By: Janice O’Brien
Carol Mitchell did not set out to become a horror writer. In fact, the author of A Good Haunting: Stories says she does not read horror and has avoided horror movies for decades. Yet the nine stories in her collection include transformation, immortality, slavery, child death, grief, spirits and people making terrible choices under extreme pressure. Eventually, Mitchell had to reconsider what kind of book she had written.
Mitchell is also the author of the novel What Start Bad a Mornin’ and nineteen books for children. Her short fiction and book reviews have appeared in numerous journals. She holds an MFA, is a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and several other arts institutions, and teaches writing while working on a new novel.
A Good Haunting combines speculative fiction, myth, magic and realism in stories connected to the Caribbean. Death is a recurring force, appearing through the loss of loved ones, threats to identity and the possibility of communities or ways of life disappearing. The collection does not build itself around conventional scares, but its characters repeatedly encounter situations that can be psychologically traumatic or morally horrifying.
“The first time the suggestion was made that A Good Haunting could be classified as horror I was, for want of a better word, horrified,” Mitchell said. “I don’t read horror myself, and I have not watched a horror movie since I was in my twenties.”
A comment from writer Tananarive Due prompted Mitchell to reconsider the label. Due described the collection in terms that emphasized horrors both ordinary and extraordinary. Mitchell then looked again at what actually happens in the stories.
“In the first story, a woman transforms into a dangerous character of Caribbean and African lore,” Mitchell said. “In another, a woman is made immortal and condemned to slavery. In a third, a mother kills other babies to keep hers alive.”
Those examples place A Good Haunting near horror, even if its goals differ from stories designed primarily to frighten.
“So, perhaps I am writing horror, but not the sort that will keep you awake at night,” Mitchell said. “Instead, this version of the horrific will make you consider the ways in which ordinary humans can be driven to unsavory acts when the most important aspects of their lives are threatened.”
The collection’s range reinforces that idea. One story revives the spirit of an ancestor who died four centuries earlier; another imagines an African queen condemned to immortality and slavery. The unsettling moments repeatedly return to what people do when loss or survival changes the rules.
That distinction is central to the collection. The frightening element often comes from recognizing an emotional or social pressure beneath the speculative premise. A supernatural transformation can expose the limits placed on women. Immortality can become a form of punishment. A parent’s desire to protect a child can cross into unthinkable behavior. Grief can turn a familiar relationship into a source of guilt and uncertainty.
The title story reflects that balance. A widower participates in an unorthodox death ritual and uses humor to cope with grief and guilt while learning troubling details about his spouse’s sudden death. The circumstances are unusual, but the emotional terrain, loss, regret, doubt and the need to continue, is recognizable.
Mitchell says the collection’s repeated focus on death was not planned. She only recognized the pattern while studying the stories together in a workshop and looking for ideas that connected them.
“That throughline of death was unplanned,” she said, explaining that difficult losses in her own wider circle had stayed with her even after she believed she had moved forward.
Her understanding of grief extends beyond bereavement.
“Grief is an integral part of the human experience that goes beyond lost loved ones to grieving lost opportunities and lost ways of life,” Mitchell said.
That definition helps explain why A Good Haunting can feel unsettling without functioning solely as horror. Its stories are concerned with the moment when a person’s assumptions about family, safety, identity or home no longer hold. The speculative elements heighten those ruptures.
Mitchell also approaches writing as a practice that improves through persistence rather than waiting for perfect inspiration. Her advice to other writers is simple: protect the work.
“Make writing a priority in your life and keep writing even if it feels like the work isn’t great,” she said. “Writing is a muscle that has to be exercised just like other muscles in your body.”
That discipline has helped Mitchell move across children’s books, realistic fiction and speculative stories. With A Good Haunting, the result may sit near horror, but its larger purpose is contemplation. The collection asks readers not merely what they fear, but what grief, love and threat can persuade ordinary people to become.
A Good Haunting is available on Amazon.
