Carole Lanham calls herself the Horror Homemaker on the web. "I like spooky, psychological stuff," she says. "The torment of guilt is much more interesting to me than the torment of physical torture." She's written a collection of stories called "The Whisper Jar" (Morrigan Books, 168 pages, $10.99, paperback). Lanham, who lives with her husband and two children in O'Fallon, Mo., answered questions by email.

What is the Whisper Jar? • The theme of the book is secrets, and the opening story tells of a town where people whisper their secrets into jars and store them in a communal Jar House for safekeeping. One day, the jars are accidentally broken and the streets are flooded with black deeds.

What kind of stories do you like? • "Dracula," "Rebecca," "We Have Always Lived in the Castle." There's a little book I love called "The Other" about a forbidden apple cellar, a severed finger and a troubled set of twins. It has something very creepy stashed away in a jar. It's wonderful.

What is horrorhomemaker.com? • People are surprised because they think I'm so sweet, but I have a few secrets locked away in my whisper jar. Sure, there's a side of me that loves to bake cookies and paint flowers on old furniture and make foil crowns. But there's also a side of me that can't help but root for that old cracked baby doll head in the back of the junk shop to exact its revenge.