Avra Margariti

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Articles

She’s Lost Control (Again): The Sad/Bad Female Novel Protagonist

Aug 14, 2024 | psychopomp.com | Avra Margariti

Feminine rage is all the rage! At least according to the countless Goodreads shelves and reading lists that illuminate this publishing phenomenon. Woman serial killers, egomaniac anti-heroines with internal monologues and ethics à la Hannibal Lecter, Dexter, or Norman Bates, girl meets boy/girl chases boy/girl hurts boy narratives in a reversal of the familiar gender roles.
Victorian-Era Horror: There Must Be Something in The Water (Poison. It’s Poison)

Jul 17, 2024 | psychopomp.com | Avra Margariti

Have you have ever wondered why the dark and horror literature written or published during the Victorian era is so potent? Rain-slick cobblestone shining wet with the spill of blood as an unseen supernatural force follows your every footstep; vampire castles, windy moors, and dilapidated mansions crumbling under the weight of terrible family secrets like a near-palpable sickness; mystery, madness and terrible curses that make one question the inner workings of both body and mind.
Animalia: Horror with (Emotional) Teeth and Claws

Jun 17, 2024 | psychopomp.com | Avra Margariti

Canines and talons and beaks. Prowling, biting, clawing. A pair of red eyes in a field, a fin disappearing underwater, a blackbird’s caw of doom. Animal imagery is used in horror often to increase the fear factor through humanity’s natural fear of predator species and the wild unknown. Sometimes it goes even deeper than that, past base instinct, to a many-layered symbolism that borrows its traits from the animal kingdom.
Ten Ways of Looking at Snow, Reflected Off an Obsidian Armor

Jun 12, 2024 | havenspec.com | Avra Margariti

FICTIONBy Avra Margariti in Issue Fifteen, May 20241. You were cruel when we first met. It would have been easy to claim I was sleepwalking, under yourcompulsion. But the truth was, I sought you out that midwinter night,in my spiderweb-flimsy nightgown and bruised, bare feet, chasing aftera woodland vista I was taught through catechisms and beatings alwaysto avoid. I left my bed in the smallest of hours despite parents andpriests cautioning I stay away from the Erl-Queen's territory.
5 Films From the Sad Vampire Cinematic Universe

May 16, 2024 | psychopomp.com | Avra Margariti

Vampires or other blood-drinkers are popular creatures to appear in movies. Once, vampire horror was a social commentary on wealth, power, and decadence sucking people dry. Then, media depictions turned toward the erotic, a representation of forbidden desires and transgression given voice through sensuality and blood splattered artistically on the screen. But what about the art wave of the sad vampires? Immortality as a curse or illness, an obstacle to building meaningful human relations?
The Ghosts That Linger

Apr 18, 2024 | psychopomp.com | Avra Margariti

So many horror films and books are dedicated to ghosts, especially when they are rooted to a specific place they haunt, most commonly lingering inside the haunted house. But how many types of ghosts are there in popular media and culture? And why are so many categories needed in order to explore human reactions to grief, guilt, and loss to its fullest? A loud, angry ghost.
Dredging the Deep

Apr 10, 2024 | psychopomp.com | Avra Margariti

What is the sea but an abyss better left undisturbed? And still, we try to explore the depths of the oceans, fear mingling with fascination as we catalogue and photograph the bioluminescent, spiny creatures that live in pelagic depths where the light doesn’t follow but life, strangely, blooms. Despite bodies of saltwater covering 70% of the planet, only 5% of the seas and oceans have been explored. The Marianas Trench stretches deeper undersea than Mt. Everest is tall.
Feasts of the Macabre

Apr 1, 2024 | psychopomp.com | Avra Margariti

Food is storytelling. Think of the resplendent fruits of the Goblin Market, the six pomegranate seeds Persephone ate that bound her to Hades and the Underworld, children being warned not to eat anything the fairies offer them or they will never return to the human world. The Ancient Greek Pantheon subsists on nectar and ambrosia. According to the Epic of Gilgamesh, the dead drink only dirt and eat only clay. Even the body and blood of Christ is mythologized in its own canon.
Creatures Beyond Mythology

Apr 1, 2024 | psychopomp.com | Avra Margariti

Greek mythological monsters, hybrids, and other fantastical entities have become a well-known group of creatures in the Western world. From centaurs, to nymphs, to chimeras and sirens, those beings have populated the stories of antiquity, then later their tales were told and retold through many different media and configurations of myth. But few readers in the West are familiar with the creatures and personas of Hellenic folklore, who are just as imaginative as their Ancient Greek predecessors.
3LBE Magazine - Over the Yiousouri Tree by Avra Margariti

Mar 26, 2024 | 3lobedmag.com | Avra Margariti

by Avra Margariti 3225 words There is a tree in the sea and it births monsters. • • • Or so Mana says as we lift the nets bulging with the morning catch. The nets are woven out of dried seaweed snagged against our boat, and old sailor-rope grown soft with the water’s erosive tongue. What’s a sailor? I ask after I’ve spilled the writhing fish all over our boat’s curved belly. Hush, Khore, stop with all these questions. You will know when you become Mana yourself.