Dark, soulful tales that haunt long after the last page.
oklahoma
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Fighting Seasonal Depression with Hate
I entered the workforce at the age of 16. That was in 1982. I worked for the only McDonald’s Enid, Oklahoma, had at that time. I lasted three weeks, then moved on to another job. That’s 43 years of answering to someone else in order to make the money needed to survive. I’m tired of…
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The Story Behind the Story: What Inspired The Dead of the Day
Sometimes, a story grows out of a nightmare. Other times, it starts with something quiet. This one started on a dairy farm in Ripley, Oklahoma. I loved my grandfathers. Mom’s dad encouraged my love of Westerns, teaching me to make a lasso and giving me a stack of ancient Old West magazines. Dad’s dad ran…
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When Memory Fails, Do the Sins Stay?
What happens to a man’s soul when his mind is gone? It’s a question that haunted me long before I ever wrote The Dead of the Day. I’ve seen people I cared about fade slowly into the fog of dementia—forgetting names, faces, entire chapters of their lives. The body stays, the eyes still open, but…
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The Scariest Characters Aren’t Monsters—They’re Old Men
We’ve all read stories about monsters. The ones that crawl out of the woods with too many teeth. The ones that live under the bed. The ones with claws, wings, fangs, or fire. They make for great entertainment. They’re scary, sure. But they’re also easy to spot. You know what really scares me? An old…
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Writing the Unlikeable Protagonist—and Making Readers Care
There’s a certain pressure in fiction to make your protagonist likable. Relatable. Sympathetic. You’re supposed to give readers someone they want to root for—someone they’d grab a beer with or follow into battle. But sometimes, the story demands someone worse. Someone angry. Someone broken. Someone who’s said and done things you can’t defend. Someone like…
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Cursed Bloodlines: Why Horror Loves Generational Sin
Some ghosts don’t come from outside the house.They come from your last name. One of the oldest horror tropes—maybe even older than the vampire or the haunted house—is the cursed bloodline. From Greek tragedies to Southern Gothic, horror keeps coming back to the same chilling idea: You can’t escape your family. You can try. You…
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Oklahoma Gothic: Horror in Flyover Country
Oklahoma Gothic: Horror in Flyover Country When most people think of Gothic horror, they imagine crumbling castles, fog-drenched moors, or Spanish moss hanging off antebellum mansions. But Gothic doesn’t belong exclusively to Europe or the American South. There’s a different kind of Gothic hiding in the plains and hills of Oklahoma. Maybe we don’t have…
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The Thin Wall Between Life and Death in Nursing Homes
Nursing homes have always creeped me out. My first experience in one was in maybe the 4th grade as a Cub Scout. Our den mother took us to a nearby nursing home to sell raffle tickets or something. I remember old women sitting in a lobby like they were waiting for us. Waiting to take…
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What If You Could Never Confess Your Sins?
Imagine being raised to believe in God and Satan, Heaven and Hell, and choosing to allow your baser nature to govern your actions. You’re mean, selfish, abusive to your wife, children, and animals. But you believe it’ll all be okay because you’ll confess or repent on your deathbed. But then you develop dementia and can’t…
Steven E. Wedel 