Elizabeth Massie Archives - Cemetery Dance Online

Review: The Wages of Belief and Other Stories from the Dark Side by Elizabeth Massie

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 28, 2025February 23, 2025ReviewsDave Simms, Elizabeth Massie, Reviews, The Wages of Bellief and Other Stories from the Dark SideLeave a comment

cover of The Wages of Belief and Other Stories from the Dark Side The Wages of Belief and Other Stories from the Dark Side by Elizabeth Massie
Macabre Ink (February 2025)
Reviewed by Dave Simms

The skill involved in creating top shelf short fiction is an elusive one. The number of writers who can pull it off with relative ease is very small, no matter the genre. To be able to succeed at both the short form and novel length exists as a tier that is much, much more exclusive. Yet Elizabeth Massie has always been able to pull that off, time and time again.

Review: Ameri-Scares: Legend of the Night Marchers by Patricia Lee Macomber

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 22, 2023May 20, 2023ReviewsAmeri-Scares Legend of the Night Marchers, Dave Simms, Elizabeth Massie, Patricia Lee Macomber, ReviewsLeave a comment

Ameri-Scares: Legend of the Night Marchers by Patricia Lee Macomber
Crossroad Press (March 2023)
192 pages; $12.99 paperback; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms

The Ameri-Scares series built by Elizabeth Massie has been one of biggest surprises in middle grade horror in the past decade. Stories based on legend, folklore, or creepy stories in every state rival the best of Goosebumps, and with serious geography and history. A couple of the authors allowed in her sandbox have proven themselves worthy.

First-timer Patricia Lee Macomber knocks it out of the park, luau-style with Legend of the Night Marchers. A horror tale in Hawaii? Absolutely! There’s a wealth of stories waiting to be mined in the state — yet Macomber goes for the different in the marchers that bring the creepy factor to the nth degree.

Review: American Cannibal edited by Rebecca Rowland

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 27, 2023March 26, 2023ReviewsAmerican Cannibal, Clay McLeod Chapman, Dave Simms, Elizabeth Massie, Jeff Strand, Owl Goingback, Rebecca Rowland, ReviewsLeave a comment

cover of American Cannibal American Cannibal edited by Rebecca Rowland
Maenad Press (March 2023)
352 pages; $19.99 hardback; $9.99 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms

This is what’s needed right now: a wonderfully brutal anthology about cannibalism in American history. At first, readers may feel a touch of reluctance due to the subject matter. My advice? DO NOT HESITATE.

These stories, chosen with exquisite taste by editor Rebecca Rowland, are all about the story and characters as the history of this country frames some truly unique tales. I’m not one for gore and this anthology, again, focuses on the true horror: human behavior and the awful acts people inflict on each other before the blood begins to spill.Continue Reading

The Cemetery Dance Interview: The Homegrown Horror of Elizabeth Massie

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 13, 2022May 9, 2022InterviewsDave Simms, Elizabeth Massie, InterviewsLeave a comment

banner graphic that says Cemetery Dance Interviews

Elizabeth Massie is a modern master of horror, thrillers, and all things spooky, not to mention just about every other genre known to mankind. With her new collection of short stories, Madame Cruller’s Couch and Other Dark and Bizarre Tales, she reminds fans how a forty-year career is still improving. Yes, she’s won a pair of Stoker Awards, one for Best First Novel (Sineater) and Novella (Stephen), but she’s always gone beyond the expected, spinning her tales with a homegrown voice. She’s an eighth-generation Virginian and has incorporated an Appalachian flavor to many of her stories. While many of her tales hail from the Shenandoah region, she is familiar with many an era and local folklore. Novels such as Hell Gate and her Young Founders series, not to mention her new historical The Great Chicago Fire display her love for the the past.

Yet it is her success of the Ameri-Scares series, which focuses on folklore horror from a different state in every book, that shows the breadth of her love for dark tales for all ages. Optioned by Warner Bros, the series embraced fascinating stories while educating young readers.

When she was a little kid in Waynesboro, she wanted to be either a writer, actress, or horse when she grew up. The last two didn’t pan out (although she did perform in a variety of local theater shows back in the day and she could cut loose with a fine whinny), but the first finally came true. She juggled teaching middle school life science during the day and typing (no computers for her until the mid-1990s) books and stories at night for nine years before taking the scary plunge into full time writing.

Now Beth juggles writing and life with her wonderful husband, illustrator Cortney Skinner (she tried juggling him, too, but…), in their country home in Augusta County. She’s had more than 30 novels and collections published as well as countless short stories in anthologies and magazines and is constantly bombarded by ideas for new tales. She and Cortney like to place and find geocaches, spend time at Starbucks, and drive around, seeking roads they’ve never traveled before. Beth is fascinated by abandoned amusement parks, hospitals, and houses and always keeps an eye out.

Review: Madame Cruller’s Couch by Elizabeth Massie

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 18, 2022April 25, 2022ReviewsDave Simms, Elizabeth Massie, Madame Cruller's Couch, ReviewsLeave a comment

cover of Madame Cruller's Couch Madame Cruller’s Couch and Other Dark and Bizarre Tales by Elizabeth Massie
Crossroad Press (August 2021)
290 pages; hardcover $31.99; paperback $18.99; e-book $4.99
Reviewed by Dave Simms

Elizabeth Massie is an American literary treasure. Yes, she’s won the Bram Stoker Award twice but she’s far more than a horror icon. Ameri-Scares, her middle-grade series that tackles dark legends in every state, was optioned by Warner Horizon. Then there’s the mysteries, psychological suspense, historical fiction, and simply great weird stories.

In this new collection, readers will be treated to a wide swath of masterful stories, from the horrific to the oddly weird and everything in between.

Review: It, Watching by Elizabeth Massie

Cemetery Dance OnlineJune 8, 2018ReviewsDave Simms, Elizabeth Massie, It Watching, ReviewsLeave a comment

It, Watching by Elizabeth Massie
CreateSpace (June 2017)
220 pages; $13.95 paperback; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms

In her first collection in several years, Elizabeth Massie returns with a thrilling collection of short stories. The Bram Stoker-winning author has put together eighteen tales, several of which are new to readers, and there’s not a clunker in the bunch.Continue Reading

The Women I Have Known

Cemetery Dance OnlineFebruary 27, 2017February 22, 2017EssaysAmber Fallon, Anne Rice, Charlee Jacob, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Cherie Priest, Damien Angelica Walters, Daphne du Maurier, Elizabeth Massie, Essays, Francis Stevens, Joyce Carol Oates, Karen Taylor, Kathe Koja, Krisi de Meester, Kristin Dearborn, Lisa Tuttle, Lucy Taylor, Marjorie Bowen, Mary SanGiovanni, Mary Shelley, Melanie Tem, Melissa Lason, Michelle Garza, Nancy Collins, Sarah Langan, Sarah Pinborough, Shirley Jackson, Somer Cannon, Tanith Lee, The Women I Have Known, V.C. Andrews, Women In Horror6 Comments

The Women I Have Known
by Mary SanGiovanni

As a horror writer coming up in the first decade of the new millennium, I’ve had the opportunity to see the dual perspectives of women’s place in the horror genre, the former reflecting where we used to be, and the latter reflecting how much progress we’ve made. Continue Reading

FREE email updates!

Categories