For every dreamy dress that makes its way into one of my How To Wear fashion collage ensembles, there’s a digital graveyard of discarded possibilities – beautiful things that weren’t quite right because the ruffle-to-lace ratio failed to properly evoke the precise feeling of reading Gothic romance novels by candlelight during a power outage, or ..read more

  The following thoughts have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They’re mental marginalia – scribblings in the corners of my consciousness that I’ve been collecting like loose buttons in a drawer. If there’s a thread connecting them, I haven’t found it. I’m sharing them now partly to preserve them, and partly because my ..read more

Last week on my blog, I wrote about “challenging the monkey’s face.” If you’re familiar with my annual sharing of Bashō’s New Year haiku, you probably know what I mean. If not, the piece is worth a read. It’s about questioning whether the traits we think are fixed – our monkey’s face – are really ..read more

  Ever since we solved the mystery of the Wrinkle in Time cover artist, I’ve been itching to share more of Richard Bober’s work here. His art pulses with an otherworldly luminescence – sometimes veiled by murk and shadow, sometimes blazing in full ethereal splendor. In his horror work, this shimmer peers through layers of ..read more

It hung on our basement door like a sentinel—a ragdoll caught in the merciless grip of an old-fashioned clothes wringer, accompanied by that unforgettable caption: “The truth will set you free but at first it will make you miserable.” For years, I sat with my back against the cracked vinyl bench in our Milford, Ohio ..read more

Every New Year’s Day, while social media floods with “new year, new you” declarations and ambitious resolution lists, I share my own little message – Bashō’s haiku: “Year after year / on the monkey’s face / a monkey’s face.” Perhaps it’s become my own kind of tradition, a cheeky little poke, a humble nudge, a ..read more

  In this year’s Yule collection, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab celebrates a decade of spectral encounters and spiritual comfort. Here we find grandmothers’ crystal candy dishes alongside parlor séances, Christmas candles burning beside ghostly doubles, and even a mouse stealing bites of lavender-dusted popcorn. From bayberry memories to midnight confections, these scents flicker between darkness ..read more

BPAL Antique Lace Through the tiny gabled window of a dollhouse attic, a secret scene unfolds: a miniature lace shawl lies draped across a trunk, its delicate stitches dusted with what could be petit four crumbs, could be breakfast cereal marshmallows – fairy-sized sweets scattered by some forgotten child’s hand. Beside it, pearly mothballs like ..read more

From gothic mysteries on tide-locked islands to folk horror in Yorkshire winters, from locked room tech thrillers to religious horror in apocalyptic convents, this winter’s reading followed haunted ghostwriters, grief-stricken parents, obsessive artists, and unhinged Victorian governesses through their dark tales. And as 2024 draws to a close with 155 books under my belt, a ..read more

As another year draws to a close, it’s time for my annual tradition of sharing the things that made life a little more interesting, beautiful, or manageable throughout these past twelve months. While scrolling through my camera roll and peering into dusty browser bookmarks, I’m reminded that our tastes and needs aren’t easily categorized ..read more