The Last Post: (farewell and thanks)

I’ve put off this final message for far too long, but it is an obligation I took on when I started this project—one that became all the more pressing as the site grew, flourished, and ultimately withered. Vogue Horror will shut down on October 13th, and I will continue along other trajectories.

This site was always an imperfect dream, compromised in its very nature. I was knowingly trying to do something the world had moved on from—old-school criticism in long form, which worked remarkably when there were perhaps a score of voices in the forum. That is not the way of today, and the fault is entirely mine for not accepting it. In other words, Goodreads is not the enemy, but simply the order of the day.

Moreover, the aim of this site was decidedly off course from my natural creative drive. I’d spent half a decade trying to skip the short fiction side of the publishing business, which for a genre writer is akin to trying to make a chair work with only three legs—one of my favorite print-on-demand illustrations, my wife will tell you.

I don’t begrudge the attempt—I learned more about navigating the publishing world and managing stakeholders through three years of running this site than I ever would have simply writing and submitting fiction—but I regret that this path was, in fact, merely a detour back to the old road.

This type of criticism deserves better, as it is still valuable. I hope someone infinitely more devoted and intelligent than I will strike up something that resembles it in its best moments but is distinctly their own.

The name was always a problem for me. This might have stayed on course if I’d been able to secure ModernHorror . com. The one I landed on instead always pricked me, never feeling like an acceptable alternative apart from the one week when I pulled the trigger back in 2022 and got to work. That’s a spot that never grew a callus, and it’s hard to hustle if you feel a pinch of doubt when you name your site.

I also failed to navigate the absolute deluge of requests that came my way. There were days when two or three creators reached out, and this was always a part-time project. I implemented a screening process, but that didn’t make it any more manageable. In the end, I know what it is like to be a creator and need your work to find success, so I hated telling people that my door was closed to them. Yet an indie book that results in roughly nine total eyeballs reading my reviews doesn’t really help me out.

I also missed reading for fun. Books have been my refuge.

Shame the devil: I also got sloppy. I ran out of things to say. I reviewed works I didn’t care about and struggled to find anything significant to impart. My later work rarely matched the scope and scale of my early- and mid-run reviews, and I should have taken action to pivot back to things I cared about.

Finally, it can’t go without mention: the Google AI summaries that began to appear at the top of search results curbed my traffic by about 70%. This site wasn’t really about clicks at its heart, but it was nice when they came, and the Chipotle money it brought in made it easier to justify the hundreds of hours I spent working on the site over the past few years.

I have no idea why I was suspended from Twitter. I think it has to do with the name of my site and a popular fashion publication, but Elon’s people neither confirmed nor denied, just gave me the boilerplate.

All in all, it was a great and deeply valuable journey. I just wish it had a better finale. The reality is I’ve got to get back to creating, not just assessing creation. I’m not a bad writer and I work hard, even though I struggle with short fiction, which is the first gate. From my work with this site, I now know what makes better writing and how to navigate the spaces around it in ways I could not have learned in ten years of pumping submissions. I’m also ashamed at how close I was to success when I pivoted to writing about fiction rather than making it: I was getting encouraging, custom feedback and alternative submission suggestions from some of the best publications in genre fiction. I did not realize what a milestone that was when it was happening.

So, on to the next chapter. I am whole, I am mentally and physically healthy, and I know how to spend my time—with the conviction to fuel it. I’ve been writing daily for a few weeks, and it’s gradually starting to feel like just part of myself again. Look for me on the bottom rung soon.

…and of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a heartfelt thank you to the writers and filmmakers who worked with me over the past few years. Many of you shared your time, your insight, your appreciation, and I spent more time corresponding with you than I ever would have expected. The value therein is uncountable. In no particular order and from the top of my head: Ai Jiang, Corey Farrenkopf, Mia Dalia, Pat Barb (who, because of his surname, will forever live in my head as an old Polish woman who made the healthy decision last year to switch to Camel Lights and is forever working on getting back to the bowling score of her youth), Adam Nevill, Andrew de Burgh, FZ Boda, Ellen Datlow, Christopher Houtz, Isobel Aislin, and all the others I’ve forgotten who were kind enough to share their words with me. I will be cheering for your boundless success.

Highest regards,

Wyatt Towns