My writing is deeply inspired by Stephen King's character-driven dread and Ray Bradbury's lyrical, nostalgic sense of place, though I'd point readers toward authors closer to where my work sits on the shelf. Like Shirley Jackson, I tend to undersell violence rather than insist on it. Like Josh Malerman, I'm lean into threats that stay unseen or faceless rather than explained. And like Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Victor LaValle, I'm interested in stories that carry social weight, like the rot of class and inheritance, without turning into a lecture. If you're a reader who wants horror that lingers rather than shocks, you're in the right place.

My debut novella, "Whatever Happened to Elisma, Ohio?", follows a group of teens who stumble onto the ruins of a town that vanished from Lake Erie's shores in 1975, drawing one of them into a haunting tied to a curse that returns every seventeen years. It's available now on Amazon. For a broader sense of my range, my Substack, "The Lemonade Stand Massacre," features ongoing short fiction and is the best place to sample my work for free, at skylardates.substack.com

I write toward the dreadful and atmospheric, preferring to give shadows and nightmares room to breathe rather than lean on spectacle, violence, or gore. I love a film like “Halloween,” but slasher horror isn't really my lane; I'd rather let the reader's imagination give shape to whatever's prowling the cornfields than describe every tooth and claw myself. Quiet ambiguity, the silently indescribable, has always frightened me more than a roaring beast with bloody fangs ever could.

I'm currently completing final edits on my literary/supernatural horror novel, "Will Parker Is Still Missing." When the story’s narrator falls into a romantic relationship with an obsessive amateur true-crime investigator convinced she can solve the disappearance of Hollywood megastar Will Parker, they discover the play he was secretly working on is part of a doomsday cult’s plans to call forth an ancient and evil entity. It takes its cues from "The King in Yellow" and “Experimental Film,” and is open for representation now.

While that's finishing, I'm drafting "Dusk, Ohio," a similarly dread-forward novel about a twenty-year high school reunion that turns deadly, and the three former outcasts who realize the classmates dying off are names from a list they once offered up to a dark entity. Only they can stop it before it finishes what they started. It's projected to be complete in November 2026.

The best way to reach me is by email at skylardates@gmail.com. If you're a literary agent or part of the press, please include "Representation" or "Press" in your subject line so I can prioritize accordingly. For ongoing fiction and updates between releases, subscribe to my Substack, "The Lemonade Stand Massacre."