Inspired Author

By Isabella Norton

Picture this; a child paces through her bookshelf, aimlessly. Tucked within her home on a cold, dark, rainy day in late autumn, she finds herself bored. It’s far too rainy to go outside today. She bemoans. What else is there to do instead? Just then, while she’s lost in her thoughts, shuffling through the shelves, she feels something catch on her finger, and a sudden sting. With a yelp, she pulls her finger away from the book, and sees warm blood trickle down her hand. There’s a pair of puncture marks the size of pinpricks, and the area around the wound is red and throbbing. She looks back over to the bookshelf. What is it that has her so entranced? What story must have caught her attention?

As both an avid horror writer and an aspiring writer, I look upon the works of Roberta Simpson Brown with reverence. Her short stories are simultaneously horrifying and hilarious, and manage to be just unnerving enough to make an impact, yet funny enough that it doesn’t completely scar young readers. Despite the fact that she’s sparse with her mentions of violence and gore, she manages to paint pictures in the mind’s eye that are most gruesome. I’ve had my heart set on being an author ever since I was a child, and I want to stand upon the same pedestals that Mrs. Brown has stood upon as a successful female horror writer. I hope that my own work will stand the test of time the way her writing has.

And here we return to our young protagonist. As if she’s a puppet on a string, she grabs a book without looking or even knowing what she’s taking. When she glances at the cover, she sees a ghastly image of an old woman wearing a crown of skulls, with sharp teeth and the yellow eyes of a wolf. A spatter of her own blood decorates the white background, and the words Queen of the Cold-Blooded Tales are emblazoned onto the dust jacket. Rather than being confused or irritated, the girl is charmed. I know what I’m reading today, she thinks to herself with a smile, and with a flick of her finger, she turns the page.