Hadassah Shiradski
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dassawrites.bsky.social
Hadassah Shiradski
@dassawrites.bsky.social
Queer ND goth. I write spooky stories!
'What Happened at Hawthorne House', my debut, is out now!
Writing a second novella, a story in verse, and a collection of doll stories 🖤
Playing with poetry and interactive fiction 🖤

🚫No AI🚫
Pinned
Set in 1926, Rosalyn (9) invents a game of royalty with her dormmates. Everyone needs to be in control, and stopping isn't an option; Rosalyn must be Queen.
Get it: brigidsgatepress.com/product/what...

Stories, free:
crowcrosskeys.com/2021/05/05/o...
nightterrornovels.wordpress.com/2022/06/24/t...
What Happened at Hawthorne House - Brigids Gate PressWhat Happened at Hawthorne House
brigidsgatepress.com
Reposted by Hadassah Shiradski
you don't even need to write a whole review on Amazon if you're pressed for time. A good star rating in search results is a huge factor in determining which books people will click through to the product page for. Take a few minutes on the bus to boost your favourite books if you can
"I can't afford to support my favorite author right now, I—"

Reviews.

Reviews are free AND they are a gift to authors that can keep on giving (i.e., exposure, marketing, algo boosts, etc.)

Please, give the gift of reviews to your authors this holiday season. It really can make a difference!
December 14, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Extremely concerning... I will never consent to have any of my words, writing, or work used in anything involving AI.
I hope for my stories to make you think, or just sit in a feeling and ruminate; the idea that people will skim-read it and get a machine to experience it for them is upsetting.
December 13, 2025 at 6:03 AM
Thanks for running this, Eryn!
I have a gothic horror novella set in 1926, in which 9-yr-old Rosalyn plays a make-believe game of a Royal Court with 4 other girls. All of them want to (need to) be Queen... Things escalate. Significantly.
🍀🔨👑
www.amazon.com/What-Happene...
🖤
💙📚🩸
#HorrorWritersChat
December 10, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Things begin to happen in time with a beat or clock, or precisely slightly off-beat. No in-between.

#HorrorWritersChat
Pens at the ready, Horror Writers. Q4.

Hang around for the outro.

#HorrorWritersChat
December 10, 2025 at 8:15 PM
There's plenty, but the ones to come to mind are Samara's song from The Ring, Memory from Ib, and Dollhouses from Alice: Madness Returns. I do regularly try to capture them in my writing!
#HorrorWritersChat
Q3, #HorrorWritersChat.

Us writers are weird creatures. We can't help but shake and quake over a perfect line, but all the senses will get you, if you're open to it.
And music is a story in the ears. Just like a perfume is a story for the nose.
But can you translate it into writing? Do you?
December 10, 2025 at 7:46 PM
I match music to the story, especially since I tend to listen to music whilst editing. Stories with cyclic elements get tracks that loop easily, a sad short story gets a despondent track (eg:Jack Splatter(Alice Madness Returns)), elements may reflect things the characters hear...
#HorrorWritersChat
Q2.
How do you use sound, music, or the absence of it?
And if we're speaking of the absence of it, Disturbed's Sound of Silence (with Myles Kennedy) is way better than the original of it and you'll just have to accept that.
I will die on this hill!

#HorrorWritersChat
December 10, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Hi, I'm Hadassah!
I write gothic historical horror, often w/ supernatural elements & child or non-human narrators. I listen to classical music, music-boxes, video game soundtracks; usually from Little Nightmares, Alice: Madness Returns, & horror pixel RPGs, depending on the mood!🖤
#HorrorWritersChat
Q1.
#HorrorWritersChat, you know what to do.
No links. Not till the end. No sneaky promo. Just lots of lovely lovely chat.
December 10, 2025 at 7:08 PM
It's dark now, so I'm stopping for today (and also getting some food). I've done one 1/2 poems in the last hour, which is pretty good, including one that has a really nice rhythm to it; its current title is 'Hummingbird, Buried'. Well into the final chapter now!
🖤
#HorrorSky #Booksky💙📚🩸#HorrorAuthor
I'm writing unsettling, f*cked-up witchy 'romance' poems today! Progress on my novella-in-verse is slow, but steady... If it ends up over 100 poems, is it a novel-in-verse? The music today is 'La Fille Damnee' (Cecile Corbel): www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPCX...
I like the waltz quality🖤

#HorrorSky 💙📚🩸
Cecile Corbel - "La Fille Damnee"
YouTube video by Cécile Corbel
www.youtube.com
November 30, 2025 at 4:48 PM
I'm writing unsettling, f*cked-up witchy 'romance' poems today! Progress on my novella-in-verse is slow, but steady... If it ends up over 100 poems, is it a novel-in-verse? The music today is 'La Fille Damnee' (Cecile Corbel): www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPCX...
I like the waltz quality🖤

#HorrorSky 💙📚🩸
Cecile Corbel - "La Fille Damnee"
YouTube video by Cécile Corbel
www.youtube.com
November 30, 2025 at 3:30 PM
There is no 'end' to dehumanisation aside from total oblivion. Someone or something can be pretty much endlessly dehumanised as long as there is something there in the first place, including a lack of consciousness, will, or body...The answer re: 'completion' is potentially never.
#HorrorWritersChat
[Moon entity. Observed. Depth distance. Calculated. Organic material: satisfactory.]

[Ablative carapace. Installed. Cortex. Pried.]

[Inquiry. Required for completion: WHEN IS DEHUMANISATION COMPLETE? LOSS OF BODY? OF WILL? AN ALIEN CONSCIOUSNESS IN ONE’S MIND?]

#HorrorWritersChat
November 26, 2025 at 7:43 PM
That's... a very broad question. I already do this in one of my WIPs; a short story collection set in Victorian London, focused around dolls and childhood. Dehumanisation is a key factor, as is the othering that comes with it and the perception (true and not) of a lack of humanity
#HorrorWritersChat
[Grafting. In progress. Conveyor attachments. Plugged. Mining extraction. Tools. Inserted.]
[Spinal chord. Interwoven. Cranial examination. Reactivated.]
[Inquiry. Required for completion: INDUSTRIAL HORROR EXPLORES DEHUMANISATION. HOW WOULD YOU EXPLORE IT YOURSELF IN THE GENRE?]

#HorrorWritersChat
November 26, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Hi, I'm Hadassah!
I write gothic historical horror, usually supernatural, often with child or inhuman narrators. My works tends to the shorter side, and I'm currently writing a story in poems.
Industrial horror of the future is scarier to me, as the past is a known quantity.
🖤
#HorrorWritersChat
[Organic Material. Booted. Nerve System. Controller Liquids. Injected.]

[Material responsive. Cranial activity. Under control.]

[Inquiry. Required for completion: TELL US, WHO YOU ARE, WHAT DO YOU WRITE, AND WHAT INDUSTRIAL HORROR IS SCARIER? OF THE PAST, OR OF THE FUTURE?]

#HorrorWritersChat
November 26, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Reposted by Hadassah Shiradski
Hiraeth (HEE-reyeth)
(n.)
- An intense longing for a home you can’t return to, or that never was.

Used in a sentence:
“And evermore, deep in his small and ancient brest, there stirred a sorrow sharp as winter wind—a hiraeth for the numinous lands of Faerie that slipt into legend many ages agone.”
November 26, 2025 at 5:39 AM
It's a lovely day to reread Alice in Wonderland, eat apple strudel, and then write some horror narrative poetry (before it gets dark) 🖤

Take the time today to be kind to yourself. Take a deep breath, slow down enough to notice something small, and continue.

💙📚🩸
November 23, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Thanks for running this, Eryn!
I have a gothic horror novella set in 1926, in which 9-yr-old Rosalyn plays a make-believe game of a Royal Court with 4 other girls. All of them want to (need to) be Queen... Things escalate. Significantly.🍀🔨👑
brigidsgatepress.com/product/what...
💙📚🩸
#HorrorWritersChat
November 19, 2025 at 8:16 PM
It's not unanimous or anything, but many of my male characters fear breaking a (genuinely made) promise, unintentionally made (or broken) or not.
Doing so would show that they don't know themself as well as they think they do; it all ties back to perception of the self.
#HorrorWritersChat
Q4 is up. Ten minutes to outro and the promo: I am still working my way through. You're all wonderful busy bees today and I adore you!
This one is a little easier. No archetypes!

#HorrorWritersChat
November 19, 2025 at 8:00 PM
My characters lean into masculinity when it suits them to, & I subvert/lean into expected masculinity if doing so adds a layer to the story. My characters don't often have a binary gender!
Andrew saw himself as a potential father figure for Rosalyn &co, which informed his actions
#HorrorWritersChat
Q3. I'm doing what I can to answer everyone, and repost, so bear with me. So I don't keep you waiting, I'll throw out 3. Interpret this one how you like. I know many queer folks like me do not align masculinity with man shaped. And with horror, we love to subvert our tales.

#HorrorWritersChat
November 19, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Hmm. There's a 'male archetype' of a character who cares deeply for others and tries to help; when a character has that, I often like to make their empathy and capacity of care their downfall (in the tragic sense; they care so much it destroys them).
#HorrorWritersChat
Well then, #HorrorWritersChat. What's an archetype anyway? I jest. We're all writers here... after alllllllll....
November 19, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Hi, I'm Hadassah!
I write gothic horror & dark fantasy, usually historical and/or supernatural, and... my male characters are not treated any differently than characters of other genders? What saves or damns my characters depends on multiple different factors...
🖤
#HorrorWritersChat
Here we go, #HorrorWritersChat!

Q1 has arrived. It's international men's day today, and I thought actually that's a good topic. Not the easiest one to build questions around, either. So if I do not hit the mark I am sure you will forgive me.
As usual, no links, no pitches, not till the end.
November 19, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Thanks for running this, Mary!
I have a gothic horror novella set in 1926, in which 9-yr-old Rosalyn plays a make-believe game of a Royal Court with 4 other girls. All of them want to (need to) be Queen... Things escalate. Significantly.🍀🔨👑
brigidsgatepress.com/product/what...
💙📚🩸
#HorrorWritersChat
November 12, 2025 at 8:19 PM
Fruit pies, apple-spiced wine and rose tea for Rosebud, my witchy, gory, sapphic novella in verse; it uses the flowering/fruiting/decomposition of stone fruit, flowers, and berries as a central metaphor. It also features heavily in the story aside from that, a constant presence.
🖤
#HorrorWritersChat
Q3 - INTERMISSION

Time for a refreshment break.

We head over to the concession stand and discover that all the food and drink are themed on your work.

#HorrorWritersChat - What refreshments are we enjoying and how are they related to your work?
November 12, 2025 at 7:38 PM
For Hawthorne House, I'm not sure -- most of the characters are children, including the ones I'd pick to answer this, and I'm not familiar with child actors.
For Rosebud, my current WIP; Isabelle Fuhrman as Agnes/the witch, my antagonist and fave character -- she'd be a good fit!
#HorrorWritersChat
Q2 - COMING SOON

It’s time for the trailers.

And look #HorrorWritersChat - it’s a trailer for your very own horror work, adapted for the screen. Congrats!

Which work is it?

And which actor is playing your main protagonist, antagonist or fave character? Share your dream cast!
November 12, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Hi, I'm Hadassah!
I write gothic horror, usually historical or supernatural and exploring my experiences with neurodiversity & gender. I have a strong interest in folklore & storytelling...
Two films that inspire & describe my writing: Pan's Labyrinth and Let The Right One In
#HorrorWritersChat
#HorrorWritersChat

Q1 - DOUBLE FEATURE

Glad you could join our (virtual) cinema trip!

First, let's introduce ourselves and share the horror subgenres we write in.

Now, what are we watching?

Share the two movies/films that have inspired your writing or that capture the vibes of your work.
November 12, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Finished 'kinder', now on to 'cage of flesh'! Yay!
I really like the method I'm using to construct this novella; by having each poem inspired by a word/phrase used in the previous poem, I'm ensuring that the narrative remains cohesive.
It's why I'm writing it in Twine, and it's playable/interactive!
I'm back to work on my novella in verse! Today, I'm listening to Forest Theme from 'The Path' as I detail this ...'romance' between a witch and the girl in her house. A poem's connected to the next by a selected word; currently it's 'kinder' (just done 'mouse')🫐🔪🥩
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYLQ...
💙📚🩸
Forest Theme
YouTube video by Kris Force - Topic
www.youtube.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:08 PM
I'm back to work on my novella in verse! Today, I'm listening to Forest Theme from 'The Path' as I detail this ...'romance' between a witch and the girl in her house. A poem's connected to the next by a selected word; currently it's 'kinder' (just done 'mouse')🫐🔪🥩
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYLQ...
💙📚🩸
Forest Theme
YouTube video by Kris Force - Topic
www.youtube.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:27 PM