Welcome to the Tinderbox.
An online space for me to twiddle about with writing prompts, muse about the delicate balance between life and writing, and generally make an ass of myself due to poor editing skills.

A little bit about me:

My name is Jess Mann.
I like writing about creepy things, people, and places. Preferable creepy things held by creepy people while lurking in creepy places, possibly while Siouxie and the Banshees or Sisters of Mercy plays in the background.
I live in Salem, MA. I work in a bakery to pay the bills, so if my writing does veer off into the descriptively delicious at times, it's just a benefit of being surrounded by delicious items, constantly. I am married to a weird, beardy manbeast, whom I affectionately refer to as the herrband. Pronunciation is key.
HRRRR-(in growly, back of throat rottweiler key)
BUUND-(slightly softer, with still throaty undertones...sometimes lapsing into southern accent depending on may factors including but not limited to sobriety)

I work hard. I love halloween! Our porch currently looks like something Tim Burton threw up after Edward Gorey tied him to a chair and spoon fed him cat food while watching An American Werewolf in London.
I read a lot. I love libraries. I love bookstores. I drink an unhealthy amount of coffee, which I do not apologize for.
I went to school for Creative Writing (University of Maine at Farmington...Go Beavers! No seriously, the mascot is the beaver. I can't make this shit up). While there I wrote a lot of poetry, didn't drink or smoke, made out a lot, did improv theatre, and took lots of long walks through crunchy orange leaves.
Now I write fiction, short stories, long stories (I absolutely hate when somebody saunters up to you and guiltily admits they wrote a novel. I hear it, and all I can think of is some nasty corduroy clad, past his prime English prof cocking his knee up on a desk and talking down to a nubile young coed with a notebook covered in spirally, filigreed handwriting and doodles. VOM. As in vomit. As in gross, no), and sometimes I write stories with kids in mind.

I'm actually obsessed with stories for the kind of child I was. I ate up fairy tales and goblin books, and old cornish wives tales and Hans Christian Anderson stuff until way into my teens, and I don't see anything like that out there anymore.
You've got all these over-plush, heavy eyelinered high school supernatural tales where the emphasis is all about romance and being "the chosen one".
I read this Toni Morrison quote (and I'm paraphrasing here) about how if you think of a story, something that you really want to read, and it doesn't exist yet, then that is the story you need to write, and I want to read fairy tales again. I want them modern. I want them classic. i want them creepy. I want them to by spooky. I want them to be heartwarming. I want them haunted and dreamy and mysterious and exotic and magical and funny and bright and charming and complicated and entrancing!
In short, I am going to be experimenting a lot on here, and I hope you'll go to my website, and look at what I come up with, and help me keep churning out my stories, because I love writing.
I love talking about writing. I love readers, and people who read. I love everything there is about reading and screaming at your friends about it afterwards, and I really hope that here, at the Tinderbox, we are starting something special, something exciting, and something new. I want a forum, where people can bring their ideas and writing prompts and reactions to literature, so I'm starting one, and I'll bring you guys everything I can.
All I ask is that you strike the match with me. Enough fiction, and we'll set the whole world on fire!