(Ophelia’s Going Mad Again, by Jennifer Gordon, altered with permission by Carl V.)
“It was a dark and stormy night…”
Thus began seemingly every story that Snoopy ever wrote, perched atop his red doghouse, bent over the typewriter hoping to craft that one great masterpiece.
Some of my earliest reading memories were collections of Peanuts, borrowed from the local library. I would pour over them, finding humor in the strangest of places, laughing aloud. That early exposure to the work of Charles Schutlz cultivated a deep and abiding passion for his creations.
And that phrase, “It was a dark and stormy night…” tickled my imagination with thoughts of moonlight and darkness and things that go bump in the night.
Perhaps that was also the beginning of my passion for I what I lump under a broad personal definition of gothic literature: dark nights; decaying, haunted castles; menacing forests; pervasive gloom; ancient prophecies; damsels in distress (or at least at the wrong place in the wrong time); blood-curdling screams…stories with atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife.
It was a desire to celebrate and share that love of the elements of gothic fiction that inspired me to create the first R.I.P. Challenge, four years ago.
Readers Imbibing Peril, that is what it is all about. I hope you’ll consider joining us on this more eerie road less traveled.
Walk this way.
