Ryan Thomas LaBee

Yeahhhhhh but now i love em. Lol

My name is Ryan, and I write Midwest Gothic.

Childhood fear? Dolls... My teen mom thought it was hilarious. My great aunt used him to punish me by locking me in a room with a doll. Midwest family dynamics at their finest, right?

I've always wanted to write a haunted doll story
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Breaking Bad Creator’s New Show Declares War On Happiness Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn reunite for a mysterious Apple TV+ sci-fi drama that turns bliss into a battlefield.

#VinceGilligan and #RheaSeehorn reunite for a mysterious #AppleTV+ sci-fi drama that turns bliss into a battlefield. I cannot wait for #PLURIBUS

www.military.com/daily-news/2...

Copy of the Best American Short Stories 2025, edited by Celeste Ng

Out today: BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2025, edited by... me! So so many great stories in here. I can't wait for you to discover them and their talented writers.

(around an image of the No Kings logo) IT’S OFFICIAL Nearly 7 million people have attended today's peaceful protests, which makes No Kings Day the biggest single-day protest against tyranny in American history! With more than 2,700 lawful and peaceful protests across all 50 states, No Kings Day was 14 times larger than both of Trump's presidential inaugurations (combined).

After a week of ridiculous Republican smears and Trump claiming that “very few people are going to be there,” you just made history. #NoKings

Giant copy of the Constitution being carried down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Thanks for another insightful chat! To kind of tie back today's theme, in my LWF series, power and oppression play major roles, particularly with regards to misogyny and ableism. You can find Little White Flowers lots of places, including the UMaine Bookstore (pictured below)!

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Alright, my turn in the confessional. If you’re in the mood for small-town mayhem, pumpkins, and poor decisions, The Halloween Party & Other Tales of All Hallows’ Eve Terror is my love letter to October. www.amazon.com/Halloween-Pa... #HorrorWritersChat

That is great.

My guiding principle is "comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" and if I'm not doing both, I've missed the mark #HorrorWritersChat

I'm a Eat The Rich girlie head to toe, so I will always write stories where the rich get their comeuppance.

Although, there's this one story I wrote where riches were used in order to exact vengeance on rapists and abusers in the form of a torture banquet 😇

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Despair is far more satisfying because you can utilize it anywhere at any time, especially when hope is kept out of a hand's reach.

Best example? Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass

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I'm Michael, I write queer cosmic & supernatural horror!

I think of myself as scraping-by-working-class after spending most of my life living that way. Morally, I have high enough standards that I constantly beat myself up. (Or is that the religious trauma from youth?)

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😆😆😆

100% the right answer.

It can be, yes. The supernatural is scary, but desperation can be more visceral(many of us have felt it). The desperation that can come from the horrific can be scarier than whatever the catalyst is sometimes. A ghost or ghoul? Scary. Being trapped underground in a coffin? NOPE.
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Desperation’s always scarier. Ghosts just want attention — people want out. And some will torch a whole town to get it.

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I write horror attempting to scare everyone—just in different tax brackets. The poor see themselves in the dark. The rich see what’s coming for them. Either way, nobody’s sleeping well.

Hopefully.
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Scarcity is the air my characters breathe. Deprivation isn’t just material—it’s emotional, spiritual. In my worlds, folks pass down their lack like an heirloom.
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I write small-town horror where everyone’s either cursed, drunk, or both. Think cosmic dread meets Dollar General. Financially? Let’s just say my monsters have better healthcare.
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I haven’t! I’ve heard of it but haven’t gotten around to it. Gonna have to finally check it out!

Yesssssss

I favor the folkloric ghosts—the ones whispered about behind church pews and in hollow places, passed down and patched over generations. Yet I love when an author peels that fabric back and lets the old haunt breathe through something new.

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The hollers and riverbanks of the Ozarks—those are my favorite haunts. Not the grand estates, but the forgotten places: collapsed barns, drowned bridges, and roadside churches still echoing with hymns no one remembers.
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>Steps from the mist, boots caked in Ozark mud.< I write horror that seeps up from the soil and monsters that look too much like family.
I hail from the haunted hills of southwest Missouri, and tonight my wraithful visage is a preacher’s ghost still clutching his sermon.
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Eleanor’s Horrors | Eleanor Johnson | Substack A series of essays about feminism and horror, literature and history, translation and transformation. Click to read Eleanor’s Horrors, by Eleanor Johnson, a Substack publication with thousands of subs...

Eleanor’s Horrors
eleanorshorrors.substack.com?r=fm4th&utm_...

Ohhhh going to check this out for sure.

Thanks for another great #HorrorWritersChat! If you’re into dark folk/Midwest Gothic, follow along! I am also launching a YouTube video podcast—Nightmares and Narratives. Just interviewed Joe R. Lansdale! Also, i have a novella—KILLING MY FLESH WITHOUT YOU.

Right?!! So do i! So you have a story/book recs? It's not horror, but I'm currently reading (and loving) Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, which i think could be characterized as a coming of age story.

Age always bleeds into the work. Whether my characters are 16 or 60, they carry some echo of my own unease—fear of endings, fear of irrelevance, fear of being forgotten. Fear of forgetting. Horror gives those whispers a body. In that sense, yes, we’re always speaking our fears. #HorrorWritersChat