Musings & Meditations

Pam is a force of nature; she is like an electrical storm.

~ Maureen McHugh
author of China Mountain Zhang, Mothers and Other Monsters, and more

Pam Keesey is well known for her writing on women in horror, including her books Daughters of Darkness, Dark Angels, Women Who Run with the Werewolves, and Vamps: An Illustrated History of the Femme Fatale. She is the editor and publisher of MonsterZine, an online horror movie magazine that, in the words of Dr. Frank C. Baxter of The Mole People (1956), explores the meaning and significance of horror movies in the 21st century. In addition to editing horror fiction and writing non-fiction about horror, Pam has also worked as a technical writer, a news editor, and as an editor of occult books in Spanish.

A lot of the appeal of horror for women comes from its gothic roots,” says writer, editor, critic Pam Keesey. “Gothic literature, often dismissed as ‘women’s literature,’ was women’s adventure literature, women’s quest literature. Traditional gothic literature often put women at the center of the story, testing their strength, intelligence, bravery, and endurance, often in the face of supernatural adversity. Those elements still appear with frequency in horror films and literature — John Carpenter’s Halloween comes to mind — and I think is, in part, what women find appealing about horror.

from “What Women Want… in Horror” by Paula Guran