Still Floating: 40 Years of Pennywise contributor Tamika Thompson

I am honored to include Tamika Thompson's essay "The Black Spot: Hanlon and Hallorann in Stephen King’s IT" in Still Floating. Tamika discusses some of the ugly truths included in the novel: racism, white supremacy, segregation, and homophobia. There is a hopeful side that King and Tamika highlight as well. The cultural acceptance that can exist as recounted in the tale of the lumberjack camp and the law protecting citizens against hate crimes when the sheriff stands up to Butch Bowers. Her insight into the importance of Dick Hallorann to the story is eye-opening.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Tamika's work, you should fix that. Her story in The Rack II, "The Creak on the Attic Stairs" is brilliant. Her debut novel, The Curse of Hester Gardens, is destines to be a multi-award winner (you heard it here first!).

Tamika's bio:

Tamika Thompson is author of The Curse of Hester Gardens. A former journalist and producer, she is also author of Unshod, Cackling, and Naked, which is the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner for Horror, as well as co-editor of Foreword INDIES Award-winning anthology, Graffiti. Her work has appeared in several speculative fiction anthologies as well as in Interzone, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Prairie Schooner, and The New York Times, among others. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she hosts her own blog and newsletter, Tamika Talks Terror. Visit her online at tamikathompson.com or on social media @tamikadthompson.