Hey, friends! I’ve got some exciting news.
I started a Substack!
Don’t worry, I’ll still be writing here for all things about my author journey and books and lit mags. But if you’re also interested in giving me a follow on Substack, you can now keep up with me there.
Monsters & Monologues is not your average author blog. We’ll be deep diving into our favorite literary monsters and finding out what makes them so terrifying. Whether it’s our fascination with Frankenstein or a variety of vampires, Monsters & Monologues will explore it all. I’ve got some super exciting articles and author interviews planned—I hope you’ll consider following along here.
For a little sneak peek of the first article, keep reading:
Everyone knows the story of The Girl with the Green Ribbon.
This story originates from European folklore in a time where beheadings were commonplace. During the French Revolution, at the introduction of the guillotine, stories about severed heads held fast by thin ribbons or stitches of thread became common fuel for ghost stories.
However, the version I suspect most of us are familiar with is the one that appears in the 1984 book, “In a Dark, Dark Room” by Alvin Schwartz. In the story, the protagonist, Jenny, always wears a green ribbon around her neck. On her deathbed, her husband, Alfred, unties the ribbon, revealing Jenny’s severed head.
At its baseline, the story is an eerie warning about the secrets we cannot see from the surface. The thought of a loved one having been a previously-dead corpse reanimated would be a shocking surprise to anyone, but more realistically, the idea of loving a person you never really knew is a horror of its own. For years, The Girl with the Green Ribbon has remained little more than a spooky children’s tale. My favorite rendition, though, comes with a modern feminist twist.
If you want to keep reading, you can find my first article here.
As always happy writing, friends! Thanks for your continued support of my writing endeavors. I hope the new year is being good to you all.
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