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The Hidebehind: The Fearsomest Critter

Hidebehind? Fearsome Critters? What? Being a lumberjack/logger can be a lonely job. Their logging camps lie right in the middle of the wilderness, isolated miles away from any kind of hospital should things go wrong—and oftentimes, they do  go very wrong. Logging is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, oftentimes even more so than fishing. Falling trees and limbs, machinery mishaps and malfunctions, dangerous terrain, inclement weather, and even wildlife are significant threats to the lives of loggers. With the sheer number of ways to be injured or die on the job, paired with the loneliness (apart from working with their fellow loggers), perhaps it makes sense that stories of fantastical creatures began popping up in camp conversations.  These "fearsome critters", as they came to be known in the twentieth century, were part of an oral tradition among loggers told in camp to new arrivals and other groups of loggers passing through. While a lot of the stories and crea
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Universal Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights 2022: Houses and Terror Tram Reviewed!

  Note: All images have been taken from the   Hollywood HHN 31 page on the HHN wiki , a fan wiki maintained by HHN aficionados. Proper credit to all media can be found in the Pictures section.  The videos used come from the YouTube channel Sharp Productions . Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights 2022 As someone living in the southeastern United States, I am definitely less versed in the history of Universal Hollywood's HHN. I do know that Hollywood began their annual Halloween event in 1992, a year after the first Fright Nights over in Orlando. There was a precursor to both parks' Halloween celebrations back in 1986 that was canceled after the tragic death of a scareactor working on the Terror Tram.  Universal decided to try Halloween again 6 years later, and the HHN tradition finally took hold of the park. I may be spoiled by the grand, ultra-theatrical approach to HHN in Orlando, but earlier houses offered by HHN Hollywood were, to my shock considering wh

Channeling the Dark: Mental Health and Why I Write

Earlier this month, I was tagged in  this video  by Nick Carlson, author of  Hell's Gulf . The publisher he released this novel under, Temple Dark Books, has started a campaign called "Channel The Dark" ; an initiative benefitting SOSAD Ireland, a mental health awareness organization operating in its titular country. As you can read on the page, it is an event built around encouraging writers to speak about how writing benefits mental health culminating with releasing an anthology contributed to by a variety of Speculative Fiction authors, with all proceeds going to SOSAD Ireland. It is a great cause and one dear to me. No one deserves to be left to fend for themselves in the darkness. I feel like writing helps me to get my mind in order. When my mouth fails to form the words I desperately need to get out, maybe even scream out, writing them down is a way of expressing them thoroughly without the social awkwardness of blowing out my voice box at a soccer mom couponing thr

Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights 2022: Houses Reviewed!

Note: All images and videos have been taken from the HHN 31 page of the Halloween Horror Nights Wiki , a fan wiki maintained by HHN aficionados. Proper credit to all media can be found in the Pictures section. T hese last few years have been scary. Actually, scratch that; they've been absolutely horrific. I had a post halfway done about how happy I was for this pandemic to finally be over when I realized there's really no point in putting out the same cautiously optimistic sentiments everyone's seen time after time. The short of it is: For the love of God let's do our best from now on so that we're not all locked back in our homes and fearing for our lives, okay? Besides, fear is an emotion that needs release. We need to feel it and then be relieved of it. We need catharsis, something like... a masked stranger jumping in front of us screaming at the top of their lungs and waving a knife around, perhaps? Trailer for Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights eve