Tag Archives: IGRM

International Gothic Reading Month, January 2026

AWAKEN THE GOTHIC WITHIN!

 

 

The first International Gothic Reading Month (IGRM)  is official. As a Gothic author, I invite you to journey through modern ghostly landscapes, cursed castles, and the dark chills of Gothic romantic mysteries for the month of January 2026 and every January to come.

Gothic Painting by Edwin Deakin, 1886

 

Enter the red door of this castle and celebrate Gothic literature at the start of each new year. International Gothic Reading Month is sponsored by the Society for the Study of the American Gothic (SSAG), a scholarly organization devoted to advancing the study of the American Gothic through research, teaching, and publication.

Are you a reader of Gothic? An author, librarian, bookseller, publisher, editor, blogger, podcaster, teacher, or student of Gothic literature? Please join us during January to enter stories that—in the words of Mary Shelley—”speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror.”

Illustration of Mary Shelley by Lita Judge in Mary’s Monster.

 

Visit the IGRM website for details, a suggested reading list, promotional flyers, and how to participate in International Gothic Reading Month. Click here:  https://americangothicsociety.com/international-gothic-reading-month/

This Gothic Reading Month event was initiated by the International Gothic Reading Month Committee Members, a group of authors, writers, readers, and Gothic enthusiasts:

Sponsorship: Jeffrey A. Weinstock, President and founder, Society for the Study of the American Gothic. Jeffrey is a professor of English at Central Michigan University, the Los Angeles Review of Books Associate Editor of horror, and founder and editor of the peer-reviewed journal American Gothic Studies. He is co-founder and past chair of the Modern Language Association’s Gothic Studies Forum. An author or editor of 33 books and over 100 essays on the Gothic, American literature, cult film, and pop culture, Jeffrey’s most recent book, The Horror Theory Reader, will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in early 2026.

Alexia Mandla Ainsworth. Alexia is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University. Her research centers on the “female gothic” genre.  A speaker at numerous conferences on Gothic genre origins in modern films, podcasts, and video games, her most recent publication is on Dracula and the epistolary form and the genre-bending nature of mixed media in Gothic literature.

Barbara Beatie is a lecturer in the English Department at Sonoma State University. A  researcher and poet, her writing has been published in Gothic Nature Journal V,  Beyond Distance, Redemption: Stories Phoenix Out of the Silence and Then, and Sonoma: Stories of a Region and Its People.

Paula Cappa, IGRM Director. Paula is a published novelist and short story author of Gothic and supernatural mysteries: Draakensky, A Supernatural Tale of Magick and Romance (Crystal Lake Publishing),  Sky Wolf, The Dazzling Darkness, Night Sea Journey, and Greylock (Crispin Books) In April of 2026, her novel Wolf Magick, Secret Mysteries of Draakensky will be released by Crystal Lake Publishing.

Ruthann Jagge is professionally published in many successful anthologies for Gothic, dark speculative, fantasy, folklore, mythology, and articles and reviews. She is co-author of the modern Gothic novel Delevan House, a novella, the soon to be released  Southern Gothic novel Coeur Noir-Black Heart, and the sequel Crees Crossing. Ruthann has moderated dynamic panels on folklore at World Con in Glasgow, and is featured in numerous interviews discussing the creative process. 

Carey Millsap-Spears. Carey is published poet and professor of English at Moraine Valley Community College. She is author of Star Trek Discovery and The Female Gothic: Tell Fear No (Lexington Books). Her scholarship also appears in Set Phasers to Teach: Star Trek in Research and Teaching, The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek, Strange Novel Worlds, Space: The Feminist Frontier, Queer Studies and Media and Popular CultureStudies in Popular Culture, Fantastika, and Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies.

Dr. Arline Wilson is the creator of Lamplight Literature, an educational video series and podcast launching in 2026 that illuminates the intersections of Gothic literature, history, and spiritual trauma through rich storytelling. She holds a dual appointment as an English professor and Digital Humanities and Africana Studies Scholar for Special Collections in Morris Library at the University of Delaware. She is co-author of the forthcoming “Colored Convention Movement,” with John Ernest, in Oxford Bibliographies in African American Studies (Oxford University Press).

The Nightmare, 1781, Henry Fuseli.

 

Gothic spirit lives on!

Please leave a comment or like if you are a Gothic fan.

What are you reading for January’s Gothic Reading Month?

 

Follow me for Gothic recommendations

in the coming days of January.

 

 

READING FICTION BLOG

Comments are welcome! Feel free to click “LIKE.”

Please join me in my reading nook.

I invite you to browse the INDEX OF AUTHORS’ TALES above for free short stories or novellas. This is a compendium of nearly 400 stories by some 170 famous contemporary and classic storytellers of mystery, Gothic, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, crime, sci-fi, romance, horror and quiet-horror, fantasy, and mainstream fiction.

Follow Reading Fiction Blog via email for free stories, audios, and occasionally an Author of the Week. Also book recommendations, writing tips, creative and literary notes.

Follow me on  Facebook,  and Instagram. 

BlueSky.Social    Goodreads

And on my Amazon Author Page.

LinkTree

 

Other Reading Websites to Visit

Shepherd is putting the magic back in book discovery. Wander through 12,000 book lists by experts: Shepherd.com

The Gothic Wanderer

Kirkus Mystery & Thrillers Reviews

Books & Such   

NewYorkerFictionOnline

For Authors/Writers:  The Writer Unboxed

Literature Blog Directory

Blog Collection

Blog Top Sites

Thank you for supporting Reading Fiction Blog

No permission is given for the use of this material from this blog, on any and all pages, for AI training purposes.

© 2012 Paula Cappa, Reading Fiction Blog

2 Comments

Filed under #horror short stories, book bloggers, classic horror stories, dark fantasy, dark fantasy fiction, dark literature, Edgar Allan Poe, fiction, fiction bloggers, Genre-Blending, ghost stories, ghost story blogs, gothic, Gothic fiction, Gothic Horror, Gothic-Fantasy Fiction, Gothic-Horror-Fantasy Fiction, haunted houses, historical fiction, historical ghost stories, horromantasy, horror, horror blogs, horror renaissance, horror revival, literary horror, literary short stories, literature, Magical Gothic, Magickal Gothic, magickal romantasy, novels, occult, paranormal, Penny Dreadful, psychological horror, quiet horror, Reading Fiction, Reading Fiction Blog, READING FICTION BLOG Paula Cappa, romantasy, romantic fiction, romantic thrillers, short story blogs, soft horror, speculative fiction, supernatural, supernatural fiction, supernatural mysteries, supernatural tales, supernatural thrillers, tales of terror, vampires, werewolves, witches, witchraft, Women In Horror, Women in Horror Month, women writers