Scorpio (23 October - 21 November)

Symbolized by the scorpion-tailed “M” (Representing mystery? Murder? Manifestation? The answer might cost you dearly), Scorpio writers are ruled by Pluto, whom Ancient Greeks knew as Hades: God of the Nine Concentric Circles of Revision, lord of epistolary fiction, and Overseer of that liminal space between published and unpublishable. These writers are prone to groin injuries more than others, most likely from getting romantically entangled with the eldritch apparition they’ve been writing about.

As the uncontested spookiest sign of the zodiac, Scorpio writers move freely between the realms of the living and the dead: In Bram Stoker’s (November 8, 1898) Dracula, the titular vampire preys upon repressed Victorians through telepathy and sexual prowess. And in Robert Louis Stevenson’s (November 13, 1850) Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the titular good doctor transforms into his evil alter ego. Often, for their characters, every day is Halloween.

Associated with the Eighth House of the Zodiac, these writers are fixated with taboos and trespasses: in J.G. Ballard’s (November 15, 1930) Crash, motor-sexual yuppy “James” fetishizes violent car-crashes; or in Albert Camus’ (November 7, 1913) The Stranger, where grieving Meursault finds love and shoots an Arab man in cold blood. Sex and Death, it would seem, are the silent characters lurking in the background of every Scorpio’s novel.

Inheritance is another common theme: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s (November 11, 1881) The Brothers Karamazov focuses on patricide and the immaterial things passed down to sons; while in Maxine Hong Kingston’s (October 27, 1940) The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, daughters move through a world of ghosts, battling the folklore of their parents and the demons lurking under dormitory beds.

It's not uncommon for these water-sign writers to display a fascination with cults as much as occultism. In Katherine Dunn’s (October 24, 1945) Geek Love, Olly Binewski assists her brother as he transitions from star attraction of the family freak show to cult-leader, requiring followers to amputate body parts as a display of faith. Or in Colson Whitehead’s (November 6, 1969) The Intuitionist, where spiritualist elevator Inspector Lila Mae Watson competes with Empiricist elevator inspectors, while uncovering the prophesied “black box” elevator that will ascend to the city of the future. And again, in Margaret Atwood’s (November 18, 1939) The Handmaid’s Tale, heroine “Offred” is forced into servitude under the puritanical Republic of Gilead.

As one of four fixed signs, Scorpios are obsessive, endlessly re-dipping their phallic tails into the inkwell. But above all, these signs seek transformation and transmutation: in Michael Crichton’s (October 23, 1942) Jurassic Park, eccentric billionaire John Hammond uses genetic research to resurrect extinct dinosaurs, which only dredges up the inner monsters within people. While in Kurt Vonnegut’s (November 11, 1922) Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim finds himself unstuck in time, bouncing randomly through phases of his life—from his bumbling youth in the war, to interstellar lovers, even reliving his own murder, utterly powerless to prevent it. Again and again, these writers display a deep internal struggle where inner purity wrestles with lurid desire.

Scorpio writers have all the drive, obsession, and ectoplasm to write the next great tale of sex-death cults. They just need to stop pushing pins into that voodoo doll, stop weaponizing their natural seduction, pick the black candle wax off the laptop keys and get to work.

Notable Mentions
Geoffrey Chaucer, October 25, 1342
Voltaire, November 21, 1694
John Keats, October 31, 1795
Eduardo Barrios, October 25, 1884
Ezra Pound, October 30, 1885
Dylan Thomas, October 27, 1914
Jose Saramago, November 16, 1922
Sylvia Plath, October 27, 1932
Don DeLillo, November 20, 1936
Ayi Kwei Armah, October 29, 1939
Michael Peterson, October 23, 1943
Pat Conroy, October 26, 1945
Fran Lebowitz, October 27, 1950
Kazuo Ishiguro, November 8, 1954
Susan Orlean, October 31, 1955
Randy Pausch, October 23, 1960
Neil Gaiman, November 10, 1960
Augusten Burroughs, October 23, 1965

 -Forest Oliver