Before I ever understood craft, or genre, or voice… I understood atmosphere.
I didn’t have the language for it, but I knew what it felt like to sit in a room and read a story that ached. That clung to you like smoke. That whispered to you through the cracks in your own mind.
That was Edgar Allan Poe.
For many of us, Poe was an early initiation into the dark beauty of language. The rhythms. The mystery. The madness. There was something intoxicating about how his work straddled both elegance and decay.
Even when I didn’t understand every word, I understood the feeling.
It was permission.
Permission to be strange.
Permission to be heavy.
Permission to feel too much.
At a time in my life when I didn’t yet have a diagnosis—when the storms in my brain didn’t have names—I found comfort in his broken narrators, obsessive lovers, and premature burials.
I related to their instability more than I ever would have admitted out loud.
And I admired the way Poe took that instability and made it beautiful.
Years later, I became a teacher—and I taught Poe every chance I got.
It didn’t matter if it was October or May. I’d find a way to bring him into the classroom.
“The Tell-Tale Heart.”
“The Raven.”
“Annabel Lee.”
His words had gravity. Students leaned in. The weird kids lit up. And I saw something of myself in their fascination.
Poe wasn’t just a name in a textbook—he was a portal.
He opened doors for me, and I tried to do the same for them.
Now, I’m writing again. Creating. Releasing new work—much of it shaped with the help of AI. And Poe is still with me.
Not just in the mood or rhythm or themes.
He’s literally become a character.
In my novel-in-progress, Unto a Golden Dawn,
Edgar Allan Poe is reborn as a haunted, time-displaced boy wandering through alternate histories and occult entanglements.
He’s confused.
He’s angry.
He’s brilliant.
He’s… well, Poe.
And he’s learning to navigate a world that doesn’t feel like his own.
In a way, I guess I’ve written a younger version of myself into him.
Or maybe it’s the other way around.
Either way, the circle is complete.
The man who once saved me on the page now lives on my pages.
Not everything has to be polished and perfect.
Sometimes the most honest writing comes from the cracks.
Poe taught me that.
And in his own strange way,
he helped me survive long before I even knew I needed help.
🕯️ Unto a Golden Dawn starts here – .https://empirenevadathenovel.wordpress.com/2025/04/11/unto-a-golden-dawn-dossier-1/
A world where Poe walks again—this time, through mirrors.
Frank M. Anderson's Writing 
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