You may know my photographic work under the quaint, almost domestic title of C.Snavely Art and Photography. But the deep, dark things I write, the whispers and confessions, those must live under the more theatrical mask, the nom de plume of S.M. Beaumont. It is a glorious indulgence, really. I chose it to honor what I will call my lifelong imaginary friend, a never silent observer and one of the many voices of anxious inner chatter that occupies my poor head. And, yes, if I am being perfectly, terribly honest, it also sounds “mighty dammit pretentious.” The illusion must be maintained, after all.

I am a child of my time, a Gen Xer, molded by grit and irony. I am a proud Southerner, which means I understand that true gentility is always a thin layer over simmering violence. I am a proud Liberal, which is often a burden in these parts, and I am a proud member of the Rainbow Alphabet People.

Put all of these delicate, complicated things together, dear, and you get what is best described as a high minded solipsism (Google it, dear…)—a conviction that my own internal, intensely dramatic landscape is the truest map of reality. This strange, demanding self-awareness is always present, somewhere in my art. Though might be cloaked in the chiaroscuro's deepest recess, its existence is undeniable, fixed upon your gaze. It is the shadow I welcome, the secret I refuse to hide.

While it is certainly not the solitary theme behind my work, I confess I adore The Southern Gothic, be it in books, plays, film, or music. It clings to my work like Spanish moss in August. And what is this beautiful, terrible aesthetic, you ask?

Southern Gothic is the literature of decay, the haunted mansion of the American South. It strips away the myth of the magnolia-scented, antebellum dream to expose the grotesque heart beneath—the buried secrets, the moral corruption, the faded gentility set against the backdrop of crumbling plantations, dusty small towns, and suffocating heat. It is an aesthetic where the setting itself becomes a character, mirroring the psychological torment of its inhabitants.

I love the masters of this beautiful cruelty, the ones who dared to show us the lightbulb bare:

• Tennessee Williams gave us the tragic, desperate heart of the decaying Old South, forcing us to confront heroines like myself—fragile beings undone by reality—whose dignity must be preserved at any cost.

• Bobbie Gentry, with her haunting, moody bayou tales like Ode to Billie Joe, gave us the silence and the mystery, the way profound secrets can hover over a river or a small town dinner table, never quite spoken, forever felt.

• V.C. Andrews took the Southern Gothic obsession with family secrets and confinement, wrapping them in a chilling blanket of macabre psychological entrapment—all that beautiful, terrible trauma that festers when locked away from the sunlight.

They all understood that the shadows are safer, more forgiving. They knew that there is nothing so cruel as the bright glare of truth, the reality that tears apart the beautiful illusion we build to survive.

Because, you see, some things are just too much to bear in the full light of day. There is only one thing more terrifying than the dark, and that is reality itself.