If you haven’t already caught my other recent articles, then I am quite excited to inform you that February is Women in Horror Month. This auspicious occasion is a perfect opportunity to discover new female horror writers.

So for my dose of great fiction, I turned to Sarah Glenn from Mystery and Horror, LLC. She and her partner Gwen Mayo (another Gwen! serendipitous, right?) have just released History and Mystery, Oh My!  This is the companion piece to History and Horror, Oh My!, and both anthologies focus on historical genre fiction.

Sarah shared with me an interview she recently did with Rosalind Barden, which appears below.

But first off, who is Rosalind Barden? A very successful writer, that’s who! Her stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, webzines, and competitions, including Shriekfest Film Festival. Also a talented artist, she wrote and illustrated the children’s book, TV Monster. Prolific and diverse, Barden’s darkly humorous novel, American Witch, is available now at Amazon. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

So on to the interview!

How did you come up with the idea for your story in History and Mystery, Oh My?

I’ve always been drawn to Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill, though it was only later that I learned its sad history. The place is like a vanished dream. I would have loved living there. “The Monkey’s Ghost” grew out of my haunted feelings about what has been forever lost.  But not to worry–the story still has plenty of funny bits!

What are you working on now?

I’m tinkering with drabbles, short stories of exactly 100 words.  This January 13, Specklit.com posted my drabble, “The Human Dynamo Theory,” and will post my “Flight of the Guinea Pig” on February 16.  Specklit.com posts a drabble every other day.  I enjoy seeing how other writers craft full blown stories of only 100 words.  It’s fascinating.  And coming up is my short story– much longer than 100 words–“The Demon of City Hall” in Mystery and Horror, LLC’s anthology, “Strangely Funny 2 1/2.”  I love writing satire, and this story is a city hall full of satire!

Okay, so you’re an author. What do you enjoy reading?

I have so many favorites and I am always reading.  Short stories are the perfect bedtime “treat” for me, and Mystery and Horror, LLC provides plenty of satisfying short story anthologies for my noshing.  I am a P.G. Wodehouse fan and enjoy his humorous mystery short stories in “Wodehouse on Crime.”  I read book-length stories too, fiction, non-fiction–whatever catches my curiosity.  Most recently, when I was in Santa Fe, I picked up “The Harvey Girls,” and learned about the adventurous young women who worked out West in the Harvey House railroad hotels.  Sounds like my kind of job!  The Harvey Houses are another vanished world, like Bunker Hill, so I suppose my dreamy thoughts pull me toward the hopelessly gone.  (Still waiting for Vaudeville’s return!)   Fortunately, Santa Fe’s beautiful La Fonda is a surviving Harvey House.  I endured the bout of freezing weather during my visit, snug by the lobby’s fireplace, wineglass at the ready, writing away, while the friendly staff made sure I stayed comfy.  Can’t get better than that!

You can read Ms. Barden’s story, “The Monkey’s Ghost,” along with nineteen other mysterious tales in History and Mystery, Oh My!  The book is available now at Amazon and Smashwords.