Old Tails in New Bottles: Folklore’s Influence on Pulp Fiction Werewolves
Werewolves are considered to be a traditional monster in the twenty-first-century popular culture.
Tongue, Pen, Ear, Page — Collecting and Performing Folktales and Ballads
How do writers collect and re-tell regional folktales? Kevan Manwaring explains his influences, methods, and inspirations for his work in this area.
Matlock the Hare: The ‘Real’ Workings of a Majickal Hare
Hares and folklore… hmmm… how many words, I wonder (or ‘griffles’, even?), have been written about this one bounding, leaping, boxing wonder? A million?
The Grotter & the Strange History of Shell Grottos
Shell grottos have a certain murky ambiguity to their history and folklore. This for me made them all the more enticing to use as the basis for a ghost story in my tale, ‘The Grotter’ in Nyctophobias. Especially with my roots as a Whitstable native in Kent, where grottos are still primarily lit once a year as part of the Oyster Festival celebrations. These grottos are usually stacked in a ‘beehive’ style pyramid, held together with wet sand and illuminated by a short candle.
‘Prick Song’: A Tale from Zoe Gilbert
The first tale of Zoe Gilbert’s wonderful novel, Folk, now out in paperback. Read more about the novel here. Listen, for the beat that runs through the gorse maze. It is an early twilight, the opening between last sun and first star, the door of the day closing until, soon, night will seal it shut. There […]