Welcome

My name is Galadriel (yes legally, hippie parents enough said).  I was never a princess sort of girl - I hated my barbies, never loved pink (boy that has changed).   But like Christopher Robin, I did have a soft spot reserved for a certain little yellow ball of fluff.  And while Winnie the Pooh was my main man as a little girl, a new "man" would soon enter my world and change it and me forever.

When I was 6, I got the world's worst case of pink eye.  All the white parts of both eyes turned blood red.  I was stuck in the house until I got better so I wouldn't scare and/or infect the neighborhood kids . It was then that the new man came along.  He was everything bear wasn't - he was mysterious, strong and I dare say dangerous. He was the bad boy to my sweet bear.  It was the summer of 75 and we were all about to be afraid to go back in the water.

While I was at home getting hourly pokes in the eye with painful medicine, the trailer for Jaws began showing up on tv.  I was transfixed every time it came on.  The theme music, the people screaming and running on the beach and... the blood.  I would stare with my mouth open at the tv and as soon as it ended I would start begging my mom to take me to see it.  And as any guilty mom would do with a sick kid, she promised when I got better she would.  A cool thing about having hippie parents is that they can be a little more hell why not without considering first things like lifetime damage from the trauma of watching a gigantic shark rip people to bits.  And although I spent many months afterwards frightened to pee (are you positive a shark can't stick his or her head up out of the toilet?), it was worth it.  To this day, I still have a deep fondness for that big fish and for the obsession with horror he created in me that continues to this day.

Mom's pretty lucky I turned out to be a sweet well adjusted law abiding heavily tattooed goth girl, because she was my partner in crime for all my early horror experiences.  After Jaws, she took me to see Phantasm, then it was Carrie and then Audrey Rose.  I tried to watch The Exorcist with her when it was broadcast on tv, but it was so scary I mostly only "heard" it from my open bedroom door while I hid under the covers.   Thanks Mom, you rock.

I spent a lot of my childhood lost in books in the corner of my local library or laying on my bed, so it didn't take long for my love of horror to spread from the movies to books.  Reading Jaws was even more terrifying than watching  it because now I was in in the shark's head.   Same with Cujo - I was able to develop an understanding of what made the rabid dog tick that I couldn't get watching the movie.  As a tween, Peter Straub's Ghost Story was a find courtesy of the Burbank Public Library (cheers to the librarian who let me check that out without question ) and John Saul's Suffer the Children was a bookshelf discovery at an otherwise very boring adult party my mom dragged me to.  As a teenager, Clive Barker and horror writing got more elegant, complex and sexier as bondage mixed with human failings and ego and the coolest gate keepers of hell ever.

My desire is that this site will be a gathering place for other people with a love, passion, and obsession for all things horror to meet up.  Ultimately, as the forum gets set up, I really would love to see this site become a place for writers of horror (like me) to share ideas, book suggestions, writing tips/experiences and most importantly support.  And as we go along together on this journey,  I will be sharing my writing.  I hope you'll share yours with us too.

So to borrow from my favorite vampire, I bid thee welcome.  Looking forward to scaring with you.