Ghouls Rule: A Celebration of Female Movie Monsters

by Emma Alice Johnson

192 pages, Paperback

Published August 4, 2026

About the author

Emma Alice Johnson grows wildflowers and writes. She lives on a farm dedicated to conservation of native plants and endangered insects.

She writes books and zines in a wide range of genres for adults and children, including nature writing, horror, sci-fi, bizarro fiction and pop culture criticism. Her accolades include being mentioned in the New York Times and winning the Wonderland Book Award (twice).

When she isn’t planting or writing, she can be found running through the woods with her pet pig, singing to her chickens, lifting weights, listening to old country records, watching B-movies or reading while snuggled with her cats.

Reviews

[Onyx]

Loved this book. I learned so much and enjoyed Johnson's reflections. It's critical, celebratory, and informative. I highly recommend this for lovers of monster media.

[Jorge Palacios Kindelan]

Just finished this awesome book of essays on female monsters by the awesome @emmawriteswild the essasys go into a lot of history and detail, and I love that we don’t go in chronological order. The book goes from the classics to obscurities like Ginger Snaps, Vamp, The Leech Woman in the Puppet Master franchise and, in my favorite essay, beauty standards in films like The Substance, Wasp Woman and Rejuvenator. Recommend to all monster kids

[Maura]

A fun quick read. Some chapters are just odes to overlooked female monsters, while others dig a little deeper, comparing the way different movies have treated similar tropes.

[William]

Learned some things I didn't know and visited some things already known. I have a couple movies I need to watch for the first time. And more insight on how to look at movies in general.