I've seen the 'no Protestant horror' do the rounds and I just assumed everyone knew that there is, in fact, lots of Protestant horror and oodles of Protestant Gothic.

I can give some examples if people are interested? I'll just pluck out a few examples. Not a comprehensive thead

1) The VVitch

I'll start with this one because so many people have mentioned it. It's obviously a Puritan rooted horror, although Puritanism is not a source of knowledge and expertise here to defeat the devil... 1/

For anyone wondering about other methods of staying in touch with friends, lovers, colleagues and random acquaintances, the early Gothic has a range of excellent suggestions.

A thread of the best advice the Gothic has to give. 1/ 1) Hand-chisel your sentiments and thoughts in poem form in a local monument, tower or other stone structure. When your friend finds it accidentally months' later, it will resolve any and all questions that have arisen in the meantime.

100 Gothic Books - How many have you read?
🧵 Disclaimer: This isn't a canon. This isn't a 'should have read' list or a 'must read' list. It's literally a list of 100 Gothic or Gothic adjacent works that you may or may not have read! It's strongly influenced by my areas of expertise (18th and 19th century Gothic)

What a bunch of tedious edgelords replying to yesterday's thread. Yeah, big man, you make those students read detailed depictions of rape and violence in every book. That'll teach 'em. Something. What it'll teach them is unclear. But I'm sure it's something. I try not to be unkind or cutting on here. Yesterday really beat me down, though, seeing how much unkindness people are capable of. How dismissive people can be of these 'imaginary' students that I know as real people: lovely, valuable people worthy of respect and care.

Let me be as direct about this as I can.

Content notes/warnings allow students to be prepared for the texts they read.

This isn't a case of protecting 'lil baby students from bad words'. It's a case, for example, of preparing a rape victim for graphic depictions of rape. 1/

https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1557039603839803393

Content warnings aren't there for 'delicate snowflakes' to be 'protected from acknowledging the realities of anything they don't like'.

They are there to protect and prepare people who have all too real experience or relation to these topics. 2/

The amount of times in the early Gothic that people just get tired/really sad and lie on the floor... right in the middle of life or death situations.

It's probably one of my favourite ridiculous tropes. This brought to you by Hippolytus in 'A Sicilian Romance' who 'quite exhausted, sunk on the ground, and endeavoured to resign himself to his fate' while being pursued by bandits.

I'm seeing that call for a gothic romance anthology get a lot of shit. There might be some relevant critiques but there sure are a lot of people making it very clear they don't know that Gothic romance is its own (massive) subgenre with its own rules. How about an introduction? Just to be clear, I don't have any skin in the game in regards to the anthology. But I do care about Gothic romance. Did you know that it was one of the best-selling yet least critically recognised forms of the Gothic in the 20th century. I wonder why? (I know why) 2/

Guys... has anyone read 'The Chemist' by Stephenie Meyer because this is one wild ride and I feel like I have stepped into a parallel universe. Ok, let me take you on a journey with me. I'm about 160 pages in so I'll catch you up.

First, the premise of this book is that a professional (chemical) torturer is on the run after getting nixed by her department.

Yes, that's right. Our heroine is a professional torturer. 1/

Have you seen Romancing the Gothic's fantastic list of April talks? This month is focused on the eighteenth century and we have werewolves, erotica and William Godwin to offer! Check out the talks below.

Talks are

Free
Online
and
Open to All This week, on Sunday 10th April, we're joined at 10am and 7pm BST by Simon Clewes to talk William Godwin.

The talk is 'Reimagining the Paranoid Gothic: Productive Transgressions, Non-Reproductive
Desire, and Gender Non-Conformity in the Writing of William Godwin!'⬇️

Ok, so, would anyone be interested in a horror story about... potatoes? Potato horror... here we come! 🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔🥔

I'll let other people speak to the rest of this thread but let me be clear: yes, bullying horror writers is bad. No, TW aren't censorship, they're to allow informed choice especially for those whose trauma can be triggered.

This is a cool claim if true. But is it? Well, there are two distinct claims here. 1) 'No matter who you were, horror had something for you.' Suggesting an inclusive history for horror. Let's deal with that first, shall we?

I am doing some very dull non-fiction editing right now (changing referencing styles 😭) so if any would like to help distract me... They'll be from different WIPs and works. Just for fun :) From 'Revenge' and 'One Place' and current WIP

Earal

🗡️ Goddess but doesn't like the title
🗡️ Enjoys baking
🗡️ Everyone thinks she's the nice one
🗡️ Will literally rip out your spine with her bare hands if you kill her partner
🗡️ Amoral sapphic agent of vengeance

Romancing the Gothic has its first conference in November on Georgette Heyer and it's important that we do confront these aspects of the writer. These conversations are necessary. And we have papers, roundtables and discussions to hopefully do that.

https://twitter.com/bookhoarding/status/1403080928763645953

I think, for me, we have to start treating Heyer as we would any writer from history. That goes both ways. It means not dismissing romance writers and their work. It also means investigating them and their work with the rigour we demand of interactions with other writers.

Another thing to briefly brighten your morning. A little ode to how much I loved the @NationalTheatre version of Twelfth Night with Tamsin Grief (Marvolia), Oliver Chris (Orsino), Tamara Lawrence (Viola), Daniel Rigby (Andrew Aguecheek) and Adam Best (Antonio) The set work by Soutra Gilmour was inspired with a revolving staircase opening out into different scenarios. It led to a final scene where the stage revolves to show the different character endings. Gorgeous work.

Johannes often says the things the voice in the back of my head is crying.

When people talk about books being 'cancelled', they are often eliding the fact that by their standards (apparently inclusion on university courses or continuous publication) most books are 'cancelled' 1/

https://twitter.com/JohannesTEvans/status/1376281524195233804

Most books aren't taught. Most books aren't in continuous publication. Most books aren't on high school curricula. That's...millions of books.

So to suggest that not being published/on curricula/taught at university means a book is 'cancelled' is nonsensical 2/

I always thought it would be romantic. For hands to touch on the worn spine of a favourite book. Eyes would meet. Shy smiles. A hesitant laugh. A shared love of a favourite text... and then a slow burn stroll off into the sunset. 1/ Of course, in reality there was only one copy. A first edition. Jacket intact. When our hands touched there was no spark. Fingers became hooked claws, staking a claim. When our eyes met, hearts didn't soften. There was a feral gleam in her eyes and I knew that I was glaring. 2/

In Satan's telling, God becomes the petty tyrant resisting all challenges to his absolute power. Satan resists that power and will not be cowed by defeat or vengeance but stands with his fellows.

'Courage never to submit or yield:
And what else is not to be overcome?' Those verses make me tremble. They are so powerful and so beautiful. And it's no wonder that it is this image of Satan which was taken up in the 18th century and made Blake famously suggest that Milton was 'of the devil's party without knowing it'

There's a good couple of centuries at least of using Demonic imagery as a form of resistance, subversion and disruption and people are still coming for Lil Nas X with the most basic of takes. Using Satanic imagery isn't 'Satan worship' and it isn't evil. Some history. 1/ First up, lovely religious followers, if the imagery and content sits uncomfortably with your faith, that's ok. Just step away from it. I'll be giving a little history of demonic imagery and associated meanings but it might have a set theological meaning to you. 2/

If I ever get to design a course at a university, I swear this to you: I will write a course with not one single sodding text that includes sexual abuse, assault, rape or coercion.

NOT. ONE. It'll be a little oasis module. Come in, come in and be safe, my lovelies. Will we still talk about big themes? Will we still have complex conversations? Sure. Will I ask you to read or watch sexual assault? No. No, I will not.

My class on Paradise Lost and Frankenstein has got me thinking about the big questions in life, namely: Who is the sexiest Satan? Thread.

Let us being in 1847 with Alexander Cabanel's 'Fallen Angel'. A strong opening contender... I think of this one as 'pouty Satan'. A classic in the genre are the sexy Satan statues by the Geef brothers. One was too sexy and therefore discounted... so the next brother just made a sexier one. 2/

Took me about 5 minutes to stop rolling my eyes but I'm back now.

This does rather seem to lean into elitist attitudes which are all too common with (self-defined) 'literary' fiction patting itself on the back for how clever it is.

Let's get into it.

https://twitter.com/foliosociety/status/1325739661902405632

This study suggests that literary fiction readers is associated with more analytical competency and specifically in the field of assessing and understanding those around you.

Their findings seem compelling.

But there's a problem (or 10) 2/