https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/jaclr <p data-start="135" data-end="422">The <strong data-start="135" data-end="203"><em data-start="141" data-end="193">Journal of Artistic Creation and Literary Research</em></strong> (JACLR e-ISSN <a href="https://portal.issn.org/resource/ISSN/2340-650X">2340-650X</a>) is a peer-reviewed, free, open-access, biannual publication. It is an initiative of the <em>Studies on Intermediality and Intercultural Mediation</em> (SIIM) research group at the <span class="" data-sfc-cp="" data-sfc-root="ep" data-sfc-cb="" data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: &quot;Google Sans&quot;, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 0px rgb(10, 10, 10);"><a class="H23r4e" href="https://www.ucm.es/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-hveid="CAIIAAgBCAUQAQ" data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: &quot;Google Sans&quot;, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 500; margin: 0px; text-decoration: underline 1px rgb(26, 13, 171); border-bottom: 0px rgb(26, 13, 171);">Universidad Complutense of Madrid</a></span>, and it is supported by the Vice-Rectorate of Research of the same institution. Since 29 December 2025, the journal is co-edited and hosted both at Complutense and by the REUNIDO platform at the <a href="https://www.uniovi.es/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of Oviedo</a>. </p> <p data-start="424" data-end="932"><em>JACLR</em> promotes interdisciplinary scholarship in the fields of comparative literary studies, critical theory, applied linguistics, and semiotics, including their pedagogical implications. In addition to academic articles, the journal is committed to fostering artistic expression by publishing original works of literary and artistic creation. It also features a selection of pieces submitted to the Literary Creation Award, as well as it considers book and film reviews, conference briefings and interviews with relevant figures in the field.</p> Universidad de Oviedo en-US Journal of Artistic Creation and Literary Research 2340-650X https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/jaclr/article/view/24824 <p>This article analyzes <em>Lapvona</em> (2022) by Ottessa Moshfegh from the perspective of narrative ecologies and the field of the fictional uncanny. Through the character of Ina—accused of witchcraft and recognized for her embodied knowledge of plants, animals, and bodies—the study examines how the novel destabilizes the modern divide between humans and nature. Rather than presenting the uncanny as a supernatural intrusion, Lapvona articulates it as a perceptual intensification that reveals the material continuity among organisms, landscapes, and more-than-human forms of life. The analysis focuses on three dimensions: the materiality of bodies and fluids, abjection as a pathway to knowledge, and multisensoriality as a perceptual practice. Finally, the article argues that the figure of the witch functions as a narrative device that reinscribes the sacred within the shared materiality of the living world.</p> Luis Miguel Barboza Arias Copyright (c) 2026 Luis Miguel Barboza Arias https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2026-07-22 2026-07-22 14 2 1 27 10.17811/jaclr.24824 https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/jaclr/article/view/24877 <p>This article analyses Laurel Hightower’s <em>Crossroads</em> as a contemporary North American horror novella in which maternal grief is Gothicised into a debt, ritual payment and bodily sacrifice. Through a close reading of selected excerpts, coded according to the categories of Maternal Debt, Corporeal Payment, Gothic Transaction and Uncertain Presence, the study examines how Chris’s mourning for her dead son Trey becomes organised around ritualised bodily surrender in response to the patriarchal, unlimited abnegation of motherhood. The roadside cross, initially a memorial site, is progressively transformed into a threshold where blood, wounds and fragmented flesh function as offerings for an uncertain ghostly return. Gothic feminist criticism and theories of patriarchal motherhood allow exploring the violence embedded in ideals of maternal selflessness and how maternal selflessness becomes the site where maternal devotion is measured, disciplined and ultimately consumed, revealing motherhood as an impossible and unpayable debt, and the patriarchal conception of the mother as limited and ideal, yet monstrous, simultaneously.&nbsp;</p> Sergio Yagüe Pasamón Copyright (c) 2026 Sergio Yagüe Pasamón https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 2026-07-20 2026-07-20 14 2 1 16 10.17811/jaclr.24877