Author: Kelly Florence

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WiHM 2024: 5 March Horror Book Releases From Women

Image donated by Sara. C./center>

March is often our last month before spring gets its foothold into the earth, sprouting flowers and ushering us out into the sunshine. As goth girls who can’t get enough of reading dark books by a crackling fire, we hope you take this opportunity, like we are, to stay inside, cozy under a black blanket for a little bit longer. And since March is Women in Horror Month, what a great excuse to pick up these five March horror book releases by women. 

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I Love You to Death: Ten Must See Horror Romance Movies

I Love You to Death: Ten Must See Horror Romance Movies

By Kelly Florence & Meg Hafdahl

 

Since Frankenstein’s monster met his pale other half, love has found a way to survive in the horror genre. Why do two such opposing forces, butterflies and chainsaws, work so well together? As the co-authors of the Science of Horror book series we break down the science of both love and fear to understand the sweet as candy interplay between our two favorite genres. Here are ten horror movies with romance that we recommend:

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A Woman You Should Know: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964)

A Woman You Should Know: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964)

By Kelly Florence

George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital file no. cph 3a48983)

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a labor organizer, author, and speaker that traveled all over the country helping to organize workers into unions.  She traveled to the Iron Range in Minnesota to help organize miners in the strikes of 1907 and 1916.  She may have been considered controversial but her life and the time period in which she lived explains the differing views of her. Flynn was born in 1890 in Concord, New Hampshire.  She was of Irish descent and grew up aware of her ancestor’s struggles for freedom. She suffered from discrimination because of her ethnicity but her mother always made sure she was respectful of other people’s nationality, language, and religion. Growing up, she saw people’s struggles for better living and working conditions and for better education.  In one town where she lived she saw children, not much older than she was, having to work in mills to support their families.  Some of them were forever scarred or maimed because of the lack of safety regulations in the workplace. This had a tremendous impact on her.

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WiHM 2023: The Horror of Cults

The Horror of Cults

By Kelly Florence 

 

Recently, I finished the documentary Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence (2023) on Hulu. It follows the story of college students who fall in with the manipulative father of one of their peers. It’s a disturbing and horrifying look into how a manipulative person can gain the trust of others, slowly convince them to lie, steal, and perform other terrible acts all for his own service. I won’t get into specific details (I do believe the three episodes are worth watching on their own) but will warn you that the footage and audio shared in the documentary is beyond disturbing. How, you may ask? Because the perpetrator, Lawrence “Larry” Ray, recorded these students over the years he lived with them, having them confess to things they never did in order to hold the footage against them in the future. It displays abuse, both physical and mental, that may be too strong for many viewers. I, myself, needed to look away several times due the raw, real nature of the footage.

As we discovered in writing our 2021 book The Science of Serial Killers, truth can be scarier than fiction and, in this day, and age, recordings, body cam footage, and videos from other devices like doorbells offer true crime documentarians a plethora of clips to use. This, coupled with the recency of many of the crimes and testimonials of survivors, truly puts into perspective the scope of these incidents and the humanity of the victims.

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Guest Post: Memento Mori

Memento Mori

By Kelly Florence

You never know how tragedy will affect your life or what gifts may come out of it. This was the case for me when I simultaneously lost my husband but met my best friend during one summer.

I was twenty-three years old, spending three months in the intensive care unit of a hospital next to my twenty-four-year-old husband. He was diagnosed with lupus only two years prior. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its own tissues. In the case of my husband, he had a stroke, and his lungs and other organs were failing. Treatment after treatment took place over that summer and it was a lot for a couple so young to go through. I would often be mistaken for his “girlfriend” due to our young age. Only family members were allowed to visit. I would have to assure the staff that I was, indeed, his wife and we had been married for four years already. Day after day, the only escape I would have from the monotony of the beeping monitors and the horrific sound of the life support system that was keeping him alive was a trip downstairs to the cafeteria or restaurant.

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