It’s getting down to the wire for end-of-year reflections, and while I am eager as anyone to say goodbye to 2025, it was also a year full of goodness worth celebrating. I had several poems and non-fiction pieces published this year in Saw Palm, Horror Homeroom and Last Girls Club, and got to participate in several poetry readings, including Hollie Hardy’s amazing Saturday Night Special. It’s been years since I performed poetry in front of a live audience, and it was wonderful to be part of a community experience again and restore some of those lost connections.
This year also marked the release of my first poetry chapbook, In The Night, In The Dark (available now from Bottlecap Press), and it still feels surreal knowing I have an actual book out in the world. Like all projects, there is a genuine feeling of accomplishment that comes from seeing something through from ideation to reality. And while publication isn’t the end-all of existence, it was a personal goal to publish a book and I’m just really proud of myself. Full stop. My therapist is somewhere smiling.
Cover Art for Allison Goldstein’s New Poetry Chapbook, In The Night, In The Dark (Available Now from Bottlecap Press)
I also love that my first book is about horror movies. After I finished my MFA in poetry way back in 2006, I really got in my head about what serious poetry books were supposed to be. Of course, I didn’t really write that way and I knew it didn’t matter, but it still did. And I found myself rejecting ideas as too niche or too genre, even when they felt the most authentic to who I am.
And then during the long foggy years of COVID, I realized maybe I should try writing about something I really like instead of what I thought I was supposed to write about. So I wrote a book about something I really like – 20th century horror movies. It’s filled with the scenes, characters, and films that haunt my dreams in the best possible way. And I hope everyone likes it and/or connects with it in some way, but if they don’t that’s ok too.
There is beauty in making and beauty in sharing that is itself always enough. Art is a gesture.
I also got to celebrate the success of several friends this past year, including new books from award-winning writers and equally great people Amanda Chiado (her chapbook of wild, fun, and surreal pop culture prose poems, Prime Cuts is available from Bottlecap Press) and Heidi Kasa (who published her first length poetry book The Bullet Takes Forever and an award-winning flash fiction chapbook, The Beginnersin the same year, epic).
I wanted to make 2025 a year of saying Yes as much as possible. Yes, to new opportunities and experiences and people. And I think I got there. Looking forward to even more adventures on the off the page in 2026. I have two other chapbook manuscripts out at contests right now, so who knows what the new year will bring. Thanks for joining me on this journey.
Happy Holidays. Wishing for a Better, More Peaceful World in 2026.
Today is Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, and I find myself rereading Pride & Prejudice with the same cheerful delight that greets me each time. Her writing style is just so friendly and inviting, like meeting up for coffee with an old friend. I also greatly admire her pacing and how she can dig into the meat of each scene without veering into laborious overdetail. As a poet, I can’t help but love the play of sound she utilizes and how certain words dance on the tongue; but her language is never flowery or pretentious, and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Beyond her prowess from a technical standpoint, Jane Austen also has the notable distinction of creating compelling characters, who when confronted with their own real and significant flaws, decide to put the work in and fix themselves instead of relying on a romantic partner to do it for them. It’s a Christmas miracle.
Austen’s cleverness is both mind-blowing and ageless across cultures, countries, and centuries. Her literary takedowns still land like drag queen reads 200 years after the fact. And on top of all that, she’s just so funny. The first time I read Jane Austen I was floored by the fact that I was laughing, like really laughing loudly out loud at some of her character eviscerations.
At the most basic level, Jane Austen does a magnificent job of showing us exactly who her characters are, how they grow, and why. This is why the British army handed out Jane Austen books to soldiers during wartime. This is why modern audiences still return to these stories year after year. And why there will always be a new thread on Reddit every week about whether the 1995 BBC mini-series or the 2005 Joe Wright film is the best adaptation (I’m a 2005 girl – excellent boiled potatoes forever), and why we’ll get a dozen new remakes in the years to come. So cheers to Jane Austen, the patron saint of witty women writers, on her 250th birthday.
In continuation of celebrating incredible women writers you should know, please allow me to introduce you to my dear friend and award-winning writer, Heidi Kasa, who has not one but two incredible books that were just released this fall (and make wonderful holiday gifts): her poignant debut poetry collection, The Bullet Takes Forever (Mouthfeel Press), and The Beginners (a flash fiction collection), which won the The 2023 Digging Press Chapbook Competition. The Bullet Takes Forever is a powerful look at gun violence in America, from its inescapable cultural imprint to its devasting impact on a deeply personal level. It’s brave and direct and heartbreaking and energizing. Everyone in America should read this poetry book, and I can’t recommend it enough. Be sure to check out Heidi’s website to learn more about her writing and upcoming reading events: http://www.heidikasa.com.
Piper Laurie as Margaret White in Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of Carrie, released by United Artists
Margaret White is a horror icon in life and in death. While several extremely talented actresses have taken on the role of Carrie White’s fanatical mother, no performance has reached the charismatic yet unhinged fever dream of Piper Laurie in Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of Carrie. Laurie’s ability to capture the both the zealotry and otherworldly oddness of Margaret White remains a beacon for horror fans and an enduring pop culture reference nearly 50 years after the movie’s original release.
Pre-production, Piper Laurie famously believed Carrie was a ‘lyrical black comedy’ and not an actual horror film. She couldn’t comprehend that this deranged woman who shouted about her daughter’s “dirty pillows” could be anything but satire. Even if initially misguided, I think this perspective ended up freeing Laurie to explore the frenetic darkness of Margaret White without a need to ground the character in realism—consequently creating a silver screen portrayal that defied genre.
Laurie earned her a second Oscar nomination for transforming Margaret White into a fully-conceived villain that is gleefully over-the-top yet entirely believable. With an untamable mane of hair, dramatic cape, and a sing-songy voice that vacillates between vulnerable and manipulative, her very presence vibrates off the screen with a confidence that seems even more gauche next to Carrie’s overwhelming shyness.
From the moment we see her proselytizing to the neighbors, we know exactly who Margaret White is, and how her religious fervor shapes the way she both perceives and abuses her daughter. Her dogmatism acting as both a mask and a projection of her inner turmoil.
It’s easy write off that kind of character as just another blind Christian fanatic, but Piper Laurie as Margaret White radiates such an intensely felt sense of self that it permeates her religious zealotry. There is an argument to be made that Margaret White is the actual God she claims to worship under another name. Her staunch refusal to engage with reality combined with an unyielding need for control makes Margaret feel more like the leader of her own one-woman cult vs. a humble servant of her professed faith.
**Spoiler Alert**
The culmination of this devotion is realized in Margaret White’s epic death scene. After literally stabbing her daughter in the back, Margaret is given a cinematic end befitting her grotesquely repressed character—being crucified with kitchen utensils (in the style of her beloved St. Sebastian statue) as Carrie burns the house down around them.
When it hurts so good
Side note: Transforming domestic cooking tools associated with nourishment and nurturing into weapons against a negligent mother feels very on point for mid-twentieth century horror.
Once the knives and forks go in, Margaret’s wild moaning starts, then her head begins to loll back and forth; opening and closing her eyes as her grunts waver between anguish and ecstasy. And they don’t stop—the euphoric groans only growing deeper and more exhaustive with each breath as Carrie quivers in the corner.
From the penetration of the first flying knife to the moment Margaret’s head finally rolls down onto her shoulder, her orgasmic death rattle lasts not five seconds, not 10, not even 30 seconds, but a nearly incomprehensible 58 seconds. That’s basically a full minute of orgasmic wails and swelling music and Margaret White tossing her head back and forth in sublime ecstasy.
Margaret White thoroughly enjoying her kitchen crucifixion
She doesn’t seem scared or confused or even in significant pain during her crucifixion, to the point where some of the moans almost sound like laughter. And while a minute may not seem like an eternity outside of the movies, in a 98-minute film, Margaret White’s death orgasm is nearly 1% of Carrie’s total runtime.
And she dies with a smile
At the end of Carrie, Margaret White is absolutely ready to die, but not before letting out the window shattering, eye-crossing, time-warping orgasm she’s been holding in her entire adult life. This is what happens after decades of pent up, shamed-fueled celibacy. Being crucified by her telekinetic daughter may not have been the way Margaret White envisioned meeting her end, but in Piper Laurie’s hands, she’s more than happy to go out with a smile on her face after the best orgasm of her life. So, who really gets the last laugh?
I love horror movies. I know this isn’t exactly news, but it’s both true and timely as I am delighted to announce that my new 25th anniversary review of ‘Wild Zero‘ (1999) is now up and ready to read on the Horror Homeroom website!
For those of you unfamiliar, Wild Zero is a wonderfully campy, Rock ‘n’ Roll horror-comedy starring the iconic Japanese punk band, Guitar Wolf. It’s got everything – zombies with exploding heads, CGI alien space ships, a killer soundtrack, and a unexpectedly sweet trans love storyline. I love this movie and I’m honestly sad it never gets mentioned in the pantheon of great zombie flicks, so I’m on a mission to spread the good word. Check out my article on Horror Homeroom and then go stream this overlooked 90s zombie classic today!
Are you already a Wild Zero superfan? Let’s talk about it! Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Stylish and subversive, Dracula’s Daughter (1936) is the often-overlooked sequel to 1931’s Dracula and one of the rare Universal horror classics that deserves a modern remake. The story follows Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), the reluctant daughter of the legendary Count Dracula, as she struggles against her insatiable nightly desire for women and blood. The plot is loosely based the 1872 novella, Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, which predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by 25 years and focuses on a fictional lesbian vampire. Yes, in 1935 Universal Pictures made a female-led, queer coded sequel to one of their most successful monster movies…and most of it works.
Dracula’s Daughter narratively begins moments after Dracula (1931) ends, but quickly diverges both thematically and stylistically under director Lambert Hillyer. In Dracula, Bela Lugosi’s iconic vampire takes a studied, masochistic pleasure in seducing his victims. Every scene plays with ideas of lust, desire, and submission, starting with Lugosi’s memorizing stare straight into the camera. He is always impeccably dressed and speaks with a confident eloquence that reeks of good breeding. He charms his way through every social interaction, whether leading Renfield through his decaying castle or dazzling Mina and Lucy at the theater. This calculated air of mannered affluence is the camouflage that allows Dracula to hide among his victims. Dracula’s Daughter explores similar themes of desire, classism, and submission, only now that it’s a women doing a preying, the monster changes from a charismatic count to a tortured lesbian.
In full transparency, the word ‘lesbian’ is never uttered in the film, only heavily implied. However, even in 1936 with the Hays Code in full effect, many audiences picked up on the overt clues that Countess Zaleska’s vampirism was a stand-in for homosexuality.
Hollywood Censorship – A Quick Primer on The Hays Code
The Hays Code refers to a set of so-called ‘morality guidelines’ adopted by the Hollywood studio system in 1930 to avoid potential government censorship by essentially pre-censoring themselves. Sex, profanity, nudity, childbirth, interracial relationships, glorifying crime, and other acts deemed ‘immoral’ were forbidden to sidestep any public claims of indecency.
While the Hays Code was voluntary for studios, the rules were mandatory for filmmakers if they wanted distribution in the United States. With directors banned from showing ‘crime in a positive light’ and homosexuality being illegal in 1936 America, there are no happy endings allowed for gay characters. In fact, characters exhibiting any queer-coded traits or actions had to end up dead, incarcerated, or a victim to some other form of punishment.
Luckily, the Hays Code was abandoned in 1968, which is why the mainstream shift to the drugs, sex, and violence in many iconic 1970s movies can feel both exciting and jarring for classic film fans.
Now back to our regularly scheduled movie review.
Countess Zaleska – Universal’s Queer Horror Queen
As mentioned earlier, Dracula’s Daughter opens just as 1931’s Dracula ends, with Van Helsing still in Carfax Abbey, just moments after driving a stake through Dracula’s heart. He confesses Dracula’s murder to the police and is promptly arrested. This creates the opportunity for for Countess Zeleska to steal her father’s corpse from Scotland Yard with the help of her familiar/manservant, Sandor, and destroy it with fire an elaborate funeral ritual. Once Dracula’s body is burnt to a crisp, Countess Zaleska believes she’ll finally get her one true wish – to stop being a vampire and return to a normal human life (complete with heterosexual impulses).
Unlike her famous father, Countess Zaleska does not enjoy being a vampire. She stares longingly into the middle distance and plays melancholy hymns at her piano. She pleads for mercy to unseen gods, spending night after night wishing she was different – a familiar form of self-loathing for many queer kids. Zaleska will do anything to convince herself that she can be like everyone else and “think normal things.” Like what they like, love who they love. But despite her earnest desire, Countess Zaleska is a vampire, and she prefers her meals on the female side.
Movie monsters have always been metaphors, and Countess Zaleska’s very existence is an expression of common homophobic themes from that era. The idea of a blood-sucking night demon feeding on young, beautiful girls dovetails perfectly with pernicious ideas about lesbians as pariahs that ruin families by seducing innocent straight women.
Zaleska is always elegantly dressed in expensive dresses with simple lines and heavy cloaks. Her hair is dark and slicked back, her demeanor calm but somber. These stylistic choices alone visually separate the countess as an other from the more traditionally feminine women in the film with their flowers and ruffles. She constantly hides part of her face and hypnotizes her victims with an elaborate jeweled ring worn on her wedding finger. Zaleska’s inherent shame like a shadow over every scene.
When Dracula’s death does nothing to diminish her hunger, desperation sets in. Zaleska turns to renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), as a potential path to heteronormative salvation. While this seems like a standard plot device, it is not a coincidence that Zaleska purposely chooses a medical-based remedy for her affliction.
Homosexual behavior was historically seen as a disease of the mind, much like popular ‘women-centric’ diagnoses like hysteria. A vampire seeking a scientific intervention to cure an ‘obsession’ mirrors how queer people have often either voluntarily or forcibly been put through traumatic medical and psychiatric treatments to repress their sexuality. If Zaleska could use her mind to conquer the darkness, she could stop her incessant desire to slip out into the night and seek out the company of young women. At least, that’s the theory.
*Spoiler Alert – You’ve Been Warned*
The most famous and provocative scene in the film takes place in Zaleska’s art studio as she fights against but eventually succumbs to her desire for female flesh.
After meeting with Dr. Garth, Zaleska decides to test her newfound willpower by sending Sandor out into the night to find a live model for a painting session. Sandor discovers a beautiful young woman named Lili near the river and persuades her to come back to the studio with promises of food, money and warmth for posing as an artist model. Zaleska seems calm enough at first as she instructs Lili to remove her blouse and stand near the fireplace. Lili still has her slip on, but the moment the she pulls those straps down, Zaleska’s entire demeanor changes.
Suddenly the countess becomes her father’s daughter, a controlled and seductive predator. Zaleska raises her hypnosis ring, asking Lili if she likes jewelry as she begins moving closer. Even with the hypnosis taking effect, Lili is clearly scared and uncomfortable. She begins pleading to leave as Zaleska continues walking towards her. The film blurs and camera literally shifts to the ceiling then cuts to black as Lili screams offscreen.
While there are a lot of bright moments in the film, the plot declines rapidly after this scene due to several narrative missteps. In addition to dealing with Hays Code restrictions, Dracula’s Daughter began filming before the script was completed due to a rights issue with MGM, and it shows in some of the pacing and transitions.
The promise delivered in the first half of the movie as the countess struggles with her guilt and seeks to cure her condition fizzles out in a sloppy third act. Zaleska’s previously clear motives are lost in a half-baked blackmail plot that moves the action from London to Transylvania. After realizing there’s no medical way to stop her vampiric longings, Countess Zaleska kidnaps Dr. Garth’s assistant/love interest Janet in order to force Dr. Garth to become Zaleska’s eternal vampire companion. If he doesn’t agree to stay with her, she’ll kill Janet. If you think this plot twist makes little to no sense, you would be absolutely correct.
Why would Zaleska suddenly want Dr. Garth to join her as a vampire when her primary goal is to stop being a vampire? They have no real relationship other than 2 – 3 conversations about psychiatry and there’s no evidence her feelings are based on either love or attraction. Yet, she’s convinced she needs this particular man around her always, even telling him “You are the one person that stands between me and utter destruction” and “I need you to save my soul.” The scenario only begins to make sense if you believe that since Zaleska has accepted her vampiric fate, the only thing Dr. Garth could hypothetically ‘save’ her from is being a lesbian.
Ironically, the film ends up reaffirming that just like being a vampire, being gay isn’t something you can pray or medicate away, it’s just who you are.
Now back in Transylvania with Janet’s unconscious body, Zaleska finds herself once again overcome with desire. Even as the countess tells Sandor her vampire plans for Dr. Garth, her eyes cannot leave Janet. She doesn’t even blink. When Sandor says, ‘You won’t wait long” before exiting the room, he’s right. The bedroom door is barely shut before Zaleska moves onto the bed and lingers over Janet’s sleeping face. The scene is coyishly framed so you can only see Zaleska’s face moving downwards and the back of Janet’s head. The result ends up looking more like a couple about to kiss vs an actual vampire attack. Of course, Dr. Garth bursts into the room just in time to stop the action and save Janet from Zaleska (or vice versa).
This misguided kidnapping/blackmail plot comes to a close when Zaleska’s trusty manservant Sandor murders her (with an arrow of all things) for gall of attempting to transform Dr. Garth into a vampire instead of him. Sandor grabs another arrow to kill Dr. Garth, but is shot in the process by a policeman.
Other than the bad guys dying at the end, there’s no real resolution for the main characters. The closest you get is Dr. Garth and Janet conveniently realizing that they love each other and are now safe to enjoy a traditional, no-homo life back in London.
Is there a future for Dracula’s Daughter?
Even with the rushed and confusing ending, there’s more than enough good ideas in Dracula’s Daughter to warrant a nuanced remake. One that explores the moral quandaries of being a reluctant vampire without being buried in villainized queer trauma. Imagine what a cerebral director like Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) or Mary Haron (American Psycho) could do with Zaleska’s spiraling cycles of guilt and seduction. Or how highly-visual directors like Coralie Fargeat (The Substance) and Nia DaCosta (Candyman 2021) could explore repressed female desire though the lens of body horror.
There have been multiple compelling, character-driven vampire films released over the last two decades, from Let The Right One In (2008) to Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014).But when it comes to lesbian vampire films, we’re still mostly relegated to campy, cleavage-heavy Hammer movies from the 70s (which are fun, but for different reasons) and stylish cult classics like The Hunger (1983), which focus more on style than plot.
I think queer movie fans deserve better and I’d love to see what a talented screenwriter and director could do by remaking Dracula’s Daughter for a modern audience.
I am poet and not a math person. That’s not to say it’s an inherent flaw with all poets. Most people in general are better at numbers than I am, which I guess is one of the reasons I find them so intriguing. As a concept, complex math exists so far outside my realm of understanding that I can only gaze upon it in awe and remain thankful there are people who can conceive of such wonders.
Poets often have to consider numbers one way or another when addressing form. There’s the 14-line sonnet, the 10 syllables in a line of iambic pentameter, or actual Equation Poetry that invites mathematical symbols and formulas into conversation with a poet’s words. The musicality of phrasing, rhyming structures, meter – math is an essential component of formal poetry. And like all restrictions, creates both structural limits and creative opportunity.
One of the most exciting forms of mathematic poetry are Fibonacci poems. These poems take their structure directly from the Fibonacci Sequence – a numerical series where each new number is the sum of the two numbers that precede it, for example:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89…
My all-time favorite Fibonacci poem is the famous book “alphabet” by Inger Christensen (translated from Danish by Susanna Nied). It’s a beautifully conceived book-length poem that is both Abecedarian (each line begins with the next letter of the alphabet in sequential order – A, B, C, D, etc.), AND written in 14 sections with each section’s line length dictated by the corresponding number from the Fibonacci sequence. For example: Section 1 of the poem, “A”, has only one line, while the last section of the poem, “N”, has a total of 610 lines.
‘alphabet’ by Inger Christensen, Translated by Susanna Nied (New Directions, 2000)
The poem builds organically, starting with the simple image of an apricot tree – “apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist.” The first few sections of the poem embrace this cadence of repetition and alliteration, naming even more everyday things that exist from blackberries and citrus trees to hydrogen. As each section doubles in line length from the one before it, the poem takes on a natural tension, growing grander in scope both physically and thematically. Suddenly along with ‘early fall’ and ‘elk’, we start to see more abstract ideas like ‘afterthought’ and ‘memory’s light’. These ethereal observations take a more sinister turn by section 7 where “guns and wailing women, full as greedy owls exist…”.
The poem continues to build a world that erupts out of itself, weaving the reader through a complex and mesmerizing tapestry of natural elements and the complexities of the human experience – love, fear, war, death, destruction. And we as the readers are not removed from the equation. We are part of the things that exist and act as a witness to what exists – the beauty and the horror alike.
It’s a wildly successful example of a mathematical form not only supporting the poem visually and musically but reinforcing the very structure of the narrative. The stakes get higher as the lines get longer. The ideas go from granular to metaphysical, starting from that simple image of the apricot tree. It’s complex without being inaccessible and a joy to revisit – even as the darker themes spread their fingers throughout the verse.
My Take on a Fibonacci Poem
When I first read alphabet in the early 2000s, I was inspired to write my own silly version of a Fibonacci Poem by focusing on another anachronistic device – the answering machine. A very long time ago I had an apartment in Oakland with my boyfriend (now husband) Kaleb and our friend Aaron. It had a landline and an answering machine.
Shortly after moving in, we started getting messages for a guy named Jeff, and those messages told the story of a messy breakup between Jeff and Linda. These people were looking for answers they were never going to get – at least not from us. They also never seemed to call while anyone was home. The three of us didn’t know how else to handle the situation, so we changed our answering machine’s outgoing message to break the bad news to all the Jeff and Linda fans. That message inspired the following poem:
The Problem of Answering Machines (a Fibonacci poem and imperfect response)
… no, we are not here right now to accept your call, but appreciate your attempt at communication, well aware that this may not be enough time to record your intentions, but by reducing our connection to your name, number, and brief outlining of your purpose for contact, citing specific examples of why this conversation may at all prove pertinent to our overall wellbeing will be useful in deciding whether or not to return said call in any timely fashion as it relates to what time if any we have in the future to commit—
<beep>
Jeff and Linda do not live at this machine, they have told us to say that they will not be returning your call; they have no new number
and no, he does not love her anymore.
– Allison Goldstein, 2005
The first section of the poem mimics an overly long outgoing answering machine message and follows the Fibonacci Sequence with 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 syllables-per-line.
The poem then resets at the <beep>. The ‘response’ section after the beep also follows the Fibonacci Sequence until the very last line, which doesn’t fulfill the syllable quota and is therefore imperfect (as the title states) to mirror that message that the couple has broken up/disconnected.
Let this be a lesson that it’s fun to play with form – even if you come up with a perfectly imperfect math poem about a technology that hasn’t properly existed in 20 years. Happy writing!
April is National Poetry Month and it’s the perfect time to read, write, and celebrate our favorite verse.
Poetry is a celebration, a criticism, a cry into a void. It’s the words that shape our relationship to the world around us – that show us ourselves in a new light. It’s deeply connective and wildly intimate. Poetry is an extension of the self and therefore our experience with it is always personal.
Discovering Poetry
As readers, we have our own unique relationship with the poets that speak to us at specific points of our lives. The poems that remind us who we are (or were) in that moment. The books we reach for when we’re in a bad mood and want to rage with someone. The poems that hold us as we ride waves of grief. Poems that speak of war and reunion, of loss and remembrance, of hope, desire, nature, rebirth.
Raw or lyrical, narrative or surreal, sincere or fantastic – poetry moves us by mirroring the universal truths that linger around us in all their forms. In the spirit of celebration, I decided to look back at the writers and work that helped form my own poetic voice.
Inside the Blood Factory by Diane Wakoski (Doubleday, 1968)
I spent my teenage years in South Florida pouring over Sylvia Plath, Diane Wakoski, and Anne Sexton – dynamic, vibrant writers that intertwine personal mythology with confessional poetry. The women who taught me that I’m the only one who can tell my story. They compelled me to trust my instincts, to take chances. To lean into my experience as a woman instead of considering it a hinderance. They gave me the courage to put it all down on the page – and the will to make it sing.
James Tate Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1991)
When I moved to New York as an undergrad, I dove into the beloved academic poets of the Northeast – John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, Robert Creely, James Tate. There was a playfulness with form and a subversion of style that felt effortlessly cool. Poems that cut through the noise to broadcast urgency. Poems that move through the absurdities of the world. I swooned at the strength and queer beauty of Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde, and found new obsessions in modern poets like Anne Carson and Nick Flynn – each of them mediums skilled at channeling the complexities of the human experience.
My Life by Lyn Hejinian (Green Integer, 2002)
I switched coasts to the California Bay Area for grad school and found myself thrown into a completely new realm of evocative language poets like Carol Snow, Lyn Hejinian, and Leslie Scalapino, Wild yet constrained – every word choice so precise and purposeful they could have been placed there with chef tweezers. Richard Siken and Tyehimba Jess released their dynamic debut collections and instantly became part of the curriculum. Instead of making it look easy, their poems highlighted just how much work and thought went into each piece. It was intimidating and aspirational. This is what great poetry could be.
This is also the time in my life where art and poetry converged in a more direct way. Poems written in images. Poems written in charts. Erasure poems. Hybrid poems paired with collage. Everything felt overwhelming, like the discovery of a new continent. It was in many ways a rekindling of my original teenage adoration. The idea of possibility.
Read, Write, Transform
These are just a handful of the poets that changed me during very specific timeframes. I’ve lived at least three lives since then. Probably more. The point being that the power of poetry is that it unites people across space, culture, and time – even to a former version of yourself. Poetry is gratitude.
You can read Sappho and understand that desire does not change. You can read an entire novel written in sonnets by Vikram Seth. Or find a new favorite poet on Instagram. You are the culmination of every writer you’ve ever loved. Poetry continually shapes us, that’s why it’s so important.
All of this to simply say: keep reading, keep writing, keep sharing your work. Keep honing your voice. Keep listening. Keep uplifting each other’s voice. Poetry is audacity.
Based on L. Frank Baum’s Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) and Ozma of Oz (1907)
Starring Fairuza Balk
Released by Disney in 1985
Beware: Spoilers Included
Every horror fan has a gateway film. The movie (or TV show) that alters your brain chemistry until you find yourself with nightly cravings for monster movies, 80s slashers, and supernatural thrillers.
I spent countless weekends as a kid watching horror movies with my dad. He didn’t believe in pesky things like movie ratings, so we bonded over everything from Alien and Tales from the Crypt to TheToxic Avenger. But that wasn’t the start of my horror infatuation, just the outcome. There was also a particularly memorable fourth-grade sleepover watching Night of the Demons (1988) on VHS. The image of Linnea Quigley shoving that whole tube of lipstick directly into her breast is still burned into my psyche, but even that core memory wasn’t the beginning.
My unintended introduction to horror took place a few years earlier, when my parents let their five-year-old, Wizard of Oz-obsessed daughter watch the unofficial 1985 sequel, Return to Oz. While I readily admit that this overlooked Disney classic is a fantasy adventure for children and not a horror movie, it is in fact, 100% a horror movie.
**WARNING – Spoilers Ahead**
Dorothy Gets Admitted to a Mental Asylum
When the film begins, our beloved Dorothy Gale (played by Fairuza Balk) is back on the farm with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, but she just can’t sleep. It’s been six months since her whirlwind trip to Oz, yet Dorothy lies awake night after night obsessing over the colorful world she found and the friends she left behind.
Her disposition is understandable. Unlike 1939’s Wizard of Oz, which was shot entirely on soundstages, the outdoor Kansas scenes in Return to Oz were shot during a gray, freezing October in Salisbury Plain, UK. The result is an authentically bleak atmosphere that would feel right at home in a Robert Eggers film. The family is now completely isolated the farm. There are no nosy neighbors or comical farmhands this time around. Dorothy’s only friends are her dog Toto and a chicken named Billina. Everything around them exists in some depressing shade of beige.
The dreary mood shifts into nightmare territory however when Aunt Em decides the best cure for Dorothy’s insomnia is taking her to Doctor Worley’s Sanatorium of Electric Healing after seeing an ad in the newspaper. Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, the actual premise of the film is an 11-year-old Dorothy Gale getting locked in an insane asylum and receiving electroshock therapy to remove her ‘delusions’ about visiting the Land of Oz.
While Doctor Worley’s office is beautifully decorated in textured wallpaper and ornate Art Nouveau furniture, the rest of the sanitorium is cold and eerie, with tall, narrow hallways that instantly make you claustrophobic. The soundscape is equally disturbing. Unseen patients are heard moaning or screaming offscreen, accented by the shrill, squeaking wheels of the orderlies’ gurneys. Cementing the asylum’s creepy ambiance is Nurse Wilson, whose cold, unflinching certainty channels an Edwardian-era Nurse Ratched as she escorts Dorothy to her room.
During a violent thunderstorm, a mysterious blonde girl appears and saves Dorothy just as she is about to get her first electroshock treatment. The two escape into the woods and end up falling into a raging river as Nurse Wilson and the orderlies chase them down. When Dorothy wakes up the next morning she’s magically back in Oz – but this is not the musical Technicolor Oz we saw in the 1939 film. This is something else entirely.
While Dorothy doesn’t murder a witch upon arrival, she manages to land in the other worst possible place – the Deadly Desert. This treacherous domain surrounds the Land of Oz and instantly kills any living thing that touches it. Lovely. To further complicate matters, Dorothy’s mysterious new friend is gone (presumed dead) and replaced by Billina, her favorite chicken from the farm – but now she can talk!
Dorothy cleverly uses a path of rocks to escape the killer sand before coming across another unexpected feature: the last remains of Munchkin Land. Sorry friends, but the munchkins are just gone. No charming thatched-roof houses and spires of colorful flowers. No expository songs with oversized lollipops. Dorothy is greeted by overgrown woods, the rotting remains of her old house from Kansas, and a very broken yellow brick road.
Dorothy follows the broken bricks all the way to the Emerald City (amazingly that takes minutes instead of days this time) and discovers the entire capital in ruins. It looks like a bomb went off. There are no sparkling gems or even intact buildings, only remnants of walls and piles of rubble. If that isn’t devasting enough, all the residents have been turned to stone, including the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man. The only exception is the Scarecrow – who’s just missing entirely.
This is also where Dorothy encounters The Wheelers, a murderous gang of demon-masked thugs with wheels instead of hands and feet. They laugh like hyenas and emit a shrill, squeaking noise as chase Dorothy and Billina around the toppled columns and the blank-eyed statues that used to be people. Dorothy eventually escapes them by accessing a secret room at the end of an alley. Luckily, there is one good thing left in this dystopian wasteland and it’s Tik-Tok, the Royal Army of Oz, who was hidden by the Scarecrow during the siege on Emerald City.
Since Tik-Tok is a robot and technically not alive, he was not turned to stone like everyone else. With his help the trio fight off The Wheelers and arrive at the most terrifying part of the film, the castle of Princess Mombi.
Princess Mombi is the woman who made me fall in love with horror. We first meet the Princess in her castle, ensconced a blinding room of gold and mirrors. Her costume is perfection. She’s draped in yards of expensive fabric, with long gold spikes extending behind her shoulders like gilded porcupine quills. When Dorothy, Tik-Tok, and Billina enter the room, she’s elegantly perched on a red tufted throne that looks straight out of Versailles, solely focused on playing her ribboned lute. She even yawns before extending a limp wrist and asking Dorothy to ‘help her rise’ – an unexpected yet impressive power move.
This calmness of course is just a façade. A way to disarm the trio from guessing her true intentions. All is revealed however when Mombi escorts Dorothy into what I lovingly call the Closet of Heads. This elaborate nook just off Mombi’s bedroom is lined on both sides in elegant cream-colored cabinets with arched glass fronts, each containing a woman’s head propped up on a stand. But these are no war trophies. They are alive. Their eyes are open. They watch Dorothy as she walks through the room. Mombi doesn’t even stop the conversation while swapping the blonde head she walked in with for the raven-haired head from cabinet #4. Changing heads is just like choosing the right wig or hat for each occasion.
We return to this terrifying closet only a few scenes later. After meeting and adopting the aptly-named Jack Pumpkinhead while locked in Mombi’s attic, Dorothy comes up with a bold escape plan. She just needs to build a living airplane out of a taxidermized gump head, two couches, a broom, and some palm fronds.
Yes, our girl Dorothy Gale goes full Frankenstein in order to escape an evil witch who’s only waiting for her to hit puberty so she can steal her head. It’s a kids movie! And while the full ethical implications will not be discussed here, the idea of bodily autonomy, consent, and obtaining God-like powers of creation are all familiar themes in horror.
Morality aside, the plan hinges on stealing Mombi’s Powder of Life, which is locked in the mirrored cabinet with her original head. Because this is a horror movie barely disguised as a children’s film, Dorothy accidentally wakes Mombi up during the powder heist. The music swells and Mombi starts shouting ‘Dorothy Gale…’ while her headless body shoots up from the bed and starts running towards the closet. Then all the cabinet heads open their eyes and begin to scream.
For five-year-old me, the abject terror of those screaming faces created a full-body rush many horror fans recognize. Your heart is pounding. There’s a pit in your stomach. You’re either breathing too much or holding your breath entirely. It’s a full visceral reaction that once felt either puts you off horror forever or keeps you chasing that high like a fear junkie. I was hooked.
While the screaming heads are the horror apex of the film, I have to mention a few more honestly terrifying moments that take place after Dorothy, Jack Pumpkinhead, Billina, Tik-Tok, and their new vehicle/travel companion The Gump, flee Mombi’s castle and find themselves imprisoned within the Nome King’s Mountain.
The Nome King is the true big bad of the movie. He is made of stone and lives below his namesake mountain with his hoard of Nomes, creepy Claymation creatures who mostly appear as distorted faces in rocks and walls. They spy on the world above ground, popping up in boulders and other stone surfaces, then reporting their findings back at the mountain.
Not only is The Nome King responsible for the total destruction of the Emerald City and turning all its inhabitants to stone, he also kidnapped the Scarecrow and transformed him into an ornament. It turns out that The Nome King is a bit of a hoarder with a serious obsession with knickknacks (and jewels and shoes). He’s even built a series of connected, museum-style salons within his mountain fortress, all filled with antique chairs, tables, porcelain vases, figurines, and other assorted decorative objects.
To ramp up the horror factor, The King decides to torture the captured crew by tricking them into a ‘game’. Dorothy and her friends can win their friend back by entering The Nome King’s ornament rooms and guessing which trinket is actually the Scarecrow. They have three guesses to get it right. If not, they become ornaments themselves. Of course, The King keeps that last detail confidential at first.
One by one the entire gang is turned into knickknacks; and every time someone is transformed, The Nome King grows more human – as if physically absorbing their lifeforce. The subtle yet deliberate physical changes to The Nome King throughout the ‘game’ sequence from full stone to nearly human is masterfully done and wonderfully disturbing.
After all the narrow escapes and over-the-top villainy, the film’s climax is appropriately petrifying. Dorothy ends up finding the Scarecrow (of course) and cracks the code that people from Oz have been transformed into green ornaments (get it, green ornaments = Emerald City). As she continues finding releasing her friends, The Nome King completely loses his mind. The entire mountain starts shaking. Chunks of ceiling fall around them. Fires break out. The knickknacks are flying off their pedestals and shattering. Everyone starts to scream. The implication that some or all of these destroyed ornaments are actually people is not entirely lost on the audience.
With The Gump, Jack (plus Billina hiding in his head), and the Scarecrow returned to their living forms, The Nome King is back to full stone but now as a 50-foot rock monster with fireballs exploding around him. He towers over our terrified heroes like a mountain rising out of hell. Gargoyle-faced Nomes lurch out of the walls to grab them. When The Nome King attempts to eat Jack, he’s accidentally poisoned when Billina’s egg falls down his throat instead. It’s not a quick death and the audience gets to watch The Nome King slowly dissolve into a lifeless pile of rocks as the other Nomes look on helplessly from the walls.
Watching the movie as a kid, I was terrified, enchanted and completely obsessed. I practically wore out my Return to Oz VHS, and it’s still a movie I like rewatching as an adult. I even named my cat Tik-Tok after my favorite Ozian robot.
Alas outside of my household, Return to Oz did not perform well critically or commercially. It also remains Walter Murch’s only directorial effort, which is a real shame. He took some big risks by leaning into the darker side of fantasy (visually and thematically) while choosing to focus more on the Oz books rather than the 1939 movie musical. And those risks paid off. The film has great pacing, gorgeous sets, and impressive practical effects tied together with memorable characters. Casting an actual 11-year-old girl as Dorothy only adds to the character’s vulnerability and brings real tension to the screen as she fights creatures and adults much larger than she is.
The movie is stylish and entertaining, but more than that, Return to Oz provides a unique entryway into subversive horror. Murch takes a beloved children’s character and places her in a world that should feel happy and familiar, but instead offers only terror and destruction. There are layered metaphors and themes of isolation, depression, and abandonment that feel tailormade for a horror movie. Dorothy also spends nearly every scene being chased or imprisoned by serious villains with incredibly dangerous powers. There’s a constant sense of anxiety from the moment she gets to Dr. Worley’s sanitorium to the final flames under The Nome King’s Mountain.
We’re still in Disney territory, so of course the good guys win. The Emerald City is restored to its full green glory, all the statues are turned back into people, and our friends are safe and sound. Dorothy’s mysterious blonde savior from the asylum even shows up in the finale (not dead! yay!) and reveals she’s actually Ozma, the rightful Queen of Oz.
Even with its happy ending and loose ends tired up, Return to Oz reminds us there is darkness lurking in every rock beneath the glittering surface of the Emerald City – just as it always has. And that’s why we keep coming back.
When you need to feel fabulous for a few hours, there’s nothing quite like throwing on a fashion documentary. Something magical happens when you mix oodles of eye candy with the wonder of creative expression and a sprinkle of drama. The most memorable fashion documentaries master visual storytelling that is deeply invested in the subject while showcasing the bigger role fashion plays in how we view ourselves and the world around us. The 10 films in this list radiate the power of creativity and authenticity, whether exploring the lives of designers and fashionistas or taking a behind-the-scenes look at the industry’s cultural pillars.
While not all fashion stories have a happy ending, these 10 uplifting fashion documentaries are ready elevate your mood and your personal style.
It’s impossible not to smile while watching Iris Apfel just be herself. She exudes a smart, unpretentious charm that is simply irresistable. While so much of fashion feels like unobtainable perfection that requires substantial wealth, Iris’ perspective on personal style is a breath of fresh air – especially for maximalists. There are never too many bracelets, necklaces, patterns, colors. For Iris, real style is all about finding your own voice and leaning into the joy of creating a look you love. It’s mixing a vintage Yves Saint Laurent coat with thrift store dress and stack of rhinestone bracelets from Claire’s. Artfully directed by Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter and Grey Gardens), watching Iris’s journey from interior design legend to fashion maven to international icon is both endearing and massively entertaining. Whenever I’m in a bad mindset or feeling too self-critical, this movie is my go-to mood booster.
The Met Gala may have started as an annual fundraiser for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but has since become a yearly cultural touchstone, complete with red carpet coverage that mirrors the Oscars. First Monday in May captures the ups and downs between The Met, Anna Wintour, curators, and Vogue staff as they plan, fight, freak out and ultimately pull off The Met Gala’s wildly successful 2015 exhibition ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’. Along with an inside view into crafting both the exhibit and the infamous party, the doc is chock full of gorgeous gowns, famous designers (Michael Kors, Jean Paul Gaultier and Karl Lagerfeld), and A-listers dripping in drool-worthy looks from Kate Hudson to Rhianna.
Style doesn’t have an age limit, and Advanced Style reaffirms the joy of getting all dressed up just because you feel like it. Based on the popular blog of the same name by director Ari Seth Cohen, the film follows seven eclectic New York City women (ages 62 – 95), as they share their personal stories, incredible outfits, and style philosophies. While the fashion industry typically ignores women who have matured out of their ingenue years, Advanced Style celebrates the glamour and confidence that comes with experience. The film is also an important reminder that women are fabulous at every age and that the best part of being a grown up is dressing exactly how you want.
If you need wholesome content, look no further. Everyone loves Bill Cunningham, the famously humble (and equally iconic) photographer for The New YorkTimes‘s Style section. He spent decades capturing street trends from everyday New Yorkers then biking his way to Manhattan’s most exclusive society galas. In every shot and interview, there’s an infectious joy so inherent to Bill’s character that it rubs off on everyone around him. He loves taking pictures of stylish women, and that passion has resulted in decades of joyfully captured images that chronicle the evolution of American fashion. Anna Wintour even appears for an interview and actually smiles. If Anna’s having a good time, we all are.
Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist (2018), Greenwich Entertainment
Vivienne Westwood’s influence is too big for a single film, but this intrepid doc does a great job of introducing audiences into the many lives of a brilliant designer. Westwood was a singular visionary whose influence shaped British culture far beyond her punk roots. The film follows her working-class upbringing and decades-long career from designing for the Sex Pistols to running a global fashion empire and her passion for political and environmental activism. While Westwood’s story is one of numerous successes and failures, the documentary focuses on the woman behind the clothes, and she’s a wonder to behold.
The emotionally riveting Dior & I follows the creation of Raf Simons’ first Haute Couture collection for the legendary house of Dior as Artistic Director. The beautifully shot film explores the designer’s full creative journey, from his first meeting with the atelier team in Paris to the highly anticipated runway show. The narrative is instantly compelling. Even audiences outside the fashion world are given enough background to appreciate the inherent pressure of a relatively unknown designer creating his first collection for such an iconic, international fashion house. The true joy of the film however, is that it spends just as much time showcasing and celebrating the talented team of craftspeople at Dior who construct and tailor every garment to perfection.
AKA, the movie that let the non-fashion world fall in love with Grace Coddington, the film follows Anna Wintour and Vogue’s harangued staff as they put together 2007’s September issue, the largest (and therefore most important) Vogue issue of the year. There are racks and racks of gorgeous clothing, glamorous photoshoots from NYC to Rome, and plenty of behind-the-scenes drama. The film also features an array of famous faces like Oscar de la Renta, Karl Lagerfeld, Sienna Miller, and Vera Wang.
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel (2011), DianaVreeland-Film.com
There are women who create the life they want, there are women are women who craft their own mythology – and then there’s Diana Vreeland. This bombastic documentary follows the fascinating life, truths and untruths of the most influential fashion voice of the 20th century. Every inch of this documentary is filled with celebrity interviews and over-the-top stories, while simultaneously cataloging the progression of American fashion. From her trailblazing editorial roles at both Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue to revolutionizing the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Diana Vreeland is one of the most captivating subjects a film could ask for, and this film delivers on every level.
Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s (2013), Entertainment One
Some documentaries offer an honest, unflinching look at their subject matter and some documentaries are more interested in selling a legacy. Enter the latter. Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s may not provide a serious historical record of New York City’s most iconic luxury department store, but delivers a fun and uplifting watch nonetheless. The film equivalent of a coffee table book, the documentary features delightful anecdotes and insights from celebrities, Bergdorf employees, and fashion historians that celebrate impact of this one-of-a-kind institution.
Diana von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge (2024), Hulu
10. Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge (2024)
Diane von Furstenberg is one of the most famous names in fashion, and this documentary celebrates her fierce desire to live an authentic creative life. The film goes all in on the invention of the wrap dress and sensational rise of DVF as a revolutionary American brand along with Diane’s headline-grabbing personal life, from marrying an actual prince to partying at Studio 54. There’s tons of celebrity-fueled stories, gorgeous archival footage, and first-person interviews that allow Diana to share her story in her own words. While more reverential than introspective, the film shines a much-deserved spotlight on one of the most dynamic designers in American history.
Allison Goldstein 