The Worldshapers, Episode 166: Jennifer Anne Gordon - The Japanese Box and Other Stories

A chat with award-winning horror author Jennifer Anne Gordon about her new short story collection, The Japanese Box and Other Stories.

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jenniferannegordon.com

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About the Book

A collection of short stories contemplating horror, grief, and trauma.

​Simulacrum: A dark comedic tale about college life, and love. It is the story of what happens when two sociopaths attend art exhibits, drink lemon vodka, and spar over everything and anything.

Periods.

Coloring books.

Art.

This is the story of our unnamed narrator . . . an origin story of a would-be, hopes to be, serial killer.

The Japanese Box: Story that blends memoir, creative nonfiction, and the horror of a coming-of-age story, and a coming of middle-aged story.

Imagine growing up with a reflection that is often absent, and a Japanese box that is filled with things that should never have been there.

Memories.

Violence.

"The Japanese Box" is a love letter to anxiety, trauma, grief, and longing. It is a story of a child becoming an adult, and all the ghosts and misfortunes that happen in order to survive.

The Lithium Moon: Simone is an artist by day, and an emotionally abused wife at night. She is a successful artist with a long history of schizoid effective disorder with bipolar tendencies.

When her marriage goes from good to bad, she suffers her first miscarriage. The tragedy coincides with a wolf moon-Trauma and magic converge seem to converge in Simone's head.

This story explores sadness, illness, hallucinations, full moons, and the creative process.

What Stage of Grief is not a poem, or a song, but a dirge.

Fantasy and facts, this poem walks a fine line between nightmares and memories. Grief stories and love stories. Dogs, and drama. Nightmares, and nevermore.

Praise for The Japanese Box and Other Stories

"The precision of observation here speaks not only to the honesty of the writer, but to the respect granted in all phases of life; Jennifer Anne Gordon is on full display. Smart, full of character, vibrant. You will feel, you will feel big, and you will return, too, to the richest moments of your own history, landmarks that bring you to both smile and weep."–Josh Malerman, New York Times best-selling author of Bird Box and Daphne

"I compulsively read anything Jennifer Anne Gordon writes. Like the best contemporary filmmakers stitching together grief and horror, her storytelling is a sharp needle that both pierces and tugs us close. Compulsive and genre-slashing, with exquisite, rhythmic prose, THE JAPANESE BOX is an extraordinary exploration of alone-ness that beats and breathes: grief is horror, grief is love. We as readers are drawn ever closer to this beautifully haunted narrator until we're face-down in the box with her. Does she feel us? She thinks she is alone. We all think we are alone. By the end we've become the ghosts in her black room, reaching out to gently touch her hair and whisper we're here."–Diane Zinna, author of The All-Night Sun

About Jennifer Anne Gordon

Jennifer Anne Gordon is an award-winning author and popular host of the Vox Vomitus podcast. Her novel Beautiful, Frightening and Silent won the Kindle Award for Best Horror/Suspense for 2020 and Best Horror 2020 from Authors on the Air, and was a finalist for American Book Fest’s Best Book Award- Horror, 2020. It also received the Platinum 5-Star Review from Reader’s Choice as well as the Gold Seal from Book View.

Her latest novel Pretty/Ugly, won the Helicon Award for Best Horror for 2022, as well as the Gold Medal from Literary Titan.

Jennifer is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the Horror Writers Association (where she served on the jury for the Stoker Awards), and is an A&E chair of the New England Crime Bake Committee.