elli ✶ your spooky mom

farewell, your spooky mom! thank you for your lovely years! welcoming the new year as devoted marrow ✶ While this may be the end of an era of working under Your Spooky Mom, it is not the end to the incredible friendships I have found because of it. I am endlessly grateful for the opportunities that have come from and have been born through Your Spooky Mom. It will always hold a special place in my heart. Devoted Marrow started as my Substack. In the last few months, I’ve realized that it better encapsulates what I want as a creator, author, and artist moving forward. Thank you for an incredible few years! Here is to many, many more. 🖤 In 2026 I want to explore the marrow of consumption, devotion, life, and decay through personal essays and horror fiction. I’m so glad you’re here.

Decay is an integral part of the cycle of regeneration. A carcass once held life, but that is not to say it is no longer of value to the ecosystem. A heart stops beating, but the body begins its next stage of work. Bacteria break down tissues, and in time gases expand then rapidly de-mass, liquefying matter back into the earth. Larvae dance beneath flaps of rotten skin until all that is left behind in this physical form are the bones that once held it all in. 🕯️ A new thought piece on the nourishment we receive from allowing decay now live on my substack 🖤 #amwriting #writinghorror #decayart #personalessay

My longest piece of horror fiction is out now. Womb Decay can be read in this month’s issue of @nightterrormag ! I am so beyond proud of this piece of work, but also extraordinarily nervous to be putting it out into the world. This story means a great deal to me, especially because it has provided me a clear pathway for the future of my writing. Womb Decay gave me a creative voice and I will forever be thankful to it for that. I hope you enjoy! #folkhorror #motherhoodhorror #folkhorrorauthor

a t-shirt hates to see me coming

Alas, here I am with another review of a beloved David Sodergren book. Quite possibly my favorite place to be. The Suffering, a nunsploitation on speed, is an ass kicking addition to the ever-growing worlds of horror he creates for us. It has it all and I genuinely mean that. I can’t help but cackle at the sheer amount of HEART packed into a book that also features monstrous cyst-bursting and pus-lubricated cunnilingus. Sodergren’s ability to hold tenderness and sickening depravity in the same hand is on full display here. There is a carefully crafted structural choice to follow a character, shift mid-book to another, then return at the end. This sandwich, so to speak, is not easily executed in the ‘messy middle’ of novel writing (believe me, I know). Yet, it is something Sodergren continuously does so well in his work. And the YEARNING. I lived for the yearning and you want so badly for everyone to come out on the other side. That, of course, meant I should have known better. Sodergren has such punchy, fabulous openings. It is a gift, really. However, they are nothing compared to the ‘what the fuck was that’ endings that he is so known for. We just don’t see sploitation novels that bring this much care, thoughtfulness, dynamic characterization, and genuine dedication to doing it right, and then drench it all in blood the way David does. As a reader, as someone who loves this author’s work, each book further enhances what he has to offer as a horror storyteller of our time. If you take anything away from this review, let it be this: The Suffering is “very Sodergren.” What more could you possibly want? ★★★★★ Thank you always to @paperbacksandpugs for trusting me in the pre-publication stages of your work. Beta reading for you has been essential in the evolution of my own writing — of which is more & more evident as time goes on. The freak of nature in me sees the freak of nature in you 🤝

𝕾𝖚𝖋𝖋𝖊𝖗 𝖉𝖔𝖊𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖜𝖔𝖑𝖋, 𝖈𝖗𝖆𝖜𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖊. I have been so bad at sharing my love of books lately and in the chaos that is Bookstagram right now (chat, uh, whhaaaat is going on here 😅), I have been a bit uninspired. But…working on my novel has been so cathartic even though it is so heavy and, well, a shit ton of work, it has had me returning to this simple fact: 𝙄 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙮 𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙨. No, I hate suffering actually. But the greatest challenge is learning something about ourselves when we read a story without resolve. What healing is done when there is no soft landing, no wound tended to? Sadness is subjective, much like horror itself. Here are books that I have read and adored. Some I have read more than once, all with no happy endings. I recommend each and every one. They’ve all been influential in my own work: Ása, reunited with her baby, but not until a violent, tragic death. A man confessing his devotion as he eats the last piece of his lover — he, the murderer. An entity haunting a house, surviving only by a mother’s dwindling resolve. The final, lethal battle after a woman’s years of degradation. See? The proof is in the pudding, or something like that. So, what is your favorite book with an unhappy ending?

The Yōkai Issue , OUT NOW! May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This issue is infiltrating the digital world and is soaked in dark threads of impeccable yarn work. With that, we are thrilled to showcase a textile artist, Juliette (@amas_verdatre_crochet ), whose work carries that dark aesthetic into fiber art, Kelsee’s dive into anime with thoughtful, witty reviews, and my own piece on the Japanese studios behind survival horror and the franchises that changed the genre. Above all, this is an issue about the tales that have built and changed the trajectory of horror as we know it! If you’re eager to wrap your creepy crawlies around a digital copy, you can read it now using the link in our bio! Physical copies have already been delivered to our subscription members, but they are available on our website for purchase. To have issues mailed directly to your haunted house at the top of the month, be sure to check out our Patreon subscription tiers!

And to see the beauty and the little things. Excessive and wanting and raw. A gift! What a gift it is to be so feeling.

Our annual Yōkai issue is almost here, centered on AANHPI creators in horror for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Manga, infamous video game franchises, and visual art that are showcased in this issue pull from the same deep well of folkloric storytelling. What you find at the bottom is for you to uncover on May 4th! If you’re eager to wrap your creepy crawlies around a digital copy, then be sure to subscribe to our newsletter now! Better yet, if you want a physical copy, join our Patreon subscription tiers to have issues mailed directly to your haunted house at the top of the month!

springin’

the last slide is what my brain sounds like

🌷 Thrilled to get my hands on the first ever issue of @crossroads.folkhorror ! So very proud of my dear friend @scaryasfolk & a wonderful team who have created something so cool & inspiring. As a fellow zine maker, to hold the finished product of such hard work is the best feeling of all. I also managed to snag a copy of Frankenstein with the beautiful cover without the damn forever sticker. Heard only wonderful things about Toni Morrison’s Sula, so I had to get that too. It’s been a slow season, but I’m hopeful for the newness of spring to bring forward a fresh wave of creativity. Trudging into the beginning of a new short story, working on my novel, fleshing out a new community project for May, & preparing for the start of a year long writing program starting next week (what I’m most excited for)! Creating in every season - even when it is hard or uninspiring or the world is a weight that is ever mounting. Creating in every season because there is good in the monotony and there is inspiration in the mundane 🖤