“The Uncanny & The Abject” Class Returns!
Posted inArnzen News

“The Uncanny & The Abject” Class Returns!

9-11am Saturday, June 14th, 2025 at STOKERCON 2025 in Stamford, CT "The Uncanny & The Abject in Horror Fiction" A course taught by Michael Arnzen for HORROR UNIVERSITY sponsored by Seton Hill University's MFA in Writing Popular Fiction Registration for my next Horror University course has opened up! This two hour workshop will unravel the psychological theories of the Uncanny and the Abject. Together, we will explore how authors frighten, disturb and disgust the reader through analysis and open discussion. The class will involve short writing activities that will allow you to explore and practice the different techniques writers summon when…
May 15, 2025Posted inArnzen NewsNo Comments
Nat’l Poetry Month 2025
Posted inArnzen News

Nat’l Poetry Month 2025

This April, I began posting poems on my instagram and bluesky accounts, in graphic layout, to celebrate the annual National Poetry Month. These poems are all lifted from my manuscript for a book I consider to be the sequel to The Gorelets Omnibus, presently called Bluebird Guts. Here are examples of the first few, to give you an idea of what they look like. You can continue to follow the series throughout April by following me on instagram (or bluesky). And you can be sure I'll post news about any future book publication here, and in the podcast I started…
April 4, 2025Posted inArnzen News
Honored!
Posted inArnzen News

Honored!

This week, my essay on the kitschy horror movie, The Tingler was shortlisted as a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in the short non-fiction category, and I'm elated and humbled by the support of the HWA for my film criticism, and enormously pleased to appear alongside such smart and creative people across the final ballot. To be honored for my academic work on horror cinema means a lot to me. The Horror Writers Association is voting now, with the award to be given at StokerCon 2025 in Stamford. I'll be there! As noted in a previous blog post, my…
February 27, 2025Posted inArnzen News
I’m Leaving Twitter/X
Posted inArnzen News Data+Errata

I’m Leaving Twitter/X

Today I deleted all content from my X.com page (formerly Twitter). My motivation is not merely political, or in protest, though of course I am doing that. It's also because I have not been happy with the erosion of the site as a platform for public discourse for quite some time now, and both the newsfeed and the technology have become entirely unstable. The app only worked intermittently on my phone ever since the transition from Twitter to X. The site also deleted my newsletter (through its subsidiary "Revue" platform, which it canceled) after Elon Musk wrested ownership of the…
February 2, 2025Posted inArnzen News, Data+Errata
Screamin’ in the Rain
Posted inArnzen News

Screamin’ in the Rain

I am proud to report the publication of some of my film studies research at What Sleeps Beneath -- a fantastic horror film-focused journal that not only features some brilliant current film reviews and interesting thinkpieces on the genre, but also recently won the annual "Best Blog" award from Pittsburgh City Paper. Right on. My contribution is called "Screamin’ in the Rain: The Orchestration of Catharsis in William Castle’s The Tingler" and in it I compare Castle's over-the-top screamer of horror to one of the most heart-moving movie musicals ever made, Gene Kelly's Singin in the Rain. What's that? What…
December 8, 2024Posted inArnzen News