curious aliens, morally gray protagonists, other dimensions, rifts in reality, and all things playfully wicked. When she’s not working on something new, Amara can be found stargazing, collecting stuffed animals, and baking pumpkin bread. She grew up in Bronx, New York, and graduated summa cum laude from SUNY New Paltz in 2021 with a degree in digital media production, creative writing, and theater arts. In 2024 she furthered her storytelling journey at Queen’s University Belfast. Since then, her work in various genres has been recognized by film festivals and writing competitions across the globe.
Amara applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Bleeding Woods, and reported the following:
From page 69:Visit Brittany Amara's website.“Thanks, guys,” he whispers.I'm delighted to say that I believe the Page 69 Test works well for my book! By some uncanny magic, it actually feels like exactly the kind of scene I'd hope to see in a teaser trailer if it ever gets adapted for film. Horror stories rely so heavily on tense, atmospheric build-up to their most terrifying moments. In The Bleeding Woods's case, much of the opening is designed to set the stage for exactly what we arrive at beyond this very page. Fear hangs in the air. A monster waits beyond a car window. The main character cannot help but empathize with him, even though her travel companions think otherwise. Is there more to him than meets the eye? More to this forest altogether? The essence of the story lives in the flavor of fear, trepidation and internal conflict woven through this brief section. Needless to say, I'm positively mystified by Marshall McLuhan's advice to book browsers.
“Good night, Joey,” we reply in choral synchronicity.
An exchange of goodnights circles through the space. Finally, we fall quiet, but it’s obvious our internal monologues are ripe with terror. To look outside the windows would be to face fear incarnate. The light of the moon effuses only a feeble stream of light, and that stream illuminates a minuscule fraction of our surroundings. The rest is pure, inky darkness. Chthonic chaos. Shadows and silhouettes.
Eventually, Grayson’s and Jade’s breath patterns turn slow and cyclic. They were able to drift off, even with something so caliginous watching from between the gaps in the trees. Every hair on my body stands at attention, antennae detecting danger. Still, the most unnerving aspect of this impromptu sleepover is the fact that I am not nearly as afraid as I should be. I can’t stop replaying the way Jasper called to me. It claws at every corner of my consciousness, creating a sensation similar to when one first allows alcohol past their lips. Intoxication. Euphoria. A welcome loss of control.
I should be as scared as Joey. I should be masking my fear like Grayson and Jade are. I should be upset by the possibility that we may never see bars on our phones again. I should feel something, just like I should have felt something when my parents’ eyes stared lifelessly into mine.
“I saw it.” Joey’s voice shakes me from my thoughts, as tiny and timid as a mouse’s squeak.
“The thing you were hearing. I saw it.”
“What did you see?” I whisper.
“It. I didn’t say anything because I—I didn’t want it to hear me.” His breathing turns ragged.
I pause too long for any of my incoming reassurances to be reassuring. “Nothing is going to happen, Joey.”
“You don’t know that,” he whimpers.
“I know not all scary things are bad. What if he’s just lost like us?”
He stays silent, and after fifteen or so minutes pass, I turn to face my window.
As though I’d given some sort of nonverbal consent, something squirms within the abyss.
Page 69 of The Bleeding Woods has revealed itself to be special for another reason. In rereading it, I can see how this is precisely when I discovered a sense of rhythm and confidence in my writing. At the cusp of when everything begins to go downhill for the characters, I felt a flare of bravery in me. I realized that, though The Bleeding Woods is a horror story, it was mine. There was nothing to be afraid of, especially not the chaotic joy of experimenting with my own unique voice. Right before making the world terrifying for Clara and her companions, I became fearless.
My Book, The Movie: The Bleeding Woods.
Writers Read: Brittany Amara.
--Marshal Zeringue
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