Trigger warning: This article contains discussions of racism, misogyny, sexual violence, trauma, human trafficking, and other potentially distressing content. Please exercise care while reading.
Womanhood makes great fodder for horror. For centuries, we’ve lacked autonomy over our own bodies, lives, and even our minds. We’ve learned to move through the world from a place of caution and fear, not knowing what — or who — might be a potential threat. “[Being] a woman,” Carmen Maria Machado told Hazlitt in 2017, “is inherently uncanny.”
With that in mind, we’ve gathered five authors to share their insights on writing horror through a female lens. Read on to learn what drew them to the genre, how real-world issues and anxieties make for good horror, and whether they think they’d survive a horror story.
The Authors
Brigid Barry
An Air Force veteran and blessed parent of twins, Brigid Barry lives on a small hobby farm in Southern Maine with her favorite husband and too many animals.
Cynthia Pelayo
Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award- and International Latino Book Award-winning author and poet. Pelayo writes fairy tales that blend genre and explore concepts of grief, mourning, and cycles of violence. She is the author of Loteria, Poems of My Night, Into the Forest and All the Way Through, Children of Chicago, Crime Scene, The Shoemaker’s Magician, Forgotten Sisters, and Vanishing Daughters, as well as dozens of standalone short stories and poems.
She’s been named one of Chicago’s Newcity Lit 50. She’s also an instructor at StoryStudio Chicago and Clarion West. Additionally, she’s set to complete the Ragdale Artist Residency and Odyssey Writers Workshop. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is pursuing a PhD in English.
Rikki Goodwin
Rikki (she/her) lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she writes cozy grief horror (is that a thing?) and also owns a tattoo and piercing studio. Her debut, Lovers’ Leap, releases on September 30, 2025, with Rowan Prose Publishing. Her next novel, Ghost Glasses, will arrive February 24, 2026. She’s also contributed to two upcoming anthologies with October Nights Press and Graveside Press.
Jen Sookfong Lee
Jen Sookfong Lee is a Chinese-Canadian author whose books include the International Dublin Literary Award nominee and Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize finalist The Conjoined, The Hunger We Pass Down, The Shadow List, Finding Home, and Superfan, a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year. The co-host of the literary podcast Can’t Lit, she also acquires and edits for ECW Press. She was born and raised in Vancouver, where she continues to live with her son.
Kathleen Kaufman
Kathleen Kaufman is an author of magical realism and feminist gothic horror, exploring “the other” from “the other’s” point of view, how the horror of the past manifests in the present, and the inescapable intertwining of generational history. Her prose has been praised by Kirkus Reviews as “crisp [and] elegant,” and as “genuinely chilling” by Booklist. She is the author of the Diabhal trilogy, The Lairdbalor (soon to be a feature film directed by Nicholas Verso), Hag, and The Tree Museum. Originally from Colorado, Kathleen is a professor at Santa Monica College and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, kitten, and hound.
The Questions
1. What first drew you to the horror genre, and when did you realize you wanted to tell haunting tales?
Brigid: The entire basis of Straw Girl was real things I experienced in haunted houses. If it hadn’t been for that, I don’t know if I would have written horror at all.
Cynthia: My first encounter with horror was when I was six years old and watched A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). I grew up in the 1980s, and it was a moment in which a lot of now-iconic characters were created. Initially, when I started writing and publishing, that was as a journalist in the late 1990s. I didn’t pivot to fiction writing until around 2008. I had intended on writing literary fiction and creative nonfiction, but each time I tried tackling complex issues, like inner-city youth violence, the supernatural would appear.
Rikki: I had a “Stephen King Mom” and unfettered access to our local library. When I chose books to read, I always chose things I thought my mom would also enjoy, which led me to horror. She must have passed the gene down, because I was immediately in my element! I love the thrill of being frightened.
I’m a reader first, and didn’t start writing until recently. I read an amazingly terrifying and relatable novel by a woman my own age, and had an epiphany. Horror could be for me. I didn’t have to accept that women in horror were reduced to mothers and damsels in distress. We could be heroes. We could be monsters.
Jen: As a child, I was always drawn to ghost stories, particularly those featuring haunted houses, or houses in which terrible things take place. As I grew older, I came to realize that the ghosts were simply narrative tools for people to talk about past trauma. I became fascinated with the human need to process pain and hurt through the supernatural.
It’s not as if the stories aren’t scary; in fact, sometimes they’re more visibly scary than the initial trauma that inspired it. And yet we are instinctively drawn to scare ourselves in this outsized, larger-than-life way to make sense of what frightens us in reality. Eventually, when it came time for me to think of a new fiction project, I tapped into this idea and my child self and thought, “What can I write that contributes to this conversation?”
Kathleen: I have always been drawn to horror. I remember collecting my 3D glasses from McDonald’s as a kid and watching The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Swamp Thing — absolutely riveted. I devoured any spooky, dark stories I could get my hands on. It was around fourth grade that I started to write my own stories — G-rated slasher plots that involved every member of my very small elementary class. My teacher would let me read them aloud, and everyone would cheer as they were eaten by the monster or lost forever in the haunted forest. I was officially hooked and haven’t looked back since.
As I grew up, I existed on Anne Rice, Stephen King, Dean Koontz. Later, I found Octavia Butler, Shirley Jackson, Tananarive Due. I am continually thrilled when I find a book, movie, or show that scares me. I love all of it: campy, creepy, gory, melancholy — I’m all in.
2. How do you think women bring a distinct perspective to themes like fear, trauma, and survival in horror? Can the female experience shape the way these experiences are written and received?
Brigid: I am of the opinion that a lot of women have survived various forms of trauma (at least I have), and channeling it into a fictional narrative is not only cathartic but lends a level of realism that someone who isn’t a survivor might not be able to. Men are often not supported emotionally and psychologically the way women are either, giving the two perspectives very different feels.
Cynthia: For many years, the dominant figure in horror was a White cis-male. It still is today, but there are more diverse voices entering horror. Which — it’s interesting considering the historical position of White cis-males in this country; it was them who initiated some of the most horrific atrocities in human history. I think if you want to understand the true depths of horror, talk to a woman of color, because she has likely had to grapple with a number of issues, from those involving bodily autonomy — women of color are often sexualized and sexualized very young — to the numbers of fears from just navigating this country and various institutions, schools, and so forth, to very real traumas they may have experienced that may include racism, classism, misogyny and more.
Rikki: I think women provide some much-needed introspection to these themes. A lot of my favorite authors are women because we seem interested in exploring the monsters that live inside us, while I notice men tend to focus on external threats (which isn’t a bad thing, either!). I’m very excited that the genre includes such a broad spectrum of writers because each of us imagines “horror” differently.
Jen: I mean, we all know that so many experiences that women live through are really just moments of body and psychological horror, right? Women and nonbinary folks are so used to fear — of predators, of harassment, of violence — and are therefore uniquely positioned to write about it. Writing about marginalization, oppression, or abuse from within it is especially poignant precisely because it gives voice to survivors instead of perpetrators who, let’s face it, have been given the power of storytelling forever. The best writing comes from people having the space to tell their stories in any way they see fit. And it’s really these shadowy places, where we have never dared to tread in fiction, that are the spookiest.
Kathleen: Women are taught to fear the world from a very young age. It’s a necessary lesson if we are to survive the slings and arrows that come with walking through the world while female. You are taught to be nice so you don’t anger anyone, but not too nice as to lead anyone on. You are taught to be quiet and listen, but never to hold anyone accountable for what you have heard. I have yet to meet a woman who hasn’t had the experience, however fleeting, of knowing that “this man could kill me.”
That’s not to smack-talk all men, of course, but the numbers tell a stark truth. 60% of female homicides occur in the domestic sphere — at home, at the hands of men who are supposed to love them. Contrast that with 12% of male homicides. Women are drawn to the world of horror, whether we like it or not. Women are more likely to consume true crime — with rough estimates stating that women make up more than 75% of true crime podcast audiences. We are reading, listening, watching instructional guides as to how to survive the world.
Female horror authors tend to pull not from the fear of the unknown, but rather the fear of the familiar. It’s what makes Shirley Jackson so compelling. Her stories are about the things we know, the people we see every day, and their capacity to destroy us. Octavia Butler looked at the terror of the world around her — environmental collapse, social instability, and said, “What if this continues…?”
Women were born to horror, we live it every day.
3. Horror can often reflect cultural anxieties. What real-world fears or cultural tensions do you think can become today’s most compelling horror stories?
Brigid: Ever since I was a child, I feared being taken away from my family. As a parent, my kids being taken — or us being separated — has been a persistent anxiety since they were born. Watching ICE tearing families apart, masked, with no notice, is absolutely the stuff of my worst nightmares, and I can see that being a theme in future horror stories.
Cynthia: I certainly think the world is not the same as it was five years ago. I don’t think the world will be the same in five years. This is because of technology. There are AI fears, particularly in the arts, but AI will impact every single industry, and it will do so quickly. What does that mean?
I remember life before the internet, before we were absorbed into a world beyond our screens, and it’s so bizarre how people can get so swept up into this unreal thing. People get in arguments with people online. People’s lives have been destroyed by the internet. What if we all just looked away? By that, I mean our realities have become distorted. Our focus is waning.
I think this will have massive implications for humanity. What are we really working towards anymore? We have no real connection because we’re obsessed with our phones. Many people are cynical about the benefits of friendship, companionship, and other relationships. The internet tells us that we should keep chasing the next thing and then the next, and I really and truly believe we’ve lost the point.
The point is what’s in front of us. The sky. Our land. Each other. The real horror story is people are chasing something, and they think AI, the internet, social media, technology will fix them. It won’t.
Rikki: This is a difficult question. Fiction is a great way to escape from real-world fears and cultural tensions. I just recently read a novel about COVID-19, now that we’re five years past the initial terror and trauma. We need time to process events before we can safely consider them again in a fictional setting.
It’s also important to remember that we, as individuals, might not be able to accurately portray people outside of our own lived experience. Horror is a particularly close and personal genre, and I think as writers we tend to focus on our own demons, so to speak. We write what frightens us, and in turn find readers with similar fears as our own. So, for example, in my new novel, Lovers’ Leap, characters are struggling with soaring real estate costs and low wages, as those are things I’m intimately familiar with and frighten me.
Jen: Truly, I think any real-world issue can make a great horror story! I have noticed recently that there have been quite a few novels featuring evil billionaires as antagonists, which makes me laugh, but does represent the way people are feeling about the new ultra-wealthy oligarchy we find ourselves in. I think that the time is pretty perfect for someone to write a horror novel about weight loss drugs, which I know I would buy! And I am wondering if there has been a super contemporary take on human trafficking? If not, someone should write it!
Kathleen: I think one of the most interesting things about horror is its role as a historical marker for the fear zeitgeist of the world it is created in. If you look at work from the 1950s, you see a lot of nuclear war, man-made destruction. If you look at the 1980s, you have stranger danger, Freddie Krueger, Michael Myers, the fear of the other, and the danger of the unknown. Modern horror plays with the monsters that exist in all of us. Us, Get Out, Sinners — all serve as a sharp indictment of society and the idea that monsters are in the bed, not under it.
I think some of the smartest recent horror stories have played with that idea directly. Jordan Peele, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, Octavia Butler, and Lee Murray have taken race, generational trauma, and societal mayhem and given it a plot and a narrative. Alex Garland demonstrated a visceral and real look at a potential near-future horror in Civil War and societal breakdown in 28 Days Later. Gillian Flynn, Sarah Langan, and Seanan Maguire remind us that our past may be behind us, but it can still cut and bite.
What all these have in common is the idea that it’s us, the readers, who are ultimately responsible for the horror in the world.
4. Do you find horror more effective when it taps into real-life fears, or when it leans into the surreal or fantasy? What draws you more as a writer and why?
Brigid: Stephen King wrote a novella that ended up in an anthology, Apt Pupil. I read it once, decades ago, and it still haunts me. Why? Because it’s a thing that’s possible. I don’t have to worry about a werewolf or a vampire, but monstrous humans live in our neighborhoods. Things that are relatable resonate more strongly emotionally, maybe especially with horror.
Cynthia: As a writer and reader, I think the most effective horror is that which can in fact happen, and that’s often running into a dangerous person. People are the real monsters, and there are people who will gladly destroy you psychologically, just because they gain enjoyment and power from that chaos and control. There are people who will kill you and not even blink. There are people who exist who do not care at all about the existence of others. To read about people like that is terrifying.
Of course, the areas I generally work in are the surreal and fantasy. I consider my writing style to fall into the categories of absurdism, surrealism, and the avant-garde, and I try to communicate real-life horrors through the supernatural.
Rikki: I like a mix of both, personally. I enjoy real-life fears to ground the characters and make them relatable, but a dash of the supernatural makes a story soar, whether used as a metaphor or just to make the story more frightening and fun. A writer has no budget; the worlds we create are only limited to our imagination, so why keep everything rooted in reality?
Jen: I love things that are about real-life fears. I’m a practical thinker (well, kind of, as much as a writer can be a practical thinker), and I need to connect with a story emotionally and politically in order to really want to move forward with it. I would also argue that there is no horror that doesn’t have some basis in reality!
Kathleen: I thoroughly enjoy all manner of spooky stories, and all mediums in which they are told, for that matter. For my part, I find the horror that lives in real-life fears to be the most frightening and affecting. Woman of the Hour by Anna Kendrick lives in my nightmares as a perfect example of a very real, very possible horror and the reality that monsters come with smiles and charm, not teeth and claws. Everything by Ruth Ware absolutely pulls me in, but most recently, I loved One Perfect Couple and the idea of the horror behind any of the ridiculous reality shows we indulge in.
That being said, I might not get quite as frightened, but still absolutely love a good, surreal, fantastical horror story, especially a good haunted house story. The Haunting of Hill House is an absolute mark of perfection in my mind for haunted house stories, but Kaaron Warren’s The Underhistory is right there at the top, too. It combines a haunted house and the fear of human nature in one fantastic ball.
As a writer, I live somewhere in between these two. I love inviting the fantastical into my work, and I strive to make that horror visceral and real. I have so many writers and creators that I look to for guidance. Each book I read, movie I watch, or show I binge teaches me something new about what makes the world scary.
5. How do you approach female characters in your writing? Do they often emerge as survivors, anti-heroes, complex villains, or something else entirely different?
Brigid: My characters are predominantly female, and unless they’re outright villainous, the characters are there to support each other. Each MC tends to be complex and flawed in their own way, complemented by a strong, no-nonsense female friend to call them out on their bullshit. But it’s always with love.
Cynthia: I’ve written women as all of these things: survivors, anti-heroes, and complex villains. I think we’ve seen a lot of women as victims in horror, and I’d like to see more women with agency.
Rikki: I tend to write close first person, and again, I’m a big fan of writing lived experiences, so my main characters tend to start out something like me. They blossom into their own unique person as the story goes on, and I learn more about them. I’ve written some women that turn out downright nasty — it has me side-eyeing myself in the mirror sometimes: did I have those thoughts?
But I think my main goal is not to type-cast any woman into a particular trope. She should be faceted, have both weak moments and shining wins. She should have personal goals and responsibilities. She should be a fully fleshed-out human… unless she isn’t.
Jen: I think my female characters are all the things! I try to place women in all the principal roles in my fiction, and I try really hard to surprise people with their motivations, decisions, and behaviours. Listen, we can be sweet as pie or we can be irredeemably evil, and everything in between!
Kathleen: I don’t know if I go into the writing process with any of those tags in my head. My female characters are who they are. I am often surprised at the decisions they make and the paths they choose. That sounds suspect, I know, I am, after all, the one pressing the keys and writing the words — but it’s true, the characters are sailing the ship. My female characters often are survivors, but I strive to never have them defined by whatever tragedy they have lived through.
I think it’s all too familiar a trope for women in fiction to be portrayed as broken-wing birds in need of saving. I like my women to have some bite to them. I love the idea of anti-heroes. It’s that push and pull of ethics and morals that makes any of us interesting, and even more so when it comes to fiction. I think all of us humans live in a morally ambiguous grey zone, and it’s only right that our fictional companions exist there as well.
Bonus Questions
6. What’s a horror book or film that blew you away and why?
Brigid: When I worked as a housekeeper in my younger years, I found a paperback copy of Bag of Bones by Stephen King. I’ve read it a dozen times, and it is my favorite horror novel. So much so that it largely inspired Straw Girl!
Rikki: Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth is a perfect novel to bring up during this conversation. If you want to experience the unique voice women can bring to the horror genre, there’s no better place to start.
I’m also a huge fan of Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist, I consider it my quintessential horror film. Talk about fully fleshed-out, beautifully imperfect characters! Talk about real-life traumas paired perfectly with supernatural threats. It’s a classic.
Jen: I will forever stan Get Out by Jordan Peele. No other film so ruthlessly skewered race and fetish as that one did, while still making it scary and funny. And for a book, Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang, which turns the beauty and wellness industry into horror… because it is.
Kathleen: I am currently reading We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer, and it is actively knocking my socks off. It is a house story, which I love, but also the story of an anxious person in a warped world where nothing seems to be what she remembers. Just amazing.
My all-time favorite horror movie is the 1968 Rosemary’s Baby. Again, it’s a house story — that fantastic New York apartment with its sprawling hallways and nooks and crannies is my dream house — but also it is the story of trust, and gaslighting with some devil worship thrown in.
7. If you were trapped in a horror book or movie, what cliché character would you be, and would you survive?
Brigid: I’d be the one trying to be smart and deviating from what the rest of the group wants to do. Either way, I’m pretty sure I’d die before the end.
Rikki: Oh, I’m 100% the not-quite-as-pretty and kind-of-a-downer best friend of the final girl. I’ll be the one to figure out what she needs to do to win, but I’m not surviving to make it to the final showdown. I’ve gotta leave my final girl bestie the emotional damage she needs to go all-out on the bad guy.
Jen: Oh, I’d be the nerdy girl with the glasses who spouts off all the statistics and history of the scary place the characters have found themselves in (think Velma in Scooby-Doo). Yes, I survive, but only after being almost killed off about halfway through, disappearing, and then miraculously reappearing at the end with some grievous injury.
Kathleen: Ooh — I would be Theo from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. I love Theo’s snark, her cool confidence, and just the way she walks through the world. She takes all Eleanor’s idiosyncrasies in stride, and keeps that tough veneer all the while absorbing everyone’s thoughts, emotions, and energy. I think I would survive — Theo is made for battle, and I think she’d survive most anything that came her way.
Thanks to these amazing authors for speaking with us! We can’t wait to see what other terrors they have in store, whether entirely supernatural or unnervingly real.
Find Brigid Barry here.
Find Cynthia Pelayo here.
Find Rikki Goodwin here.
Find Jen Sookfong Lee here.
Find Kathleen Kaufman here.
Click here to read our panel discussion with five cozy fantasy authors.
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