Not Your Mother's Storytime

Throughout his adult life, Lovecraft was never able to support himself from earnings as an author and editor. He was virtually unknown during his lifetime and was almost exclusively published in pulp magazines before he died in poverty at the age of 46, but is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors of supernatural horror fiction. Enjoy!

This week we’re launching our scary stories for October! “The Furnished Room” was first published in 1906 in O. Henry’s collection of short stories “The Four Million”. The story was inspired by the West 16th Street, Flatiron District in New York City. Looking at the houses, O. Henry had some serious imaginings about what dramas played out in the furnished rooms. “Luella Miller” first appeared in 1...

Montgomery is most well known for her “Anne” books – beginning with “Anne of Green Gables”. It was said she wrote “stories of the heart” and the two stories I’ll be reading are exactly that: “The Girl and the Photograph” and “The Letters”. Although “Anne” was her most popular book, during her lifetime, Montgomery published twenty novels, over 500 short stories, an autobiography, and a book of poet...

The first story, "A Dark-Brown Dog" is an allegory of the Jim Crow South. For decades after the Civil War, African Americans remained in serf-like conditions, beholden to an employer or landowner, lacking basic rights. White supremacy campaigns surged. Federal protections were established to offer basic civil rights (Amendments 13-15, called the Reconstruction Amendments). But it was the state and...

In this piece I give you Cora and Addie. Enjoy!

Since it is September, and many believe September is not too soon to prepare for Halloween, this story is about a man's encounter with a clairvoyant medium capable of conjuring the dead. Is it a miracle, or explained by the science of magnetism? "There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when they like.... They are always about us."

Green has been called "the mother of the detective novel". She is credited with shaping detective fiction into its classic form, and developing the series detective. As journalist Kathy Hickman writes, Green "stamped the mystery genre with the distinctive features that would influence writers from Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle to contemporary authors of suspenseful "whodunits". I hope you enjoy...

This week is a Katherine Mansfield collage. We’ll be presenting “The Young Girl” “The Doll’s House” and “The Fly”. These stories were published between 1917 and 1922. Originally from New Zealand, Mansfield moved to the UK at the age of 19. She became friends with writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. She struggled with Tuberculosis most of her life, and died of the disease at age 34. I...

This story is in honor of Sue Grafton who passed away recently. I would love to read one of her stories. She wrote a few short stories featuring Kinsey Milhone, Private Detective. But her work is not in the public domain and cannot be read without permission… So I went in search of another female detective series and I found Violet Strange, Debutante Detective! Enjoy!

Our story today is a nod to the New Year. A New Year is often symbolized by an infant and the passing year depicted as an old man. In this story, Jack London gives us an exquisite example of Youth vs Age. Both have advantages, both have challenges. But who would win in a head to head battle? And what exactly would they be fighting for? Here’s to the New Year! …or maybe to the old year.

It’s Christmas, so I want to read you a Christmas story, but of course it can’t be a traditional story. So I found something different. It is a bittersweet holiday story called A Stolen Christmas by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. There is a part in this story where a house burns to the ground. We almost decided not to read the story, considering what happened here in Sonoma County… and now in SoCal. But...

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

by Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Franklin. The story takes place in Mississippi in 1927. This story has that old-time language I love, with that certain turn-of-phrase only found in the south in 1927. Wait till you hear it!

In the spirit of the day, we read to you “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. Enjoy!