I'm pleased to be the channel sub-steward for clothing. I confess, though, that my primary interest in fashion is its history.

I'm a freelance writer specializing in history (particularly the odd Victorian sort), literature, true crime, vintage clothing and popular culture. You can find me rattling on about Jack the Ripper, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Boer War, bathing machines and moustache waxing techniques over my favorite whiskey in my hometown in Tennessee. If you're lucky you might catch me doing the same thing in London or Washington, D.C.

An incorrigible word geek, I also construct crossword puzzles.

Random fact: my sister had a hamster named Helium whom she accused me of killing. That's not the whole story.

My passion is ...

Good writing, good books, good food and drink, good company

I know too much about ...

Weird Victoriana

My parents always told me ...

"Stop biting your nails." It never worked.

My childhood ambition ...

Archaeologist. I lorded it over the 1st grade that I could spell it, too.

My favorite memory ...

Being geeky in love under the shadow of Big Ben

Why I write ...

I have no choice. Ever since I conned a teacher into letting me singlehandedly create a newspaper for the whole school when I was in the fourth grade, I've been foisting my writing on people. Though I've advanced slightly from headlines like "Robbie is moving!" and "D.C. Has a Lot of Cats", the same zealousness is there.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Emile Zola's oeuvre

My first job ...

Toy store automaton

My best moment ...

This one.

My inspiration ...

Everything is an inspiration. I get twenty ideas while checking the mail.

Entertainment > Movie Genres The most beautiful horror movies

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The horror film has set the standard for what is considered beautiful artistry in moviemaking for over one hundred and twelve years. In 1896, Frenchman Georges Melies made a two minute film called Le Manoir du Diable, in which a bat transformed into Mephistopheles and produced fantastic objects and people from a cauldron. Melies painstakingly hand-tinted each frame, making his film not only the first horror movie but also the first moving picture in color. His techniques were widely copied, just as the most breathtaking visual techniques used in horror films today are copied by films from o...

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