Tag H. H. Holmes

Fiction Fragments: Sara Tantlinger

Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week we had a visit from horror writer Cody Langille, and this week horror writer Sara Tantlinger joins Girl Meets Monster to share a fiction fragment and answer a few questions about why projects become abandoned sometimes and what inspires her fiction.

TantlingerSara Tantlinger resides outside of Pittsburgh on a hill in the woods. She is the author of the dark poetry collection Love For Slaughter, and her next collection, The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry inspired by H.H. Holmes will be out later in 2018 with Strangehouse Books. She is a contributing poetry editor for Oddville Press, a graduate of Seton Hill’s MFA program, a member of the SFPA, and an active member of the HWA. She embraces all things strange and can be found lurking in graveyards or on Twitter @SaraJane524 and at saratantlinger.wordpress.com

Three Questions

Girl Meets Monster: When did you start writing horror poetry and why poetry instead of short fiction or novels?

Sara: I first started writing poetry in middle school after my dad suddenly passed away. It was my go-to coping mechanism and really helped me get through a lot. Right around that time we started reading Poe’s “The Raven” in an English class, and from there I wanted to read everything Poe had written. There was something about poetry, about having to say a lot with a little, that really drew me into it before I ever wrote short stories or a novel.

My poetry had always been dark, but it wasn’t until my undergraduate years when I started studying creative writing that I realized I could hone my horror poetry into something publishable. I took an independent study in horror poetry with Dr. Mike Arnzen at Seton Hill my senior year and haven’t stopped writing it since! Studying all horror poems for a whole semester and how to submit them to journals and magazines was incredibly inspiring and I learned so much. I’ve been writing more short stories lately, but I’m glad I started with poetry because I have no doubt that it has greatly contributed to sharpening my prose over the years.

Girl Meets Monster: You have a collection inspired by H. H. Holmes coming out this year, what other dark historical figures inspire your fiction?

Sara: Yes! I’m so excited about the Holmes collection. It’s titled The Devil’s Dreamlandand I really enjoyed doing all the research for it. Holmes was definitely the first historical figure I invested that much time in. Otherwise, I love reading about twisted women from history like Elizabeth Bathory and Mary Tudor. I’ve also been reading a lot about Ranavalona I, who is sometimes referred to as the most murderous woman in history. She has a fascinating story and is often viewed as having an unspeakably cruel reign, but like with H.H. Holmes, it’s hard to discern what was really true or what was fabricated. Either way, I’m saving the inspiration from the supposed ways she executed people for a short story (or something longer) someday soon.

Girl Meets Monster: Do you have more unfinished poems or more unfinished short stories? What stops you from finishing a writing project?

Sara: I have so many unfinished projects! Not so much with poetry, but when it comes to short stories or longer prose projects, I am an expert at starting them and leaving them abandoned. Usually what stops me is that I have a particular ending in mind that I like, but I get tripped up around the middle and can’t quite make things happen or I feel like the story is getting boring and you never want that to happen. I’ve been getting a lot better with outlining projects and that has helped me get more short stories out this year, but I absolutely have fiction fragments all over the place and probably always will.

Fiction Fragment, by Sara Tantlinger

Sometimes they’re gentle, a sweet clinking of glass sounds that echo through the woods and entice me like a siren’s song. Tonight, as my clock ticks into the hour of demons, the distant and haunting wind chimes are not gentle.

There is rage in that melody of dancing shards, rage that echoes from the fierce shaking of the trees as a late summer storm rips through the rustling leaves. The gusts conduct and command the angriest symphony from the wind chimes that I have ever heard. And I have heard them all.

I think I hear Luna screaming for me in between those violent breezes, but Dr. Fawning calls this some fancy word I can never remember, but it basically means I am projecting my feelings into a manifestation of noise. That it is all imaginary, in my head – “It’s not real, Andi,” my psychiatrist repeats, she always wears tan suits, sometimes white. She reminds me of a Key deer, something small and rare, found only in one area, something endangered…

“You could even make the noises go away, Andi. You’re a smart girl with your whole life ahead of you, but you have to stop this obsession.”

Obsession, means Luna. And “You’re a smart girl” means You’re off your dang rocker, Andi. She says my name too much and doesn’t act the way I think a shrink would. I am not the hysterical woman Dr. Fawning wants me to be, even though she’s biased against her own sex. But I keep going back to see her.

I don’t have a choice. Just like when the wind chimes call from that place of night howls and clues buried in the dark, that place in the woods I can’t quite find, I don’t have a choice but to listen.

There’s something there, connected between the violent songs of glass and with Luna’s disappearance. And it’s not a projection or a manifestation. Fuck that damned doctor, what does she know. I just can’t quite remember what happened. My memories after the accident don’t always feel like my own thoughts and recollections. They’re weighed down, like drowning a puzzle with water. My corners and edges are mush, not quite fitting as I desperately try to jam the pieces back together.

Luna, my moonlight girl, keep screaming inside those wind chimes. I will find you.

Next week, fellow comic book enthusiast and Seton Hill alum Jessica Barlow will join us with a fiction fragment about a superhero. Do you have an unfinished story to tell? Drop me a line in the comments below or send your fragment to chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

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Fiction Fragments: C. R. Langille

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LangilleLast week, Patricia Lillie talked to Girl Meets Monster about the benefits of recycling abandoned writing projects. This week C. R. Langille joins me to share a fragment of his exceptional horror fiction. Cody is a fellow Seton Hill alum, and I always looked forward to reading his submissions when I was fortunate enough to be part of one of his critique groups. He writes wonderfully dark stories and illustrates dark words of monsters and mystery as if he vacations in them. If he ever decides to become a tour guide through the dark realms, I’ll be one of his first tourists.

C.R. Langille spent many a Saturday afternoon watching monster movies with his mother. It wasn’t long before he started crafting nightmares to share with his readers. An avid hunter and amateur survivalist, C.R. Langille incorporates the Utah outdoors in many of his tales. He is an affiliate member of the Horror Writer’s Association, a member of the League of Utah Writers, and received his MFA: Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University.  www.crlangille.com

Three Questions

Girl Meets Monster: What was the first story you read that really scared you?

Cody: The first story that I remember reading that really scared me, was Pet Sematary by Stephen King. I remember staying up way late and devouring that book and my mind started playing tricks on me when little noises would sound off in the house. I’d seen the movie first and it was creepy, especially that scene with Zelda…it always gave me the willies when she would call out for Rachel.

Girl Meets Monster: What was the inspiration for this fragment? And, do you usually begin writing when you get inspired to or simply out of habit? Do you have a solid writing routine?

Cody:  I got the inspiration to write this piece after listening to an audiobook chock full of urban fantasy mysteries. I can’t remember the name of that anthology, but it had some of the well-known greats out there like Butcher, Hamilton, etc… I wanted to try my hand at it, but put my own spin on the story. So I came up with my main character, Warwick, a war veteran suffering from PTSD as well as having to deal with the dead trying to trick him all the time. I try to follow a writing routine, but to be honest, lately it’s been tough. Life has gotten in the way and I just need to buckle down and show some good old fashioned discipline, especially for my novels. I generally write short stories when I get hit with inspiration.

Girl Meets Monster: Why did you stop writing this piece? Do you think you’ll finish it?

Cody: This story took a place on the back-burner because I was working on other projects. I will finish it sometime soon because I really like the setting, and I’d like to integrate the character into some of my other works.

Rocky Mountain Hocus, by Cody Langille

Lehi, Utah 1948

I’ve never liked dead bodies. They don’t shut up. I’d suggest not listening to them either. They’re not your loved ones or friends anymore. The simple fact of the matter is, once someone dies and their soul departs, it leaves a void. Sometimes things like to crawl into that void.

So don’t listen to whatever a dead body has to say. It will drive you insane, tell you lies, or try to trick you into doing something your mama wouldn’t approve of. This particular dead body liked to lie, and it was very chatty, which made it hard to concentrate.

I clutched the medicine bag that hung around my neck. As soon as I did, the thing’s voice fell away in a buzz and I could think straight. The rest of the world came into focus and I let out the lungful of air I’d been holding. This medicine bag was a godsend, a gift from a friend of mine in the war. His name was Two Feathers. He found me in the med-tent about to lose my mind because one of those things had crawled into the dead man in the bed next to me. Needless to say, the medicine bag made day-to-day business bearable.

I didn’t want to get too close to the thing. They get stronger the closer you get. Whatever lived in that body now must have been powerful, because the bag started to heat up hotter than my granddad’s wood burning stove in December. I let it fall to my chest.

“Nice try cowboy. Didn’t your mama tell you it’s rude to ignore people?”

I ignored it. Talking to it wouldn’t do anyone any good.

“We should ask your mama. She’s in Hell doing some awful nasty things.”

More lies. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the scene. I was looking for Herman West, a local carpenter and known chicken fighter in the area. He’d been missing, presumed dead, and I was supposed to find him. Finding dead bodies wasn’t a fun business, but one I had a knack for.

Next week, Sara Tantlinger joins Girl Meets Monster to talk a little bit about her new poetry collection inspired by H. H. Holmes. Would you like to be included in this blog series? Comment below, or send your fiction fragments to me at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Transformation: My First Tattoo

Michelle R. Lane Leave a comment

This weekend I got my first tattoo. This was no impulse body-modification trip to the tattoo shop after too many drinks. I made plans ahead of time with my friend, Dan, to go get tattoos together. Not only did we schedule our sessions a few weeks in advance, but we were both getting tattoos we had contemplated for nearly two decades.

Like myself, Dan is experiencing a time of growth and transition. I won’t go into the details of Dan’s journey, because it isn’t my place to do so. But I will say that his current path has allowed me to gain a treasured friend who is a constant source of strength and inspiration. He insists on showing me a good time when we’re together, and in many ways has gently nudged me to become an even better version of myself. This includes transforming my body through exercise, healthier eating, and now ink.

Dan lives in Pittsburgh, and had gotten his first tattoo from the same artist at Armature Tattoo Co.. First of all, it’s a beautiful shop with lots of interesting artwork on the walls (there’s a mixed media portrait of H. H. Holmes) and on the skin of the four tattoo artists – two men and two women. The shop is well lit, clean, and full of positive energy. I felt comfortable and welcome right away.

Originally, Dan was supposed to get tattooed on Friday night and I was supposed to get tattooed on Saturday night. But when we arrived, the tattoo artist, Jessi, talked to Dan about the fact that his tattoo would need a bit more time for layout and she wanted to suggest some changes to the original design. That meant I was going first. In hindsight, I’m glad things worked out that way, because I didn’t have time to build up any extra fears about getting tattooed. For years, people have been trying to explain what it feels like, but the only way you’re ever going to know is to get one yourself.

Did it hurt? Well, sure. But nothing like I anticipated. I’ve heard people compare getting tattooed to giving birth. Of course, these people have been men who have zero fucking clue what it feels like to have a period, much less the pain associated with labor. I don’t know what that feels like either, because I had a C-section when my son was born. However, I do know what an epidural feels like and the tattoo needle is nowhere near as large a gauge as an epidural needle that gets inserted into the base of your spine.

needle-gauge

To be honest, it was less painful than some of the dental work I’ve had done, and I chose a fleshy part of my body for my first tattoo. There’s quite a bit of blackwork, which was more painful than the line work, but in the hands of a skilled tattoo artist who also has a knack for interesting conversation, the experience was actually pleasant. What really surprised me was the fact that there were certain areas of my skin that felt pleasure in the midst of the pain. My emotional response wavered between joy and catharsis. And, even though the pain wasn’t overly taxing and my session only lasted about 45 minutes, I felt slightly fatigued. I wondered if it was a chemical reaction to continuous pain, regardless of how low-level it was. I mean, was adrenaline being released into my bloodstream in small doses? According to an article on tophealthnews.net, “This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Get A Tattoo!,” I was:

When needles penetrate your body, this is a form of trauma and your body responds in kind. Your Sympathetic Nervous System kicks your fight-or-flight response into gear in response to the pain. The result is a rush of adrenaline.

And, that weird emotional feeling I experienced was probably caused by the release of endorphins.

Endorphins, your body’s natural pain relievers, are also released. These chemicals come directly from the brain, flooding your body. When those endorphins are released, it’s a heady feeling that is sort of intense yet relaxing at the same time.

While fascinating, I wanted to talk less about the science of body chemistry in relation to getting tattooed, and more about why I decided to do it at this point in my life. And, why I chose the image that now decorates my skin.

Like I said, I am not Dan’s publicist, so if you want to know the story behind his tattoo(s), you’ll have to ask him. But, I can show you his before and after pictures from Saturday evening.

You’re probably thinking, “That’s a big fucking tattoo.” And, you’d be right. This first stage of Dan’s tattoo, an artistic spin on Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, took just over 3 hours, and two snacks from the coffee shop up the street, to complete. He has at least one more session to add details to this back piece, but possibly more sessions depending on how detailed he wants the final version to be.

During his 3-hour session, we made jokes about Francis Dolarhyde, the fictional serial killer from Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, since the character has an enormous back piece taken from William Blake’s The Great Red Dragon Paintings. We debated about watching Red Dragon, but settled for the first few episodes of season 1 of “Hannibal”.

So, now that you’re super impressed, and potentially creeped out about Dan’s tattoo, let’s talk about mine.

first-tattoo

I first saw the image in a book of essays that deconstruct the various versions of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, aptly titled The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, edited by Jack Zipes. The book is dedicated to the late Angela Carter, one of my writing heroes who happened to write one of my favorite stories about werewolves, “The Company of Wolves.” If you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest that you do. She is famous for her versions of fairy tales, rewritten with an adult audience in mind. If you’re looking for something new to read, and think you might enjoy some erotic literary fairy tales, I’d suggest stopping by your local library and picking up a copy of her collection of short stories, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.

I found Zipes’ book in the library at Hull University. I was studying abroad through an exchange program during my junior year of college, and lived in Hull, England for a year. While I was there, I started becoming more interested in myths, legends, fairy tales and folktales. About the same time I found Zipes book, I also was introduced to The Morphology of the Folktale, by V. Propp. The next thing I knew I was writing all these papers about rape narratives, and cannibalism, and other sexual taboos in fairy tales. That was nearly 25 years ago.

In that time, the meaning of the image has changed for me. When I first saw the drawing in Zipes’ book, I simply saw a woman being held by a werewolf. Sexy, right? I mean, vampires have their sex appeal, but there’s something deliciously primal about werewolves. Not only is the woman being embraced, rather than ravished in the image, but she appears to be happy about it. In fact, it looked as if she had found peace in his arms.

The original artwork was done by Catherine Orenstein (1990), who later wrote Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale. If you’ve ever read any of my other blog posts, you know that I have a special place in my heart for monsters. In fact, monsters can be extremely sexy. Werewolves embody the aspect of the psyche where our signals sometimes get crossed — fighting, fucking and eating all seem to serve the same purpose in the mind of the werewolf — pleasure-seeking at any cost. And the cost may be your life. But in Orenstein’s image, there’s something different happening. The woman isn’t just being held by the werewolf, she’s accepting it in all of its monstrous glory. If she is in fact accepting the werewolf, that also looks a lot like a shadow or darkness itself, brings to mind the idea of making peace with the darker parts of ourselves. Making peace with our demons.

This isn’t my first attempt at transformation in my life. I’ve been trying to reshape myself since I was 12 years old. Weight gain, loss, and regain has been a constant pattern in my life. A few years ago after I gave birth to my son, I lost 70 pounds on Weight Watchers. During one of my meetings I described myself as having a beast that lives inside me that wants to eat all the time. And, sometimes it gets out and loses control. Not unlike a werewolf. It was at this point that I searched for Orenstein’s drawing, because it had a new meaning. I considered getting it tattooed on my body then, but for some reason never went through with it. That was almost ten years ago.

me-tattoo

Back in April I rejoined WW, and since then I have lost 30 pounds. I’m proud of myself for doing that. And, I have made a commitment to myself to continue my journey. I am learning to accept myself — fat, wrinkles, white hair, and all. And, I am relearning what my body is capable of doing. I started running using the C25K app on my phone. I forgive myself when the scale goes in the opposite direction and shows a gain rather than a loss. I am not perfect. I never will be. And, I’m beginning to understand why that’s so fucking amazing. I love my demons. I embrace them. Make peace with them. And by doing so, I am learning to love myself. Now, when I look at the drawing, I see a woman accepting herself. And now is a perfect time for my skin, the skin I am becoming more comfortable in each day, to tell that story. This tattoo is a reminder of my strength. The progress I’ve made. And the journey yet to come. Of course, there will be days when I still do battle with my darkness, but now I’m going to own it and show it some love.