Review: Creep This Way – How to Become a Horror Writer With 24 Steps to Get You Ghouling by Rebecca Cuthbert

Creep This Way: How to Become a Horror Writer With 24 Steps to Get You Ghouling by Rebecca Cuthbert
Seamus & Nunzio Productions (January 15, 2024)
92 pages; $7.99 e-book
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Rebecca Cuthbert is a dark fiction and poetry writer living in Western New York. She loves ghost stories, folklore, witchy women, and anything that involves nature getting revenge. Her debut poetry collection, In Memory of Exoskeletons, is out now with Alien Buddha Press, and her hybrid poetry and story collection, Self-Made Monsters, will arrive in Fall of 2024. Her non-fiction book, Creep This Way: How to Become a Horror Writer With 24 Steps to Get You Ghouling will be out in January 2024 from Seamus & Nunzio Productions.

Cuthbert’s Creep This Way is part autobiography, part defense of horror, and part writer’s guide. Rather than tell you how to write horror, Cuthbert’s goal is to teach you the tips and tricks of being a horror writer in the 21st century. With chapters about social media and presentations, time management and writing goals, Cuthbert isn’t out to teach her readers how to write better work, but how to engage in all the other work of writing that isn’t creative. This wisdom comes from years of experience, as well as years of being rejected as a genre writer in non-genre communities. Cuthbert has expertise in both the non-genre world, the academic world, and the genre world, and this experience has been distilled into twenty-four manageable chapters for writers to explore.

The format of the book is very simple and generous. Cuthbert describes a problem she had as a writer and her personal solution. She will often admit needing help, or doing things poorly, and this humility shows new authors that failure and mistakes are a part of the process. She is honest in these chapters and encouraging, all of which reinforces the messages she’s making about writing and communities. After the opening part, there is a “Now, you” section, which invites future writers to consider the challenge and what possible solutions they have. There are even a few “pro tips” scattered, just for extra benefit.

Creep This Way is an interesting author’s guide in that the writing isn’t the focus; instead, the focus is on being a writer, and the habits and actions one needs to take to sustain a writing life. While there are other guides like this out there, Cuthbert’s focus on horror and the horror community is very special and specific, so her suggestions are more honed for a niche audience. However, there isn’t anything a non-genre author couldn’t learn, nor well-seasoned authors. If you are a horror author of any skill or interest, this book cannot be recommended enough. It’s a breath of fresh air from one of the up-and-coming voices in the community who has shared some of the seeds of her success with us, and there is certainly something for any current or future author — horror, speculative, or otherwise — to learn from in these pages.