Indiana Inspires Horror Stories

Paula Ashe is a Fort Wayne resident who has just published a collection of short stories.  Local author discusses book of shorts, how Indiana influenced her horror stories:

Several of the stories take place in parts of Ohio and Indiana. What about your experiences growing up in Ohio or living in Indiana, helped inspire those ideas.

A friend of a very good friend of mine named Jody Miller ghouls, she and I talked a lot about what we call the Rust Belt Gothic and it's just you know, it's so I grew up in Dayton, Ohio. And I grew up along a lot of like, dilapidated factories and, you know, these spaces of industry where there's all this concrete and glass and metal, but they're all in ruin. Because it's this is from a bygone era, you know? So, this is a few years to decades, the industries have moved on. But those buildings, those spaces are still there. And so that is a big that plays a big part, I think, in a lot of my work. I think urban ruin is really beautiful and fascinating, even though it's, you know, an eyesore, to some people, I just like it.

So that's one thing. But at the same time, as much as we have that like urban decay, you know, Ohio and Indiana, there's a lot of open spaces. You know, it's most of those open spaces are filled with corn and soybeans and things like that, which is also creepy in it's own right. But they're these big expanses of like, just wilderness, which anything could be out there. And so, or like, you know, a dilapidated factory, anything could be in there. And it just, I think, lends itself well to telling kind of creepy stories.

I will bet you thought Indiana inspired her in a completely different way. I did, but I see what she means now.

sch 5/7/22