Interested in horror since he was a child, especially the works of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, Citro began his writing career by authoring several horror novels, including The Gore, Shadow Child, and Guardian Angels. These novels blended the gothic elements of Poe and the eldritch terror of Lovecraft with actual Vermont folklore and contemporary New England settings. Later, Citro decided to make an attempt to catalogue all of the eccentric legends, folk tales, mysterious monsters, UFO sightings, haunted houses, and general uncanny activity of New England.