Godfestation

Set in the backwoods of Southern Appalachia, Godfestation places Ivy “Fern” Fernberg’s grief alongside encounters with monstrous beings and unfamiliar people. At first, Fern interprets these experiences as hallucinations brought on by her father’s death; the realization that others are experiencing them, too, shifts the mystery beyond her private grief. The possibility that her father is somehow involved adds a family question to the novella’s folk-horror premise. Its central elements—bereavement, shared uncanny experiences, and creatures at the edge of the familiar—connect Southern Gothic atmosphere with supernatural horror.