Notes From The Curiosity Cabinet...

Why Southern Gothic Feels Different

There is something quietly unsettling about old places.

Not because they are haunted.

Not because they are falling apart.

Because they have witnessed lives we'll never fully know.

I've always been drawn to stories where the setting feels as important as the people. A weathered farmhouse, an aging church, an overgrown cemetery, or a forgotten creek can carry generations of memories without speaking a single word. Long before a ghost appears—or perhaps even without one—those places already seem to possess a personality of their own.

That's one of the reasons Southern Gothic has always fascinated me.

Unlike many horror stories that begin with an outside threat, Southern Gothic often begins with history. Family secrets. Old grudges. Forgotten promises. Communities that quietly carry the weight of generations.

The landscape isn't simply where the story happens.

The landscape remembers.

Growing up, I loved horror that relied more on atmosphere than on spectacle. The stories that stayed with me weren't necessarily the bloodiest or the loudest. They were the ones that made ordinary places feel just a little different after I'd finished reading.

A country road.

An abandoned farmhouse.

A quiet creek.

A town square.

After the story, they no longer looked quite the same.

When I began writing THIRTEEN JARS, I found myself returning to those same ideas. I wasn't interested in creating a haunted house. I wanted to create a place that felt as though its history had become part of the landscape itself. A place where generations of choices still echoed beneath the surface.

That's what I believe Southern Gothic does better than almost any other form of horror.

It reminds us that monsters aren't always strangers.

Sometimes they're inherited.

Sometimes they're remembered.

Sometimes they're hidden beneath the stories families choose not to tell.

Perhaps that's why these stories continue to resonate.

Most of us know an old house that has stood longer than anyone can remember.

We've driven past a forgotten church.

Walked through an old cemetery.

Crossed a bridge with a local legend attached to it.

Whether we believe those stories isn't really the point.

The point is that they change the way we see the place.

And once that happens...

The ordinary never quite feels ordinary again.

Are there places in your hometown that people still whisper stories about—even if no one knows whether they're true?