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2021
In Detention, the Ghosts Are the Least of the Horrors
Ghosts and ghouls lurk in the popular Taiwanese videogame, Detention, but it’s the dictatorship, and the ordinary humans who aid and abet it, that really chill the blood.
The Black Magic Is Working
In India, people fear black magic curses from their enemies…and their “friends.”
The Taming of the Bunyip
Metamorphosizing from a fearsome monster to a bogeyman to a cute cartoon character to a conservation mascot, the Australian bunyip is a metaphor for our changing relationship with nature.
FICTION | The Feud
When an ordinary man criticizes a famous rapper’s latest album, the rapper sics his fans on him. Things escalate from there.
The National Woke Awards
The most prestigious intellectual awards in America are now ridiculously fixated on race. We should be worried.
Running Amok
A spate of mass killings in Southeast Asia baffled anthropologists for centuries. Can it shed light on mass shootings today?
FICTION | Rapture of the Deep
My father warned me that the sea was beguiling, dangerous. The deeper you descend, the more the sea wants to pull you down and keep you.
2020
The Mad Women in the Attic
Gothic literature is strewn with the tortured genius of women at the mercy of the restrictions placed on them by society — and their own minds.
The Artist of Japan’s Bloody Era
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Japan’s last great printmaker, captured the spirit of an age of carnage.
Into the Woods
Why do we relish horrifying tales where jealous mothers kill their children and little girls dance themselves to death? Because the darkness in stories helps us confront the darkness inside ourselves.
Shuten Dōji: Demon Lord, Hero of the Downtrodden
Why is a Japanese demon lord who devoured women also an underclass hero?
FICTION | Honor
Tales grow in the telling, they say, and so they do, and yours most of all, a tale that has grown to become legend.
At Nightmare’s Edge, Lifelike Dolls
Thousands of people collect hyperrealistic vinyl babies – but how do they sleep at night?
Packing the Supreme Court Could Destroy the US Legal System
The likely result of packing the court is a spiral into legal anarchy.
2019
Creepypastas: The Monsters We Make
How dark internet urban legends take on a life of their own.
Supernatural Femme Fatales
Why are myths and legends full of supernatural seductresses?
Kuchisake-onna: The Slit-Mouthed Woman
Death and maiming are predetermined when confronted with the vengeful spirit of Kuchisake-onna, or the Slit-Mouthed Woman, a yokai, a monstrous creature of Japanese folklore.
Bloody Mary and the Observer Effect
Could a darker realm of demons and spirits actually exist alongside our own? Quantum physics may hold the answer.
Tribes of Hong Kong
The original stimulus of the protests – the extradition bill – has long been withdrawn and forgotten; the tribal cycle of violence has generated its own self-sustaining momentum.
The Hand on the Wall
The Baroness of Carini was murdered on a cold winter’s night in 1563. Her legend, like the bloody imprint of her hand, has been haunting Sicily for centuries.
FICTION | Hungry Ghosts
A Chinese-American in Paris realizes her ancestral beliefs have followed her there.
FICTION | Shadow Holds the Shape
A vampire and a ghost stalk the streets of Manhattan.