Creating Monsters: How Folklore Shapes My Art & Fiction

People often ask where my monsters come from.

The easy answer is folklore.

The longer answer begins decades earlier, with a little girl who never seemed to tire of ghost stories.

I've always been a reader, and I credit that love almost entirely to my mother. Some of my favorite childhood memories are of books filling the house, and my mom, sister, and I sharing novels to read. Looking back, I realize those moments weren't just about passing the time. They taught me that stories were meant to be shared.

That love of storytelling quickly expanded beyond books.

Late nights often meant watching Chiller Theater, creature features, and every classic horror film I could find. Abbott & Costello Meet the monsters series of films were a favorite, introducing me to iconic monsters in a way that was equal parts spooky and fun. Vincent Price became a familiar face, and before long I was devouring ghost stories, monster movies, supernatural mysteries, and anything that wandered into the strange or unexplained.

By the sixth grade, I had picked up my first Stephen King novel—Firestarter. It opened an entirely new world for me. Horror wasn't just about monsters lurking in dark corners. It could explore fear, grief, obsession, morality, and the complicated parts of being human.

That same year, I started writing my first novel.

It was called 101 Hilltop Drive, and while the original version is safely tucked away, I spent the next 30 years rewriting that novel until I was brave enough to self-publish the version you can find today. That novel marked the beginning of something that has never really stopped. I've been writing stories ever since.

A couple of years later, another passion began to take shape.

In eighth grade, I became fascinated with portrait drawing. I wanted to capture people as accurately as I could, studying expressions, anatomy, light, and every tiny detail that made someone recognizable. By high school, I had fallen headfirst into art history, discovering that paintings could tell stories every bit as powerful as novels.

That discovery changed everything.

Art history wasn't simply about learning who painted what. It became a doorway into ancient civilizations, mythology, religion, symbolism, and the beliefs that shaped entire cultures. Every sculpture, fresco, and illuminated manuscript hinted at a larger story waiting to be uncovered.

The more I learned, the more I realized that every civilization had its monsters.

Some warned children not to wander too far from home. Others explained natural disasters, disease, famine, or the dangers hidden beyond the village walls. Flood myths appeared on opposite sides of the world. Fire became divine punishment in one culture and sacred renewal in another. Serpents, wolves, ravens, spirits, and shadowy creatures appeared again and again, each wearing different names but serving remarkably similar purposes.

I became fascinated by those connections.

The monsters themselves were interesting, but the stories behind them were even better.

That's ultimately why I write horror, mysteries, thrillers, and supernatural fiction.

I'm less interested in inventing something terrifying than I am in asking why people believed these stories in the first place. What fear gave birth to the legend? What truth survived long after the facts disappeared? Somewhere between history and imagination is a place where folklore becomes fiction, and that's where I love to write.

Ironically, my artwork followed a very different path.

When I was younger, I began exploring different styles and techniques. Some were surreal. Others realistic. But as I developed as an artist, life had other plans. I listened more to the advice of others and focused primarily on portraiture, chasing technical perfection and the challenge of capturing an exact likeness.

Then came the business of art.

Commissions became my priority. Gallery themes influenced what I painted.

Competitions rewarded certain styles. Marketing encouraged artists to follow trends or produce work that would sell.

None of those things are inherently bad. They taught me discipline, professionalism, and craftsmanship.

But somewhere along the way, I lost sight of why I wanted to create in the first place.

I wasn't painting because a story demanded to be told.

I was painting because someone else wanted it.

Over the past several years, I've slowly started changing that. I've stepped away from commissions, stopped participating in exhibitions, and given myself permission to rediscover the artist I was before business became the driving force.

Oddly enough, the answer wasn't something new.

It was something very old.

Everything I spent decades studying—ancient civilizations, mythology, folklore, religious symbolism, haunted legends, ghost stories, and the strange traditions that have survived for centuries—was already living inside my writing. I simply hadn't allowed it to become part of my artwork.

Now those two worlds are beginning to merge.

The stories that inspire my novels are finding their way onto my canvas. Ancient myths become portraits. Forgotten legends become symbols hidden within a painting.

Supernatural creatures emerge not simply as monsters, but as reflections of the cultures that imagined them.

For the first time in a very long time, my art and my writing feel like they're speaking the same language. That's an exciting place to be.

Every folklore article I write sends me down another rabbit hole. Every historical mystery sparks another story idea. Sometimes a painting comes first. Sometimes it's a novel. Occasionally it's both at the same time.

That's the fun of creating. You never really know where inspiration will lead.

People often ask whether the folklore comes first or the fiction. The truth is, they're impossible for me to separate.

Every legend has a story.

Every story has a face.

And after all these years, I finally feel like I'm painting both.