continue reading Horror Marginalia: “Goosebumps” →

When she walked by my table, I made a point to say something. “I like that bag. My grandmama has one like that.” I lied. I didn’t know my grandmama. She put her hand on the side of her bag and brushed across it, smiling. “That’s real sweet, mister. Thank you.” “Did you make it?”… Continue reading Story Pieces: “On the Death of John Wayne” →

One of the things I admire about Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) is its refusal to explain much of the film’s horrors. We don’t get any backstory for why the Family is batshit crazy. We don’t get an explanation for why Leatherface is wearing the faces and skins of other people (and, for that matter,… Continue reading Horror Marginalia: “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” & Who Deserves the Horror →

It’s not just the content of the program that counts. It’s why that content matters in your space.  A lot of what we create programmatically can happen at home. You can screen a film on Netflix. You can watch a YouTube video of an author discussing their book. You can do a craft project at your […]

This April, Root & Branch Productions in England will be producing 18 Victoria, my little “asteroid destroys the Earth” play. I’m excited to be working with them on the show. 

It’s important to devote energy to expanding the community of people you serve. But we can waste a lot of energy comparing our reach to the reach of other organIzations. Their success isn’t our failure. Maybe our neighbor organization is really killing it with college-age students. Obsessing about how we can replicate that success in-house … Continue reading Reach Who You Reach →

In arts programming, we don’t build audience. We build community.  Thinking about audience makes our programming transactional. It’s a one-off proposition: We make a thing. People come. We count the numbers. We’re done. Thinking about community makes our programming about relationships. It’s an ongoing proposition: We make a space. People come. We share experience. And we grow that relationship. Programming … Continue reading Don’t Build Audience – Build Community. →

Came across a fantastic clip of Issa Rae on Twitter this morning: this is by far the BIGGEST lesson I’ve learned this year! we can all eat/win if we work our inner circle. peer to peer ☝🏾@IssaRae pic.twitter.com/nEWLzQxWdo — creator in chief ✨ (@aleyarion) October 13, 2017 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Who’s next to you? Who’s struggling? Who’s … Continue reading Don’t Network Up — Network Across →

It’s really easy to say, “I should have the freedom to write whatever story I want, to write whatever characters I want, because I am a writer and that’s my work.” But your plays aren’t just about you. They have to exist in a real world with real people and real systems of injustice. Your … Continue reading →

When we’re talking about white privilege, we’re not talking about white people getting whatever they want because they’re white. (You still have to contend with other marginalizations, white people. Like social status, education, geography, income, ect.) We’re talking about white people working from the most advantageous place inside our biased systems. We’re talking about systems … Continue reading →