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SMNTY Classics: Women Writing Horror · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff I've Never told you production of
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: iHeart Radio, and we are back with another classic. I
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: think it is October now, I mean, who knows when
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: you're listening to it, but I think it's October when
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: it comes out, which means we're going to be releasing
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: some of our classic spooky content.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: And this one I loved. This one was a really
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: good one.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: We did about women who are writing horror, who have
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: been writing horror. And one of the reasons I love
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: it is because at the end we had a list
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: of recommendations and we've read some of those books now
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: for our book club.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: But also I love it because we did a dramatic reading.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: We are so good at this.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it, though, I mean perhaps obviously it's
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: like right up my alley, but I really really enjoy it.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: And as always, listeners, if you have like a clue
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: into anything in the public domain that we could do
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: like that, we really enjoy doing it, So just let
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: us know, just let us yes, But in the meantime,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Anny and Samantha,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: and welcome to Steph. I never told your production of iHeartRadio, Samantha.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: You know what the scariest thing you've ever read is?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: You know what? I used to scare the hell out
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of myself with the scary stories in the dark. Yeah,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I would. I would read all the
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: stories and then not sleep for days. But yeah, yeah.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: My old roommate and I, Katie she in college, we
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: were like the sweetest, dorkiest nerds and during October we
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: would light our little Jacqueline and like the little Baby
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: one and we would take turns reading those to each other.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, you read it that loud. I don't know if
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I can the imagination alone, like for me to see
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: in my head because one of some of the stories,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: like the ribbon around her next story, really figuring out
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the which stories, always freaking out the banchee banchee. Oh
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: my goodness, I was petrified. That obviously still resonates with me.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: And I know there was a movie. Have you seen
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the movie for it?
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I have seen the movie.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Is it worth it? Uh?
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: It depends on what your level of worth it is.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I don't want to rule in a great, great memory
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and great book though I don't.
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  Speaker 2: Think it would do that. But it's definitely kind. It
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: didn't scare me at all. I was also very very
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: drug drink responsibly when I saw it in theaters and
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I had to rewatch it because I was like, maybe
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I just wasn't in the right place, and I was like, no,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the story didn't really make sense to me. But I mean,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: if you have the option and it's streaming anywhere, I'd
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  Speaker 2: say go for it.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it'll ruin it for you.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: What is it something that you've read that's super scary.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I was very very scared by pet Cemetery by Stephen King.
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  Speaker 2: I remember reading it and just like lying awake and
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: not really sure why I was so scared. And I
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: think that's what he does really well, is he just
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: sets like a atmospheric tone and you can't really pinpoint
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: why you're so scared. But actually, the scariest thing I
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: ever read, and this is so so me as a
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Silent Hill fan fiction that like, to this day I
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: think of it and.
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  Speaker 3: I just my mind is like, don't even think about it.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Oh no, it scared me so bad.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yep, all right, now, I've never I've.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Never even read a Silent Hill fan fiction since really, Yeah,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: it scared me. Yeah, have you ever written anything like horror?
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: No? I am more like so my if I were
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: to write anything, my genre would be a little more
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: like Southern Gothic tragic type of thing and so not
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  Speaker 1: necessarily scary.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, we are talking a lot about Gothic today.
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  Speaker 1: I love gothic stuff for sure.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you typically why you think scary? I know you
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: do the really sad stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my go to is sad. Yeah, but I
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: have written. I wrote a book called Silence, and it
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: was I mean, it was pretty typical, like it was
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: about a therapist who's like through her sessions realizing something's
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: very wrong in this town. And then recently I wrote
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: there's a new podcast coming out called Thirteen Days of Halloween,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and I wrote thirteen stories because I'm an overt or
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  Speaker 2: a masochist.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know. They only chose one. I was only
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  Speaker 3: supposed to do one.
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  Speaker 1: Say did they say write one? And then you wrote
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  Speaker 1: thirteen and sent them all to them?
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they were like, Okay, this is great, but
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: we have a lot of stuff to go through, so
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  Speaker 2: rank them.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Annie, any Annie, You're an editor's nightmare.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: I know, I know, believe me. Do I know that?
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: So look out for that. It should be interesting. Again.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: My story is called red VELVIDI Yes it's a good one.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, today we were talking about women in horror
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: writing horror because yes, it is October and I just
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: love things that are scary and I'm always ready to
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: talk about these things. And disclaimer for we're gonna give
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of examples in this episode, but we have
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  Speaker 2: not read them all. We have not read all the
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: examples we're gonna cite, and cannot speak for their depiction
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: of women, race, queer, ableism, all that intersexual stuff. Also,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: we are focusing largely on horror written in the Western world,
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  Speaker 2: but I would absolutely love to come back and do
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: another one looking at horror in different places.
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  Speaker 3: In women writing horror, I.
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  Speaker 1: Bet it'd be so interesting. The legends that they have
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  Speaker 1: and the kind of like the folklore that's behind those legends.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear about that me too. It's
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: like things like agin, Oh my goodness, that's very stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And if any listeners has anything we should pursue
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: in that area, or any examples to share with us,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, please send them in.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and just to put this in there we
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: are for our monthly reading. Just to go ahead and
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: let everybody get a heads up reading The Bloody Chamber.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, which is by a female horror writer.
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  Speaker 3: Who is it, Angela Carter?
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: You always like Alicia Watts. Nope, give me our new name.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So we were reading The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter,
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  Speaker 1: which is an older horror story. So if you want
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to pick that up and join us, just to let
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: you know.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's pretty short. Neither of us have read
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: it before, so we're going to go on this journey together.
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  Speaker 2: Who knows what it will be like. It was recommended
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: to me by actually past host Kristen Caroline mentioned it
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  Speaker 2: in one of their episodes, so I'm excited to check
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: it out. But in the meantime, all right, let's talk
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: about women in horror fiction and what exactly is horror fiction.
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  Speaker 2: It turns out that that's sort of a difficult thing
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  Speaker 2: to pin down. Some people say it's more of an emotion,
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  Speaker 2: more of a feeling, than a definition. One of the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: founders of the Horror Writers Association, Robert McCammon, tried to
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  Speaker 2: define it in nineteen eighty six, though with this, horror
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  Speaker 2: fiction can be a guide through a nightmare world entered
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  Speaker 2: freely and by the reader's own will. And since horror
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  Speaker 2: can be many many things that go in many many directions,
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  Speaker 2: that guided nightmare ride can sho educate, illuminate, threaten, shriek,
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  Speaker 2: and whisper before it lets the readers loose.
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  Speaker 1: We I like that, And as we've talked about time
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  Speaker 1: and time again, horror is often a reflection of what
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  Speaker 1: we fear on a societal level. And because we are
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  Speaker 1: so afraid of women and women's bodies, as we recently
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  Speaker 1: talked about, women are definitely tied to the genre. It
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  Speaker 1: makes sense that women authors have been pioneers and writing
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  Speaker 1: horror fiction. Despite this, many of the authors that get
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  Speaker 1: lifted up as the best in horror are, of course men.
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  Speaker 1: And if you look at horror anthologies, out of fifteen stories,
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  Speaker 1: maybe one to three are written by women, which is
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  Speaker 1: so unfortunate if any of them are at.
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  Speaker 2: All, right, And I think if you ask the average
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  Speaker 2: person to name three authors who are writing horror, they
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  Speaker 2: would probably all be men.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. The top ones in my head, for
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  Speaker 1: sure come up as men.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And many of the accounts of women writing in horror
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  Speaker 2: describe not only having difficulty getting published, but this layer
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  Speaker 2: of over analysis when it comes to subtext, both from
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  Speaker 2: the reader and the writer.
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  Speaker 3: A woman can't just write horror. It has to have
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  Speaker 3: some hidden man hating.
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  Speaker 2: Theme, even if that's not there, like, that's fine if
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  Speaker 2: it is, but people just assume. And therefore it's like
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  Speaker 2: women's literature as opposed to horror. And not only that,
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  Speaker 2: there's this question of what kind of woman would write horror.
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  Speaker 2: Women describe being judged as weird or disturbed if they
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  Speaker 2: were writing horror, whereas male authors would be viewed as
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  Speaker 2: cool or brave, like bucking the system, and these judgments
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  Speaker 2: following them to job interviews. At least one account said
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  Speaker 2: she an interviewer had found that she'd written this horror
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  Speaker 2: story and there was definitely already this layer of well
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  Speaker 2: I don't know about this woman.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Horror stories or stories mean to bring a sense
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  Speaker 1: of fear. I've been told for as long as people
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  Speaker 1: have been telling stories, and those are the best stories,
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  Speaker 1: the ones that kind of become legends. And a lot
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  Speaker 1: of these first horror stories weren't told for fun necessarily,
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  Speaker 1: but as of course cautionary tales don't go alone in
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  Speaker 1: the dark, or you might get eaten. They may also
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  Speaker 1: feature a creature, witches or ghosts to explain things that
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  Speaker 1: people don't understand at that time. Do people understand those
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  Speaker 1: things at this time? Do we really understand creature witches were?
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Well, no, it's just sort of like, you know, like bansheese.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: They think was that sound coming from swamps? Or maybe
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  Speaker 2: it was a screech owl? Yeah, but of course it's
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  Speaker 2: bancheese now that too. Though to be fair, I do
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  Speaker 2: assume ghost first almost always.
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  Speaker 1: As you know, Samantha, I think you're correct. We're definitely haunted.
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  Speaker 1: These stories make up a great deal of our foundational
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  Speaker 1: folk stories, which again we would love to hear the
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  Speaker 1: international levels because I can't imagine like how it transitions
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  Speaker 1: from culture to culture. And ancient Greek tales told of witches, vampires,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and monsters, yes, and so did religious texts, which we
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: know maybe more like demons and such.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: One of my favorite things I've ever learned is that
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  Speaker 2: almost every culture has a vampire legend, and almost everyone,
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  Speaker 2: I think, in everyone except for one vampires don't like garlic.
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  Speaker 2: And all these stories came separately, like originated in separate
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  Speaker 2: places at separate times.
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  Speaker 1: Fascinating h.
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  Speaker 2: Horror for horrors or curiosity's sake, emerged in Western literature
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  Speaker 2: in the eighteenth century with the Gothic novel seventeen sixty
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  Speaker 2: four novel The Castle Otranto by Horace Walpole often gets
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  Speaker 2: the credit for cementing the genre's legitimacy. So maybe not
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the first book or the first short story, but the
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: first one people were like, oh, this is a.
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  Speaker 3: Book and it deserves respect.
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  Speaker 2: At the same time, and France we see the rise
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  Speaker 2: of Roman noir, black novels and German shutter novels, which
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  Speaker 2: I love. And women have been writing horror since the
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  Speaker 2: very beginning, but they haven't always gotten the attention or
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: the credit. And we'll get into that and some famous
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: historical examples after we take a quick break for word
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: from our sponsors.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: And we're back.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Thank you sponsor.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's get into history. Historically, a lot of
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  Speaker 1: horror written by women has been lost to time and
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: not preserved in the same way mel works were, of course,
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  Speaker 1: and many of these works were not discovered until long
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: after the author's death, usually when a male writer of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: acclaim highlights the story some of these authors are believed
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: have literally starved to death. However, it was not all
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: doom and gloom. A lot of women succeeded in the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: realm of writing horror, particularly gothic horror, as the genre
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: emerged in gang popularity.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: And this popularity was only possible due to the introduction
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: of new technologies that allowed for the printing of cheap
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: magazines and newspapers. To distribute these stories to a wider
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: audience and to fill these pages required a lot of stories,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: and in the early days, women were largely the ones
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: providing these stories. It was an appealing career path for
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  Speaker 2: women who didn't have a lot of opportunities at the time.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Though the world of publishing was largely dominated by men,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: women could still get works published by writing under a
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: gender neutral or masculine sounding pen name, or anonymously or
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: with a missus so people knew you had.
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  Speaker 3: A husband to keep you in line. You weren't such
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  Speaker 3: a big threat.
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  Speaker 2: And not to say that some women didn't do those things.
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  Speaker 2: It was just easier to get published by doing those things.
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  Speaker 2: Not only that, strict genres weren't so much a thing yet,
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  Speaker 2: so there was a lot of freedom to try all
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: kinds of stories, like you could write a horror story
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  Speaker 2: one day and a romantic story the other day, and
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: nobody really questioned, oh, you should stick to your line.
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  Speaker 3: And these women did.
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  Speaker 2: Even within the horror genre ghosts where wells, vampires, banshees,
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: cosmicd mad scientists, dark dread inducing stories, Several of the
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: horror stories written by women from this time did include
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: feminine themes womanhood, social and class movements, feminism, domesticity, motherhood, children, childlessness,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: and the self worth of childless women. All this stuff
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: in these early horror stories. Examples include What Was the
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Matter by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Dream Baby by Olivia
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Howard Dunbar, The Giant Wistaria by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Wind in the Rosebush by Mary Wilkins Freeman, Twilight by
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Marjorie Bowen, Transmigration by Dora Sigerson Shorter, and so so,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: so many more. A lot of these are in the
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  Speaker 2: public domain, by the way, if you'd like to go
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: check them out. At this time, most horror stories were
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: written by women. The Gothic genre owes its existence to women,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: and the audience was primarily women too. In the early
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: days of its existence, Gothic horror was dismissed as essentially
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: chick lit, which still problematic to dismiss chick lit.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, neither is good. Neither is good. So many of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: these women were able to support a family and fairly
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: quickly by writing, especially in the wake of a loss
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: of a husband who previously provided support. Anne Radcliffe, who
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: wrote primarily gothic fiction, was a top paid author in
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the seventeen nineties. Her most famous work was a supernatural
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: tale following a female protagonist in a castle called The
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Mysteries of Udolpho. Some consider this the first bestseller, which
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: maybe that should be on our list. Most of her
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: works did focus on dynamic, interesting female characters, which of
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: course was a rarity for the time, which even is
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: a rarity to this day. For some unknown reason, she
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: stopped writing at the age of thirty two, and there's
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: several probably untrue stories around her life and death, which
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: is even better like I'm like how do you not
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: love that? Like?
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Or of mystery around her.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So from see you in y Brooklyn quote. Little was
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: or is known about Radcliffe's life, so not surprisingly apocryphal
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: story sprang.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Up about her.
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  Speaker 1: It was reported that she had gone mad as a
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: result of our dreadful imagination and been confined to an asylum.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: That she had been captured as a spy in Paris,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: or that she ate rare por chop before retiring to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: stimulate nightmares for her novels, and several times she was
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: falsely removed to be dead.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Sounds like a fascinating woman.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, why have we not talked about her? We
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: talked about Emily Dickinson all the time with her pasts.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to know why did people think she.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Was a spy in Paris?
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: That is such a stretch from eating raw pork.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: To have nightmares. And I also just love dreadful imagination.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: That's so good.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: It's so good.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: But okay, no history of women writing horror would be
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: complete without mentioning Mary Shelley. In eighteen eighteen, Shelley published Frankenstein,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: a novel that continues to influence our pop culture to
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: this day.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: I was thinking about this.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It had such a huge impact, you still, like, I
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: still hear it mentioned, like just recently I heard it
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: on a like late night talk show, And then I
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: was thinking about Darth Vader in because of Forset in
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Revenge of the Sith and how when he comes to life.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's like Rankenstein.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's still and it's still a popular costume. Like
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it has lived for sure. Oh yeah, it loves on
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that one.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Shelley was eighteen when she wrote this, and allegedly she
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: wrote it in response to Lord Byron's ghost story challenge.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: So this is kind of a legendary tale in itself
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: that after Rain kept Byron and Shelley inside with three
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: other vacationing friends, they told each other ghost stories, and
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: then Byron was like, I challenge all of the to
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: write a scarier ghost story than these, and she and
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: one other person did. The fact that this was written
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: by a woman did cause surprise is no one, I'm
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: sure a fair share of controversy in its day. The
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: British Critics eighteen eighteen review of the book claimed quote,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: it is no reason why we should, and we shall
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: therefore dismiss the novel without further comments.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, excellently, said Samantha, so verbose you are still The
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: book was successful and earned her the nickname the Mother
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: of Horror, which is an excellent nickname. Many consider this
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: the first science fiction novel, an epic pseudoscience tale about
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: a monster destroying its creator.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: That fateful rainy.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Day, by the way, also allegedly led to Paul Dory's
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: The Vampire or the Vampire perhaps in eighteen nineteen, and
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty six movie Gothic. And there's also the
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: movie Mary Shelley. Rulu keeps telling me I should watch?
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Is that the one with Julia Roberts.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: There's probably more than one, this one. I think this
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: one has Ellie Fanning.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Oh well, there's one recently.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: It's like twenty thirteen. Oh wow, look at that.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And I think al Pacino, No, no, no, al Pacino
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Robert de Niro is one of them. Two wow girl, Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: So in the nineteenth century, Irish writer Charlotte Riddle turned
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: out several short stories and novella's, primarily about ghosts and
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: haunted house. Originally she published under masculine pen names like S. G.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Trafford and RVM Sparling, and she was quite prolific and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: popular at the time, and she started writing as a
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: means to support her mother, which is even better.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And we have Marie Correlli. She was the top paid
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: author in the eighteen nineties. Writing was one avenue that
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: women could receive pay equal to men's, particularly if their
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: pen name was again anonymous or allowed people in some
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: way to believe that they were men. Two women who
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: turned to writing out of dire financial need later became
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: someone the most well known of the time, Charlotte Perkins
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Gilman and Francis Hodgson Burnett.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And we can't forget two of my favorites, Emily and
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Charlotte Bronte, who wrote Weathering Heights and Jane Eyre and
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: yes read both of them. Jane are is probably my
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: favorite on top on the other hand, but it's delightful
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and our classic examples of the Gothic pieces from this
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: period and very haunting.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, lots of atmosphere, so.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Much atmosphere, how many with names like Hathecliffe come on
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and fire, so many fires. But anyway, people were really
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: concerned about women reading this material. I think it was
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: mentioned in the fan fiction two parter right.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they were worried that it was giving us
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: emotions of.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: So many emotions. Jane Austin's eighteen seventeen worked Northhangar Abbey
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: mockd women's love of these books. I will say there
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: was this weird rival against the Bronte sisters at Austin.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: There was because I love both of them, all of them.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I love all of them. But she did mock the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: love of these books, with protagonist Katherine Morland imagining all
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: sorts of monsters thanks to reading too many horrid books
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and giving to her feminine curiosity. The idea slowly to
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: call that women were way too fragile for horror and gothic,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of course, and a genre that had once been perceived
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: as feminine was masculinized. The anxiety wasn't confined to women
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: reading it, but to women writing it, as a lot
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: of the themes consciously or not reflected anxiety around the
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: patriarchy and were feminists in nature Oh no, yeah, oh.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: No, indeed.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: And there was also a layer of oh, you poor thing,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: like you're silly enough that you'll believe this, Yes, you're
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: not smart enough to know that this is in reality.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: The link between feminism and horror strengthened by the end
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: of the eighteenth century, and women writers use their stories
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: to critique society and push for social change, particularly around
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: issues like motherhood, health, and hysteria. Despite the plethora of
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: examples of women's short stories, Gothic novels written by men
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: are what we remember from this period.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: I had a really hard time.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Obviously, there are plenty of examples, but when I went
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: to just a page that was highlighting I'd say probably
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: one hundred, almost all of them were men, no joke.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: There are several reasons why this could be.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Perhaps novels receive more respect and attention than short stories,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: perhaps because these stories dealt with women's and social issues,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: and thus we're categorized as women's writing instead of Gothic
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: our heart, which again is a problem that remains to
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: this day. But the point is women were there at
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: the very beginning, and they were writing most of us,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and then until society was like, nope, that's not ladylike and.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Men should do it.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And now it's a respected genre because men are doing
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: it and should be paid more for it. Right, yep, absolutely,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Well that's about our history. But we do have some
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: more modern day examples we wanted to share with you.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: But first we have one more quick break for a
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: word from our sponsor, and we're back.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Thank you sponsor.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: So Unfortunately, in our more modern times, there are still
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: more men writing horror than women, but there are women
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: producing some amazing stuff, and this is slowly changing that
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: it's not super weird that women are writing horror, And
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: we thought we'd leave you with a few examples if
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: you want to check them out, starting with Shirley Jackson,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: who wrote things like The Haunting of Hill House, which
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: I know a lot of you probably familiar with the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Netflix show, Daphne du Maurier, whose works were adapted into
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: films twelve times, including several by Hitchcock, like The Birds
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: and Nicholas Roeggs Don't Look Now, which we mentioned in
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: our which is episode about hocus Pocus and the Witches.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Joyce Carol Oates, a Pulitzerprise wedding author who has written
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: over one hundred books.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Right, of course, Octavia Butler, who you love?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love Octavia Butler. Yes, it's one of the
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: few times woll no, that's not true at all. I
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: was going to say, it's one of the few times
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: that in assign book became one of my favorite books.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I've actually generally liked every book I've been assigned to read,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: but I was assigned to read some of her books
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: in college, her science fiction books, and I loved them
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: and I still love them to this day.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And she has a lot of horror in
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: her science fiction, which I do feel like go hand
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: in hand oftentimes. And she frequently addressed the horrors of
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: systemic racism in her work, which is awesome as needs
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to be aweso an Anami author. Things like The Body
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and now You're one of us Lisa Tuttle, which, by
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the way, I thought you were saying Lisa Turtle, and
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I was really caught up and slayed by the bill anyway,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Lisa Tuttle and eighties horror fiction writer who also wrote
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Encyclopedia of Infeminism, Yeah, which we might need to read.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Then there's Linda Addison, who in two thousand and
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: one became the first black woman to be awarded the
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Bram Stoker Award for her work Consumed Reduced to Beautiful
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Gray Ashes, And in twenty seventeen, the Horror Writers Association
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: shows her for their Lifetime Achievement Award, which is in
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: the horror world that's like the tough Yeah.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Also, I'm just gonna put out.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: There, I tried to get to the bottom of I
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: don't know, have you heard the rumor that branch Stoker
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: didn't really write Dracula but a woman did?
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, actually did.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I tried to get to the bottom of that, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I could not find the answer. But we are aware
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Right. There's also like the rumor, well not the rumor
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: that yes, he did write it, but because it was
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: legend and had already been there, that there were other
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: rights that he took from.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right, very r right. Yeah, we mentioned it.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that feels like centuries ago in our serial
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Killer episode because we talked about kind of the inspiration
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: around right, and there was a woman behind that, right, but.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Anyway, Uh.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: There's also Karma Karmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: and other Parties. And then there's Tanana Reevedo, who, on
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: top of writing horror, also teaches classes on it, including
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: a UCLA class called the Sunken Place, Racism Survival and
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Black Horror ascidic.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: We need her on the show, sounds awesome.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: And then there's Helen Oyaami, author of things like White
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Is for Witching and Icarus Girl.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Right, and I guess we should put in there. Anne
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Rice because yes, she did write many of the vampire series. Yeah,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and she's one of the probably more popular ones because
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: of those vampire series. As you know, Tomkus and Brad
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Pitt comes together to suce Kristen Steward. I don't remember.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Kirsten Dunst.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Oh whatever. See, there's so many vampire movies and I
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: love vampire genres. Please don't hate me. So but yeah,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Kristin Dunce there it is, and her young self. But yeah,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: so we have to put her in there because she
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: did she definitely create a whole level of sexy, sexy vampire.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Well no, I mean, vampire has always been sexualized, but
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: in this level when you have iconic stars like Tom
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Cruise and Brad Pitt playing the main characters, you can't help.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: But notice right, no, okay, I stop.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Now, I've never read an Anna Rice book, but I would.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would definitely say she would be one
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: of the first that if you were trying to list
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: popular horror writers people would think of her at first woman,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I would say a lot of times. And she did
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: do a lot to popularize specifically, Yeah, vampire horror.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: That's the whole series.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Yep, for all the older examples we mentioned, most, if
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: not all, of them, are featured in the book Weird
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Women Classics Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers eighteen fifty
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: two to nineteen twenty three by Leslie s.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Klinger and Lisa Morton.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: So you can go check that out too, And I'm
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: so happy.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: I feel like I have a whole repertoire books I
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: want to check out.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: No, yeah, for sure. I know. When we were talking
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: again about our monthly eating, You're like, I have a
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: whole list. I think we should read one of these.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, cool, cool, cool, let's do this.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I was reading the the synopsis for a
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: lot of these, and everyone I.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Was like, ooh ooh, I think that was good and original.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: For sure, I gotta do it. I gotta do it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And for this one, since it is October,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: we thought we would close out.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: With a reading.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, any what have been done to us?
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: A dramatic reading?
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's a dramatic Okay, here we go. Yeah, so
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: we are going to read from Mary Shelley's Rankenstein. So
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: go ahead and light your candle, sit in the dark,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: and here we go. So how we start? Yes, it
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: was on a dreary night of November that beheld the
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: accomplishments my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I collected the instruments of life around me, that I
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that lay at my feet. It was already one in
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the morning. The rain pattered dismally against the panes, and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: my candle was nearly burnt out, when by the glimmer
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: of the half extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: eye of the creature open. It breathed hard, and a
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: care I had endeavored to form. His limbs were in proportion,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: and I had selected his features as beautiful, beautiful, great God.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: arteries beneath. His hair was of illustrious black and flowing,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: his teeth of a pearly whiteness. But these luxuriances only
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes that
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: seemed almost of the same color as the dun white
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: straight black lips.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: The different accidents of life are not so changeable as
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing life
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: of rust and health. I had desired it with an
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: artword that far exceeded moderation. But now that I had finished,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the beauty of the dream vanished and breathless, horror and
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the beating I had created, I rushed out of the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: to compose my mind to sleep. At length, lassitude succeeded
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to the tumult I had buried endured, and I threw
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavoring to seek
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a few moments of forgetfulness.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: But it was in vain.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: I thought I saw Elizabeth in the bloom of health,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: walking in the streets of Ingolstadt, delighted and surprised, I
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: her lips, they became livid with the hue of death.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Her features appeared to change, and I thought that I
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: had held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: A stroud enveloped her form, and I saw graveworms crawling
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: in the folds of the flannel. I started from my
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: sleep with horror. A cold dew covered my forehead. My
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed. When by the
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: the curtain of the bed, and his eyes, if eyes
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: opened and he muttered some and articulate sounds, while a
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: did not hear. One hand was stretched out seemingly to
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: where I remained during the rest of the night, walking
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: up and down in the greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: and fearing each sound as if it were to announce
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: the approach of the demonaical corpse to which I had
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: so miserably given life.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, no mortal could support the horror of that countenance.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: A mummy again, and dude with animation, it could not
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: be so hideous as that wretch I had gazed on
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: him while unfinished. He was ugly then, But when these
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes I poll speak so
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: quickly and hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: At others I nearly sank to the ground through languor
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: and extreme weakness. Mingled with this horror, I felt the
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: bitterness of disappointment. Dreams that had been my food and
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: pleasant rest for so long a space were now become
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: a hell to me. And the change was so rapid,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: the overthrow so complete. Finn plas Pla Samantha.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I remember reading this in my ninth or tenth grade
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: AP English class, and loving, loving, because we did literature. Yeah,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: European literature as r EP English class I think, and
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I loved this book and loved everything about this book
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: because it was so different. Don't get me wrong, I
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: still love Jane Austin, I still love the Bronte Sisters,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: but this one was unique in itself. It was so Yeah,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: it was so small, it was a short read, but
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: it was perfect.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I like how it's structured too, with different like there's
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: letters being written to different people and the point of
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: view switches. And yes, this is in the public domain,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: so if you would like to read it, you absolutely can,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: and we hope that that gave you a little taste
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: of something spooky for the season. If you have any
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: horror book suggestions or short stories or whatever, please send
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: them our way. Our email is Stuffidia Mom Stuff at
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Instagram at
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Stepmom Never Told You, are on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Andrew Howard.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Happy Halloween, and.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: Thanks to you for listening. Steph.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: I've Never Told You is a protection of iHeartRadio. For
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah,