About me
Carina Stopenski (they/them) is a librarian, author, and scholar based in Pittsburgh, PA. In their day to day, Carina works as a teen librarian at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, as a freelance humanities educator for teens, and as the director of the Pittsburgh Mobile Cartoon Museum. They are an academic member of HWA, serve on the Library Advisory Council, and have recently been appointed co-chair of the Pittsburgh Chapter.
They are the author of the short story collection The Things We Do For Blood (Alien Buddha Press) and the Appalachian folk horror novel Stuffed (Unveiling Nightmares). Carina begins their PhD in Literature and Criticism in Fall 2025 at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Their debut horror poetry collection feel it in your guts will release from Baynam Books Press in July 2026.
Carina’s academic scholarship focuses primarily on abjection, body horror, and representations of the grotesque in low media. They draw from the academic work of Julia Kristeva, Barbara Creed, and Xavier Aldana Reyes, and their research on the "female mutilator" character archetype has been featured in a variety of theses and articles. Carina is currently pursuing a long-term research project tentatively entitled "Abjection and Affection: Representations of Sexuality and Monstrosity in Horror Media Narratives," which they hope to develop as their doctoral dissertation.
In their free time, Carina plays way too much Animal Crossing, reads way too many graphic novels, and makes way more zines that they know what to do with.
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