{"id":668,"date":"2011-02-14T22:18:05","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T03:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/"},"modified":"2016-12-20T16:16:24","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T21:16:24","slug":"these-words-are-haunted","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/writing\/books\/these-words-are-haunted\/","title":{"rendered":"These Words Are Haunted (hardcover)"},"content":{"rendered":"

These Words Are Haunted<\/em><\/a> gathers 13 of my favorite horror short stories in one hardcover volume, including the Bram Stoker Award-nominated “A Plague on Both Your Houses,” a five-act play that crosses Romeo and Juliet with Night of the Living Dead<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Pulling this book together in 2001 wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be, because in order to winnow down the table of contents to a manageable number of stories, I had to reevaluate my entire writing career. Normally, I think only of the stories ahead of me I still have to write, rather than the ones behind me.<\/p>\n

Rereading every story I’d ever written was an odd experience, because whenever I return to one, I have twin emotions—first, the same ones readers have, that is, the experience of the story itself; then, all the memories surrounding the story’s creation. I remember where I was when I first had the germ of an idea, what was happening in my life that caused the idea to pop into my head, where I was sitting as I scribbled the first draft, and so forth. I am not, and never can be, a disinterested reader.<\/p>\n

The 13 stories I chose to represent my best are “Ten Things I’ve Learned About Writing<\/a>,” “The Last Leg<\/a>,” “Is This a Horror Story?<\/a>,” “Laurel Fixation<\/a>,” “Do the Dead Care?<\/a>,” “Fifth Dimension<\/a>,” “A Plague on Both Your Houses<\/a>,” “Making Peace with the Leader<\/a>,” “The Elvis Syndrome<\/a>,” “Are You Now?<\/a>,” “Picture This<\/a>,” “These Words Are Haunted<\/a>” and “The Suicide Artist<\/a>.” Adam-Troy Castro provided an introduction so complimentary that I can’t read it without blushing. I chose Francisco Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Children” to be the cover image because I’ve always felt it the most nightmarish portrait of madness ever committed to canvas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These Words Are Haunted gathers 13 of my favorite horror short stories in one hardcover volume, including the Bram Stoker Award-nominated “A Plague on Both Your Houses,” a five-act play that crosses Romeo and Juliet with Night of the Living Dead. Pulling this book together in 2001 wasn’t as easy as I thought it would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669,"parent":28,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-668","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22866,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/668\/revisions\/22866"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}