Our pulse quickens. Our eyes grow wide. We gasp for breath, shudder, and shrink back into our seats. Horror readers—and writers—are a true contradiction. As our favorite genre hurls us mercilessly into our deepest childhood frights, feeds us to monsters, and speeds us headlong into destruction and death, we’ve never felt more alive. What is it about wandering through words, away from the safety of the light, into the terrors of the darkness, through dizzy twists of the unknown, and deep into the sinking, sucking path of the eerie which delights us so? Is it the exhilaration of facing down our nightmares and emerging victorious at story’s end? Are we addicted to the heady rush of adrenaline surging into our bloodstream? Are we just a bunch of ghouls who thrill to the grisly and macabre? Yes, yes, and yes. We are all of that and more. We’re whatever you like, as long as the scares keep coming.
by Jen Sexton-Riley, Editorial Assistant