Aly Welch's Blog, page 8

My Cassandra Complex

“To warn of a threat and be dismissed is to have your own worth questioned, along with the worth of all you strive to keep safe.”

– Sarah Kendzior, Hiding in Plain Sight

I want to write a happy holiday post full of sweetness and light, I really do, but it’s just not in the cards. Not yet, anyway. Give me time. People make me sad, but my family makes me happy. Right now we’re hibernating. School is fully remote for the rest of December. My husband is on vacation. It’s cold and snowy, and I don...

A Good Day But a Sad Day

“Today is a good day. It’s easier to be a parent this morning. Character matters. Being a good person matters. This is a big deal. It’s easy to do it the cheap way and get away with stuff – but it comes back around. Today is a good day.” – Van Jones

Character won, but barely, and the battle is far from over – and I don’t just mean the current president approaching a failed presidency the same way he approached his failed businesses through lies, threats, and litigation. I worry about the next...

Trophy Wives and Other Ghosts

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

– Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

People as things…it all keeps coming back to that, doesn’t it?

I could continue to promote my book or run my mouth on what’s bothering me. If you know me or follow me at all, you already know it’ll be the latter. And let’s face it, people who don’t like my “politics” (which is what some call anything they wish to deny or dismiss) probably won’t like my writing, either.

As a creative or maybe ...

Horror: A Love Story

This essay originally appeared on WritingBloc, but I made a minor change because I realized I left out one of my favorite 80s horror movies that gets a worse rap than it deserves. Silver Bullet is schlocky, but the performances of Gary Busey, Megan Follows, and Corey Haim (RIP) and their characters’ relationships elevate it.

My collection Silly Little Monsters has stories in multiple genres, and it’s pretty horror-lite because, honestly, for me it’s the quieter moments that tap into the hor...

Silly Little Monsters: It’s (a)LIVE!

Silly Little Monsters is now available through Amazon as an e-book for the Kindle, and as a paperback. It is also available through Barnes & Noble as an e-book for the Nook.

The paperback will be available through Barnes & Noble soon.

Unfortunately, I find it hard to feel excited about this personal milestone in the midst of everything else going on in the world, from the attacks on women’s rights at home and abroad, continued abuse of refugees and their children, white and/or male supre...

Silly Little Monsters

“Silly little monster, should have just held my tongue.” – Meg Myers

Today I’m going to do something I haven’t done in awhile, and indulge in a bit of self-promotion. Writing Bloc is releasing my collection of short stories, Silly Little Monsters, in time for Halloween.

Silly Little Monsters is a whimsical collection of nine tales to chill your spine and tickle your funny bone. These aren’t your typical bedtime stories. From “Alpha” to “Omega”, everybody wants to make sense of their w...

Matters of Life and Death

“You do not finally win a state of freedom that is protected forever. It doesn’t work that way.” – Coretta Scott King

I’ve shared it before, but that particular sentiment has become even more apt in recent days.

A couple weeks ago, one of our senior dogs died at home peacefully in her sleep. It’s the most you can hope for an elderly animal, but we were still caught off guard. Her sister’s death a year prior was an even bigger surprise when her health rapidly deteriorated prior to a schedu...

The Myth of the Good Old Days

“In every age ‘the good old days’ were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.”

– Brooks Atkinson

“The only good thing about the good old days is they’re gone.”

– Dick Gregory

Recent statistics have shown that women, especially women of color, are most likely to wear masks. An article suggested women of color are so used to having everything about their appearance policed, even the...

New Media/Old Problems

“How difficult it has become to decipher the truth from the fictitious, to trust one’s own eyes over the art of image distortion. Information is power and if readings have taught us anything, it is that power inevitably corrupts.”

“Evil does not just arise from nothingness, most of the time it is nurtured by society’s failure to activate its moral standards”

― Aysha Taryam

I don’t usually include trigger warnings, but this post will reference suicide, child abuse, sexual assault, and human traf...

Fairly Human

 

“The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.” – Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

If people aren’t referring to our neurological disorders as super powers (power of running into things I have over thee), they’re waxing poetic about the possibility we’re the descendants of fairies. Sure, it’s all very cute and whimsical (if akin to fetishism), unless you have a greater familiarity with historical precedent, and realize these people are coming at the lore backwards.

Here’s the d...