CLEVELAND, Ohio—For Tracy Cross , horror starts at home—literally and figuratively.

The award-winning Black horror author may now live outside of Ohio, but her storytelling is rooted in the eerie corners of Cleveland’s history, folklore and her family’s Southern roots.

The Cleveland native, speculative fiction writer and author of “A Gathering of Weapons” (Dark Matter Ink) delves into hoodoo traditions.

“My family was part of the Great Migration,” Cross says. “They came up from Alabama and Arkansas, and I inherited a lot of Hoodoo from my mom’s side and some from my dad’s. That shaped me the most to write horror.”

Those traditions blended with Cleveland’s own mystique to spark her imagination. Growing up, Cross viewed the city as a place of secrets: “Cleveland was always a city of my

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