Katherine Kerestman – författare

Crumbling Castles

Ghoulish Graveyards

Cobwebbed Cathedrals

The Creepy, the Macabre, the Weird, the Wonderful

Chilling tales of haunting, surreal, and inhuman entities that frighten us have been told by people of all times, and every place. It is the angst and insecurity which come with being human that these horror stories express. It turns out that, in the process of describing these forces and creatures (that which we are not), we are defining by negation our own humanity (that which we are).

The struggle to understand our nature and our relation to-well, to everything else-is the lot of humans everywhere. All of us share in this struggle to find meaning in a mysterious, indifferent universe. As Creepy Cat travels, albeit usually purely for pleasure, as a humanist she cannot help putting two and two together and realizing that our common fears, aversions, and yearnings can sometimes unite people-and can also drive them into opposing camps. These are the mysteries told by the story-weavers of macabre tales.

Creepy Cat invites you to come along for the journey. 

A well-told horror story has much in common with your own cherished puss. Kitty jumps upon your lap and purrs, and you turn the page of your book.

Pray, take heed! Some dire thing is afoot! On your lap, Kitty stirs, her ears lifting into two small velvet tents. She raises her chin, stares expectantly into the gloom beyond the aura of the reading lamp, gazes at something which you cannot see! Her silken hairs begin to fluff, signaling her unease. Swiftly, Kitty moves from your lap onto the arm of your chair, where, channeling Bastet, she strikes an Egyptian-cat pose, her expectant stance and twitching whiskers communicating unseen peril.

The hairs on your neck begin to rise in sympathy. As you doggedly continue reading your book, you cast frequent glances at your cat: Kitty provides you with a sixth sense which you lack, a window into the unseen and the uncanny. You are mindful that cats dwell in a larger world than our own, the gulfs and abysses of which we can obtain but a shadowy glimpse, through their eyes.

In The Weird Cat you delve into that larger realm through more than three dozen classic and contemporary short stories, poems, and essays by masters of the craft including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, H.P. Lovecraft, Mary A. Turzillo, Christina Sng, Darrell Schweitzer, and others. Compiled and edited by Katherine Kerestman and S.T. Joshi.