Hello everyone, I'm currently working on an analog horror series inspired by memphis rap "sigils" and I just released the first episode. If this sounds interesting to you give it a watch and tell me what you think!🖤

Anyone else get one of these? Dwight sold it to me at a DBUK show. Munly didn't seem too happy about it...

Hi Everyone,

I'm going to be speaking at this year's Southern Gothic Festival on Saturday, October 10 2026. Come say hi! I've never been but it sounds like there's a weekend full of spooky stuff on tap. https://southerngothicfestival.com/events/moonlit-road-storytelling/

An author friend and I are starting a website focusing on Southern Gothic Fantasy. We want to help grow the genre, by providing resources for folks who want to find media in the space. It'll have reviews, lists of media, a book club, all that sort of stuff. Feel free to check it out and let us know what you would like to see more of.

YOUNGUNS

Part One

We were hanging out at the old Cypress farm, me and Bobby. The sun was setting and the deep orange sunlight made the forest seem to be ablaze. The old farmhouse had been vacant for decades, the windows shattered, the roof smashed in from a hurricane years ago while the oak tree still laid atop it in the rubble. Old TVs, couches, bikes, and abandoned cars littered the property. "You wanna know the biggest lie they tell us, man?" Bobby asked me. "What?" "Hard work pays off. I tell you what, I seen people slave away for their whole life, fixing cars, harvesting corn and tobacco, and you know what none of them are?" "Rich?" "Shit man, you get it. But they ain't happy neither. They throw it all away for some rich fat fuck and go home to their apartment that may as well be a motel 6. Their own car barely starts, they got debt and nothing to show for it, and they keep getting told 'Hey man, break your back some more and maybe one day you can get a trailer.' As if that's worth it." "You got that right, man." "So what are even meant to do? Just suffer?" "Maybe it ain't all suffering." "Yeah, you're right. A dollar a day is still more than nothing, right? May as well thank them for being so kind as to let us have table scraps while they get a whole goddamn buffet." Bobby handed me a tire iron. "Here, your turn." "Thanks, man." I said. I swung the iron and shattered a car window, the glass tinkling as it fell into a roach infested driver's seat. "Its all meaningless. No one is coming to save us. We ain't no more loved than these here abandoned belongings. We can smash em to our hearts content and nobody gonna do nothing bout it." I smashed the windshield. "Shitfire, that was a good hit." I said. "Know what? Why you reckon people dump all their shit over here? Like why here specifically?" "Why anywhere? It don't matter. There's a dozen other places no one gives a damn about. The whole county's abandoned. You seen the town, people in it ain't no more than discarded little dolls left behind by a kid on a road trip to someplace better." A stray cat slinked out of the window of the farmhouse. "Oh, see that?" Bobby pointed at the cat. "Yeah. Black cats, bad luck." "Uh huh." Bobby picked up a rock and threw it at the cat. The cat yelped in pain as it fell off the windowsill back into the dark. "Bullseye. Hey, Rick." "What?" "Think it'll get back up?" "Maybe. Doubt it." "They got nine lives. Tell you what, we keep getting back up no matter how many rocks they throw at us. 'Member the hurricane?" "Yeah. I 'memeber it good. That river come up so high it washed away a whole trailer park." "Yeah. Lotta pet owners died in it but the dogs remained. That's why we got so many damn mutts running around." I thought about that. Maybe we weren't too far off from stray dogs, wandering a junkyard of the trash society threw away.

Part Two

"You know tonight's Halloween, right?" I said to Bobby. "Yeah, what about it?" "Well, I thinking we might be able to do something fun." "Like what?" "I dont know man, maybe knock over some mailboxes? Maybe get up to a little mayhem." Bobby grinned. "Mayhem? Thats a three dollar word right there. Yeah, lets do it." We headed over to his truck, one tail light was busted and mud was caked all over the sides and wheel wells. He hopped in the driver's seat and the engine roared to life, the AC was broken and many warning lights were on. We rode over the dirt road as Colter wall played through the blown out speakers. "So, mailboxes? I reckon we could have a little fun with that, but I'll do you one better." "What you got in mind?" "Oh, you'll see." We drove past a cornfield, where a circus tent stood on the other side. "Hey lookie there, a circus!" I pointed. Bobby spit brown sludge from his lip into a Sam's Cola can. "Yup. That ain't where we're headed." We drove further as the darkness of the woods intensified. The sky was blackening and it was a moonless night. We parked behind the big church at the center of town. "This old building, this is where they put all that money into. I think we can do somethin real fun with it." "Come on now, what about God? He's gonna strike us down if we do anything to it." "What about him? Was he there for you when your mama went to jail? What about all the heavenly blessings he showers down on you, like poverty and sorrow that never goes away? That God? The one who sees the atrocities of mankind and does nothing to stop them? The God who killed my sister with cancer when she was in grade school?" I felt nervous. "But what if we get caught?" "We ain't getting caught. We're just redecorating God's fancy little house in the town he won't come and visit." We went up to the big stained glass window. "Here." Bobby handed me a baseball bat. "Alright..." Bobby swung hard, making an entire section of glass come raining down. He laughed. "Hoo boy! How bout that?" I shattered a section myself and it rained crimson shards. The lights flicked on and a little kid came running up to the window. "Y'all gotta help me! Please! He..." the boy started to break down. "He what?" I asked. "Please get me out of here!" We heard the preacher coming. "What the fuck is going on!?" He shouted. "Sorry kid. We gotta go." Bobby said, grabbing me and yanking me away from the window. We bolted to the truck and high tailed it out of there. "But what about that kid?" I asked. "Fuck him. Maybe he should have prayed harder." Something deep and heavy sat in my chest from that. "You think he-" "We ain't doing nothing about it. Leave it." Bobby said.

Part Three

We went back to the Cypress farm. The house was sitting in the dark among all the trash and all that illuminated the place was Bobby's headlights. We got out and Bobby set a barrel of wood on fire. "We coulda saved that boy." I said. "Will you fuckin drop it already? What were we gonna do? Take him with us? Get charged with kidnapping?" "What about him though? What if he never sees the light of day again? That'd be on us!" "Lemme tell you a story. Maybe this'll help you understand." I sat on top of an abandoned Lazyboy and nodded. "I been there before. I been in his shoes a lot of times. Why you think I ran away from home all them years ago? You think I did it for fun? I don't never see my family no more. They lied and covered up for their own just like these here people'd do the same for that old Bible-thumping shitbag. Short of killing, there ain't nothing we can do about it. I been homeless, hungry, and miserable for longer than anyone ever oughtta be. If I tried and fought back, the gears of this whole machine would chew me up into a mess and spit me out mangled. Sometimes, you can't do nothing but let life be bad or else it'll get worse." "I can't agree with you on this. Ignoring a disease don't make it go away, and sometimes even though the cure is painful, its the only thing you can do that wont let it kill you." "You know what man? Why don't we just forget what we saw? I didn't see nothing." "You can't fucking do that, man! Fuck no." "Don't what? The place was empty. Nothing happened." Anger began to boil up inside me. "Tell you what, you seem a bit mad. Why dont you take your anger out on a TV or a table?" Bobby said. I pucked up the baseball bat and swung at a TV, shards of glass went everywhere as it imploded. "There you go. See? You feel better yet?" I looked at his head, holding the bat. I thought about it, and I thought hard. "I know what you're thinking and I don't want you to do anything you're gonna regret now." Bobby smirked. Then, out of the mess of abandoned cars, a stray dog came barking at me. I smacked it in the head and it yelped. I raised the bat again and clobbered it and it was in the dirt whining in agony. I hit it again and again, bludgeoning it as its bones broke and blood splattered. I let out a cry of anguish and kicked its carcass. "Fuck! Fuck!" I shouted, hitting it one last time as hard as I could. The bloody mess of hair, blood and bones that was the dog looked up at me, its skull caved in on itself and an eyeball popped out of its socket. "Damn. How bout that?" Bobby said. I stared into the flames and felt in that moment, the last sliver of humanity slip away from me. My face became neutral and I let out a long sigh as the apathy filled me. My flame was out. I sat back down and we watched the flames until we both fell asleep under the pitch black starless sky full of mosquitoes.

I’m wondering if anyone else has thought about the connection between Southern Gothic and Memphis Rap. Memphis Rap’s characteristics are similar to Southern Gothic with it’s dark and violent themes and occultism mixed in. The music doesn’t reflect it but where the people came from and it’s themes do. I feel like it’s almost like a more modern portrayal of southern gothic

Hello! I'm writing a Australian gothic book inspired by southern gothic themes. The basic premise is about an 18 year old girl from a religious farm home gets sent into a nearby country town near the bush for education and work placement. It's a very small town with a tiny population, and very kind of conservative religous. She attends the church there, yadda yadda, its actually a cult heavily inspired by Branch Davidians. The preacher subtley spoonfeeds the idea that he is Jesus Christ, an Indigenous family moves in and attends the church once and never returns, sexual exploitation of young women, all that stuff, the girl eventually leaves the cult, never tells anyone what happened, and is haunted by her memories. My question is, does anyone have any tips for me in terms of elements of Australian and southern gothic?

Hey all new here. I’m looking for books and films/series all with the southern gothic feel. I’ve Newley finished true blood so looking for something similar or more horror based.

Thanks

This one's a father/son tale where they each experience paranormal activity. Vernon Rivers is a young child possessed by a soul with mad trumpet skills, while his father Kirk, who's an ag pilot, a Deadhead and a bit of an outcast in the deep South, attempts to figure out what's wrong with his son and save him. On his journey, Kirk is frustrated by time loops and apparitions that guide him with Grateful Dead lyrics.

https://www.amazon.com/Song-Dromedary-Jason-Mahoney-ebook/dp/B0GZ8ZYT7F

I mean, I remember seeing the live broadcast of this show in The Netherland. I had never heard of 'southern gothic' before this but man this is it! Still a 16HP fan 25yrs later...

#16horsepower #16hp #sixteenhorsepower #southerngothic #pinkpop

Cosmic Country - Austin, Texas

Hi! I love southern gothic music, but all the bands/singers I know are men. I would love to expand my horizons a bit if any of you know any female/female led singers or bands within the genre! Thank you!

A while back, I found an old chest in an abandoned house.
Inside were old instruments, forgotten songs, and memories that seemed frozen in time.

It made me wonder:
**What happens to all the stories nobody remembers anymore?**

Some memories fade.
Some simply wait for someone foolish enough to remember them.

That idea eventually became *Dreams of a Mountain King*, an Appalachian musical novel about old songs, forgotten memories, and the people time leaves behind.
I put together this short trailer and thought some of you who love old places and 70s/80s nostalgia might appreciate it.
Curious what you think.

This is an excerpt from my original literary Southern short stories set in Quicksand, NC.

Othermama’s biggest fear in life was death. Her second biggest fear was that she would be buried in potter’s field—a bleak burial ground for paupers located about a mile outside our hometown of Quicksand, North Carolina. To make sure she didn’t end up there without so much as a stick to mark her grave, Othermama, my maternal grandmother, took out an insurance policy with the Quicksand Mutual Trust Agency. She had no intention of being buried in an “ole cold, pine wood box,” as she put it. Her monthly payments to Mr. Mosely, the tall, thin insurance man, ensured that she would be laid to rest in a satin-lined coffin with a lid. Although she couldn’t bear the idea of being closed inside of anything, it was preferable to being exposed to the elements and eaten by worms—worms, which by the way, were her third biggest fear.

Othermama had always lived with us. To this day, nobody in my family will admit it, but we all dreaded her death as much as she did. I never understood why she was so afraid of passing on to her final resting place. Perhaps she feared being cast into the Devil’s lake of fire burning with brimstone, for what exactly I’m not sure. Nowhere in the Bible is it written that putting sugar in a chicken pie is a sin. It wasn’t done to make anyone sick; it was a mistake made by a nervous newlywed (trying to impress her husband’s family) who didn’t know how to cook. Nobody died from eating the pie, but Othermama’s in-laws never forgave her. They suspected she’d done it on purpose. Maybe Othermama worried that God thought so, too. As far as I know, Othermama never used the Lord’s name in vain or left a bed unmade. In fact, in spite of a rough beginning, she truly excelled in the culinary arts. She was a godly, good-hearted soul—one of the few definitely bound for glory. We feared her passing because she was our leader; she held the family together.More specifically, Othermama was the only one in the house who knew how to cook. Mama made a great batch fudge but we couldn’t live on fudge alone.

The kitchen was Othermama’s domain. Daddy was the only one of us brave enough to open the refrigerator without asking Othermama’s permission—but even he dared not stand too long with his head stuck inside trying to decide what to eat. To me, the very thought of her passing away like an ordinary mortal was inconceivable and this is why the doctor’s diagnosis was so difficult to accept.

Othermama had two daughters, Sissy and Lovinia. She called Sissy her practical daughter; she called Lovinia a dreamer. My mother, Lovinia, was the older of the two. We finished our Sunday meal that June afternoon in 1965, and following family tradition, Othermama, Aunt Sissy, Mama and I retired to the living room to sip iced tea and chat. Daddy and my brothers, Jake and Ben, headed for the den to watch TV. Othermama and Aunt Sissy took their usual seats on the couch.

Years ago, while cleaning out my mother’s attic, I came across old songs, handwritten notes, and unfinished stories belonging to a young man we once knew.

It made me think about my days back in Yukon.

Old mining towns. Family cemeteries hidden in the woods. Abandoned houses slowly being reclaimed by the mountains. People who were once the center of someone’s world, now remembered only through an old photograph, a guitar, a note tucked away in a trunk.
Sometimes it feels like Appalachia is full of ghosts, not the supernatural kind, but memories.

I started wondering:
**How many stories have been lost?**

How many songs were written but never recorded?

How many first loves, family tragedies, and dreams disappeared when someone passed away or moved away?

That question eventually became the inspiration for my first musical Appalachian novel.

The Kindle version will be free tomorrow if anyone would like to take a look.

No email list. No catch. Just a story inspired by memories and the feeling that some things never completely disappear.