September 2, 2026
2026 Southern Gothic Authors Selected Bibliography
Selected Bibliography
Books By Festival Authors
Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell
A horror and dark fantasy short story collection featuring six interconnected tales set against grim Southern and working-class landscapes, exploring the boundaries between the known world and Hell through supernatural horror and psychological dread.
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Monsterland / North American Lake Monsters: Stories
Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, this collection blends Southern Gothic horror, fantasy, and literary fiction to examine working-class Southerners confronting monsters both literal and metaphorical.
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The Strange
A space western set on an alternate 1930s Mars, following a young woman seeking vengeance after her family is attacked, blending science fiction, western, and horror elements in a dangerous frontier colony.
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Cathedral of the Drowned
Part of the Lunar Gothic trilogy, this novella continues a shared world of cosmic horror, pulp adventure, and dark fantasy.
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Devil Inside
A man back from the dead meets a woman from somewhere even worse in a new horrormance about love, possession, and just a little murder.
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Bodies of Work
A murderous artist is haunted by the spirits of those he has killed in a surreal and chilling supernatural revenge novella.
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Acquired taste
A short story collection that moves from department store Santas to ghost boyfriends, small-town Chesapeake fears, parenthood, addiction, political division, and the claustrophobia of the pandemic.
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Shiny Happy People
A genre-bending young adult novel set in a struggling Southern small town, shining a light on the terrors of the opioid epidemic through a mysterious new drug and its haunting side effects.
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Stay On The Line
After a hurricane devastates a small Southern coastal town, survivors gather around a long out-of-service payphone hoping to speak with lost loved ones, only for it to begin ringing on its own.
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Kill Your Darling
A somber literary thriller about a father whose son was murdered decades ago and whose search for closure draws the killer out of hiding.
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What Kind Of Mother
A supernatural horror and domestic suspense novel exploring parental grief and devotion through a dark Southern Gothic lens rooted in rural Southern life.
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The Hollow Kind
An epic horror novel about a woman who flees an abusive marriage only to discover that her inherited family estate in Georgia is haunted by an ancient, hungry evil.
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The Boatman’s Daughter
Set in the dark bayous of the South, this supernatural thriller centers on a woman caught between human and mystical forces as she tries to protect a secret child.
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In the Valley Of the Sun
A western horror hybrid set in 1980s Texas, following a man who becomes a monster and is pursued by a grizzled Texas Ranger.
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Hellions Stories
An electric story collection that blends folklore, fairy tales, Southern Gothic, and horror, moving from the occult to the comic and from the horrific to the wondrous.
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The Wilds
A debut collection of genre-bending short stories that blend Southern Gothic, science fiction, and fairy-tale elements to explore human vulnerability through bizarre and poignant scenarios.
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Beneath a Fallen Sky
Set in northeast Alabama during the passage of Halley's Comet in 1910, this atmospheric historical novel follows four ordinary people who believe the world may be ending.
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Sing Down The Moon
Set on a remote Georgia barrier island steeped in Southern folklore and family inheritance, this novel follows sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye as she struggles against a haunting legacy.
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The Cicada Tree
A Southern Gothic novel set in 1956 Georgia, following young piano prodigy Analeise Newell as racial tensions, family secrets, and supernatural events erupt alongside a massive cicada brood.
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Those We Thought We Knew
A novel about racism, history, and community secrets in a small North Carolina mountain town, forcing a community to confront its past and present prejudices.
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When These Mountains Burn
Set in the fire-ravaged mountains of North Carolina during the opioid epidemic, following a father, an addict, and a DEA agent whose lives intersect around addiction, trafficking, and loss.
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The Line That Held Us
A story of friendship and family balanced between destruction and redemption, where the only hope is to hold tight to the people you love.
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The Weight of This World
A dark Appalachian noir about two friends in rural North Carolina whose lives are upended after they find drugs and cash from a dead dealer.
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Where All Light Tends to Go
A country-noir story of a young man seeking redemption, a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the inspiration for the film Devil's Peak.
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People Like Us
A novel following two Black writers trying to find peace and belonging in a world riven with gun violence, as their storylines merge through dark humor, menace, and endurance.
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Hell of a Book
A National Book Award-winning novel intertwining a Black author on a surreal book tour with the coming-of-age story of a young Black boy, exploring racism, violence, and identity in America.
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The Crossing
When a deadly pandemic spreads across the globe, two siblings face the ultimate choice: stay and die, or run and survive.
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The Wonder of All Things
A poignant novel about a young girl who develops the ability to heal others after a plane crash, and whose gift threatens her own health and life.
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The Returned
A New York Times bestseller about deceased loved ones mysteriously returning to life, focused on an elderly couple whose long-dead son reappears on their doorstep.
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Worry Box
A family with a foster daughter who suffers from disturbing intrusive thoughts moves into a house with issues of its own.
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Daytide
A dark fantasy and horror novel described as Black Metal Wizard of Oz, in which humanity suffers from a psychological pandemic of unknown origin.
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Shitshow
A horror-comedy novella blending gross-out humor with a poignant exploration of dementia and family, as a Texan latrine technician takes on a hellish dark carnival.
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The Redemption of Morgan Bright
A horror novel about a woman who checks herself into an asylum to solve her sister's murder, only to risk losing her own identity and mind.
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Stringers
A bromantic space-opera adventure in which a man with strange stores of random knowledge is abducted by an alien bounty hunter seeking inter-dimensional secrets.
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The Phlebotomist
In a near-future society segregated by blood type and mandatory blood draws, government phlebotomist Willa Wallace witnesses an event that makes her question everything.
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The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe
A work of literary scholarship exploring Poe's enduring cultural life, influence, and afterlives across American literature and popular imagination.
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The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City
A study of Edgar Allan Poe and urban life, tracing how the city shaped Poe's work and how Poe helped imagine modern literary urban experience.
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This B Just Won’t Die!
A feminist slasher novel following an aging scream queen, a horror convention circuit, and a stalker copying her old films.
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Her Wicked Roots
A Gothic retelling of Rappaccini's Daughter set in Victorian England, blending folk horror, poisonous beauty, and psychological dread.
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Cicada
A Southern Gothic-tinged horror novella about a young woman trapped in a small town hosting a deadly cicada film festival.
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On Sundays She Picked Flowers
A lyrical Southern Gothic novel about a woman who escapes an abusive childhood and builds a secluded life in haunted Georgia woods, until a mysterious arrival forces her to confront what she left behind.
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Dollface
A horror novel described as Barbie meets Scream, featuring a horror author drawn into a slasher plot targeting suburban PTA moms.
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Another Fine Mess
A Southern horror-mystery novel and the second Bless Your Heart book, following the Evans women in southeast Texas.
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Bless Your Heart
A Southern Gothic mystery-horror novel about generations of women running a funeral parlor in Southeast Texas while fighting vampires returned to town.
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Cold Snap
A horror novella about a grieving mother who takes her son to a remote cabin for Christmas and is tormented by strange noises and a sinister figure in the woods.
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Nightjars
A psychological horror thriller about a man haunted by his serial killer father's legacy and implicated in new murders that force him toward an ancient Appalachian secret.
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The October Film Haunt
A meta-horror novel about a haunted cult film and the woman reluctantly pulled into its sequel, examining fandom, viral trends, and the line between fiction and reality.
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The Inconsolables
A collection of literary horror stories about characters confronting personal desires and supernatural terrors in the cracks between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
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The Shop on Royal Street
Part of the Royal Street paranormal mystery series, following Nola Trenholm as she renovates haunted New Orleans houses while dealing with ghosts and family secrets.
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The House on Tradd Street
The first Tradd Street mystery, following psychic realtor Melanie Middleton as she encounters ghosts and historical secrets in old Charleston houses.
Learn MoreNathan Ballingrud
Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell (2019). A horror/dark fantasy short story collection featuring six interconnected tales set against grim Southern and working-class landscapes, exploring the boundaries between the known world and Hell through supernatural horror and psychological dread. The collection includes “The Visible Filth,” later adapted into a film.
Monsterland / North American Lake Monsters: Stories (2013). Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, this collection blends Southern Gothic horror, fantasy, and literary fiction to examine the lives of working-class Southerners confronting monsters both literal and metaphorical. Known for its bleak realism and emotionally intense characters, the stories use supernatural elements to reflect human suffering, violence, and isolation. This title was adapted into the Hulu series Monsterland.
The Lunar Gothic Trilogy. A horror/sci-fi trilogy of novellas — Crypt of the Moon Spider (2024), Cathedral of the Drowned (2025), and Kingdom of the Conqueror Worm (2027) — blending cosmic horror, pulp adventure, and dark fantasy across a shared universe.
The Strange (2023). A “space western” set on an alternate 1930s Mars, following a young woman seeking vengeance after her family is attacked, blending sci-fi, western, and horror elements in a dangerous frontier colony.
Clay McLeod Chapman
Devil Inside (August 2026). A man who’s back from the dead meets a woman who’s from somewhere even worse in this new horrormance about love, possession, and just a little murder.
Bodies of Work (2026). A murderous artist is haunted by the spirits of those he has killed in this surreal and chilling supernatural revenge novella.
Acquired Taste (2025). From department store Santas to ghost boyfriends and salamander-worshipping nuns; from the claustrophobia of the Covid-19 pandemic to small-town Chesapeake USA, Chapman takes universal fears of parenthood, addiction, and political divisions and makes them uniquely his own in this short story collection.
Shiny Happy People (2025). A twisted and thrilling genre-bending young adult novel set in a struggling Southern small town, shining a light on the terrors of the U.S. opioid epidemic through a mysterious new drug and its haunting side effects.
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (2025). A social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through the media.
Stay on the Line (2024). After a hurricane devastates a small Southern coastal town, survivors gather around a long out-of-service payphone hoping to speak with lost loved ones, only for it to begin ringing on its own.
Kill Your Darling (2024). A somber literary thriller about a father, Glenn Partridge, whose 15-year-old son was murdered 40 years ago. To find closure, Glenn joins a writing workshop and shares his son’s story, which inadvertently draws the killer out of hiding.
What Kind of Mother (2023). A NYT Book Review Best Horror of 2023 selection, this supernatural horror and domestic suspense novel explores parental grief and devotion through a dark Southern Gothic lens rooted in rural Southern life.
Ghost Eaters (2022). Set in Richmond, Virginia, this supernatural horror novel explores addiction, grief, and the afterlife through a drug that allows users to see ghosts.
Whisper Down the Lane (2021). A psychological horror novel inspired by the 1980s Satanic Panic and the McMartin preschool trial, following a man haunted by lies he told as a child during a moral panic, which resurface to threaten his new life as an art teacher and stepfather.
Andy Davidson
theandydavidson.com
The Hollow Kind: a novel (2022). Named one of Esquire’s Best Horror Books of the Year, this epic horror story follows a woman who flees an abusive marriage only to discover that her inherited family estate in Georgia is haunted by an ancient, hungry evil.
The Boatman’s Daughter: a novel (2020). Set in the dark bayous of the South, this supernatural thriller centers on a woman caught between human and mystical forces as she tries to protect a secret child.
In the Valley of the Sun: a novel (2017). A finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel, Davidson’s debut is a Western horror hybrid set in 1980s Texas, following a man who becomes a monster and is pursued by a grizzled Texas Ranger.
Julia Elliott
Hellions: Stories (2025). An electric story collection that blends folklore, fairy tales, Southern Gothic, and horror, reveling in the collision of the familiar with the wildly surreal. With exuberance, ferocity, and astounding imagination, Hellions jumps from the occult to the comic, from the horrific to the wondrous, presenting earthbound characters who long for the otherworldly.
The New & Improved Romie Futch (2015). A debut novel that is part dystopian satire, part Southern Gothic tall tale: a disturbing yet hilarious romp through a surreal New South where newfangled medical technologies change the structure of the human brain and genetically modified feral animals ravage the blighted landscape.
The Wilds: Stories (2014). A debut collection of genre-bending short stories that blends Southern gothic, sci-fi, and fairy-tale elements to explore human vulnerability through bizarre and poignant scenarios, often featuring technology and the natural world in conflict.
Scott Gould
Beneath a Fallen Sky (October 2026). Set in northeast Alabama during the passage of Halley’s Comet in 1910, this novel follows four ordinary people who believe the world may be ending. As fear, faith, and desperation reshape their lives over four extraordinary days, Scott Gould crafts a richly atmospheric historical novel about hope, redemption, and the enduring resilience of the human spirit.
Robert Gwaltney
Sing Down the Moon (2026). Set on a remote Georgia barrier island steeped in Southern folklore and family inheritance, this novel follows sixteen-year-old Leontyne Skye as she struggles against the haunting legacy tied to her family’s sacred fig tree.
The Cicada Tree (2022). A Southern Gothic novel set in 1956 Georgia, following young piano prodigy Analeise Newell as racial tensions, family secrets, and supernatural events erupt alongside the emergence of a massive cicada brood.
Charlie Mewshaw (co-host of Arcane Carolinas podcast)
Arcane Carolinas, Vol. 1 (2023) and Vol. 2 (2024). From the creators of the award-winning podcast Arcane Carolinas come these two collections of tales spanning the mountains to the sea. Examined from a historical context, some of what the author uncovers in the historical record may prove surprisingly validating regarding things that go bump in the night.
David Joy
Those We Thought We Knew (2023). A novel that explores racism, history, and community secrets in a small North Carolina mountain town, following a Black artist’s return home and the discovery of a KKK notebook that exposes deep-seated local corruption. The book blends Southern Gothic, crime fiction, and thriller elements, using multiple perspectives to reveal how seemingly normal people harbor dark beliefs, forcing the community to confront its past and present prejudices.
When These Mountains Burn (2020). Set in the fire-ravaged mountains of North Carolina during the opioid epidemic, following a father, an addict, and a DEA agent whose lives intersect as they deal with addiction, drug trafficking, and the erosion of mountain culture.
The Line That Held Us (2018). A story of friendship and family, this novel is a tale balanced between destruction and redemption, where the only hope is to hold on tight, clenching those you love. From a writer whose stories are “like a pull from a bottle of Appalachian moonshine: smooth and elegant with a punch in the gut that lingers a while after you’re done” (Garden & Gun), Joy’s book is another masterwork of Southern noir.
The Weight of This World (2017). A dark, gritty “Appalachian noir” novel about two friends, Thad and Aiden, in rural North Carolina, whose lives are upended after they find a large stash of drugs and cash from a dead dealer, forcing them to confront their traumatic pasts, including Thad’s experiences as a combat veteran and Aiden’s childhood trauma. The book is known for its realistic dialogue, lyrical prose, and unflinching look at violence, addiction, and the inescapable weight of history in a struggling region.
Where All Light Tends to Go (2015). In the country-noir tradition of Winter’s Bone meets Breaking Bad, this is a savage and beautiful story of a young man seeking redemption–a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the inspiration for the movie Devil’s Peak.
Jason Mott
People Like Us (2025). In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.
Hell of a Book (2021). A National Book Award-winning novel that intertwines the story of a Black author on a surreal book tour with the coming-of-age story of a young Black boy named Soot, exploring themes of racism, police violence, and identity in America. The narrative blends magical realism with sharp social commentary, as the author is haunted by a child-like figure called “The Kid,” who connects him to Soot’s tragic story, revealing the devastating impact of racism on Black lives.
The Crossing (2018). When a deadly pandemic spreads across the globe, two siblings face the ultimate choice: Stay and die, or run and survive.
The Wonder of All Things (2014). A poignant novel exploring faith, love, and sacrifice. It follows 13-year-old Ava, who develops the ability to heal others following a traumatic plane crash. As her secret gift becomes public, the town’s, and later the world’s, expectations of her threaten her own health and life.
The Returned (2013). A New York Times bestseller about deceased loved ones mysteriously returning to life, focusing on an elderly couple whose eight-year-old son, dead for 40 years, reappears on their doorstep, this novel explores themes of grief, faith, and societal reaction to the “Returned,” and was adapted into the ABC television series Resurrection. Three prequel novellas (The First, The Sparrow, The Choice) are also available digitally.
Chris Panatier
Worry Box (forthcoming, September 2026). A family with a foster daughter who suffers from disturbing intrusive thoughts moves into a house with issues of its own.
Daytide (2026). A dark fantasy/horror novel described as “Black Metal Wizard of Oz” in which humanity suffers from a psychological pandemic of unknown origin. This book is only available as an audiobook or in a limited edition from Rapture Publishing.
Sh!tshow (2025). This horror-comedy novella blends gross-out humor with a poignant exploration of dementia and family, as a Texan latrine technician takes on a hellish dark carnival.
The Redemption of Morgan Bright (2024). Named one of Esquire’s Best Horror Books of 2024, this novel follows a woman who checks herself into an asylum to solve her sister’s murder, only to risk losing her own identity and mind.
Stringers (2022). A “bromantic” space-opera adventure where Ben, a man who knows random facts about bug sex and vintage timepieces, is abducted by an alien bounty hunter seeking inter-dimensional knowledge he doesn’t know he has.
The Phlebotomist (2020). In a near-future where citizens are subject to mandatory blood draws and society is segregated by blood type, government phlebotomist Willa Wallace witnesses an event that makes her question her entire world.
Scott Peeples (Scholar)
Scott Peeples has taught American literature and writing at the College of Charleston since 1996. He has developed courses on topics ranging from Gothic literature and film to nineteenth-century American poetry to Bob Dylan and the American Dream. His books include The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe (2004), The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City (2020), and the forthcoming How Many Roads: A Life of Bob Dylan (2026).
Tanya Pell
This B Just Won’t Die! (2026). A feminist slasher novel following an aging scream queen working horror conventions, a stalked killer copying her old films, blending celebrity horror with themes of aging, body image, and survival.
Her Wicked Roots (2025). Set in Victorian England, this Gothic retelling of Rappaccini’s Daughter blends folk horror, poisonous beauty, and psychological dread in a style reminiscent of Hawthorne.
Cicada (2024). A Southern Gothic-tinged horror novella about a young woman trapped in a small town hosting a deadly cicada film festival, blending nostalgic VHS horror with grotesque small-town terror.
Yah Yah Scholfield
On Sundays She Picked Flowers (2026) is a lyrical Southern Gothic novel about Judith Rice, a woman who escapes an abusive childhood and builds a secluded life in the haunted woods of southern Georgia. Living among ghosts, haints, and the lingering violence of the land, she finds purpose as a healer—until the arrival of a mysterious woman forces her to confront the trauma, rage, and family legacy she thought she’d left behind. Blending folklore, horror, and emotional depth, the novel explores survival, identity, and the possibility of healing after profound trauma.
Lindy Ryan
Dollface (2026). A horror novel described as “Barbie meets Scream,” featuring a horror author who moves to suburban New Jersey and gets drawn into a slasher plot where a killer in a plastic mask targets PTA moms. The book blends 90s nostalgia with modern horror, combining gore with social commentary on suburban life, and has become a USA Today bestseller.
Another Fine Mess (2025). A Southern horror-mystery novel, the second in the Bless Your Heart series, following the Evans women in southeast Texas.
Bless Your Heart (2024). A Southern gothic mystery-horror novel about four generations of women who run a funeral parlor in Southeast Texas and must fight off vampires (Strigoi) who have returned to their town in 1999. The book blends horror, mystery, and family drama, following the Evans women as they protect their community from the undead, with the first book in the series setting up further adventures.
Cold Snap (2024). A horror novella about a grieving mother who takes her son to a remote cabin for Christmas after her husband’s death, only to be tormented by strange noises and a sinister, horned figure in the woods, blurring the lines between her grief and supernatural horror. The book explores themes of loss, guilt, and isolation.
In addition to her novels, Lindy Ryan has edited several horror anthologies, including Howl: An Anthology of Werewolves, The Darkest Night, Mother Knows Best, and Into the Forest: Tales of Baba Yaga.
Michael Wehunt
Nightjars (September 2026). A horror/psychological thriller novel about a man haunted by his serial killer father’s legacy, who finds himself implicated in new murders that mirror his father’s crimes, forcing him to confront a dark, ancient secret in the North Georgia Appalachians. The story blends elements of photography, repressed memories, and folklore, exploring themes of inherited trauma and monstrous identity.
The October Film Haunt (2025). A Bram Stoker Award®-nominated meta-horror novel about a haunted cult film and the woman reluctantly pulled into its sequel. The story examines fandom, viral trends, and the line between fiction and reality, blending elements of classic occult horror with modern paranoia in the mountains of Vermont.
The Inconsolables (2023). A collection of ten literary horror stories, featuring characters confronting personal desires and supernatural terrors, with illustrations by Trevor Henderson. The book explores the cracks between the ordinary and the extraordinary, with stories like the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated “Vampire Fiction” and “The Pine Arch Collection,” and is noted for its poetic, resonant, and haunting style.
Greener Pastures (2016). A Shirley Jackson Award-nominated debut collection of short horror and weird fiction stories that blends Southern Gothic, New Weird, and dark fantasy with a poetic, unsettling style. The stories explore themes of grief, desire, and the unknown encroaching on the familiar, often set in rural or wilderness environments, and are praised for their beautiful language and emotional resonance.
Karen White
The Royal Street Series is a paranormal mystery series, set in New Orleans and following Nola Trenholm as she renovates haunted houses, often with contractor Beau Ryan, while dealing with ghosts and family secrets. A spinoff of her Tradd Street novels, the series includes The Shop on Royal Street (2022), The House on Prytania (2023), The Lady on Esplanade (2025), and the forthcoming The Byrds on Newcomb Boulevard (November 2026).
The Tradd Street series, a popular mystery/supernatural novel series, set in Charleston, South Carolina, follows psychic realtor Melanie Middleton as she deals with ghosts and historical secrets in old houses. The series includes seven novels: The House on Tradd Street (2008), The Girl on Legare Street (2009), The Strangers on Montagu Street (2011), Return to Tradd Street (2014), The Guests on South Battery (2017), The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street (2019), and concluding with The Attic on Queen Street (2021).