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Women in Horror Month: Guest Post by Colleen Wanglund– Women Writers of Horror

Yes, I know it’s March 1. Believe me, this guest post is worth extending Women in Horror Month for an extra day.

Colleen Wanglund is a reviewer, writer, and passionate reader of (and about) horror, both in cinema and on the printed page. She reviews books for MonsterLibrarian.com and Horror Fiction Review (among other places) and writes about Asian horror films as the Geisha of Gore for Cinema Knife Fight. In short, she is one of the awesome women of horror this month celebrates.

Because Women in Horror Month usually focuses on horror movies, Colleen wanted to make sure that the women writers of horror and their books got some recognition too. She has written a fantastic piece that is essential reading for anyone seeking out excellent women authors of horror and their books, from Frankenstein to the present. These are her personal choices, not a canonical list, but you can rest assured she has read every one of these books and authors, and many, many more. If you love to read horror, any horror, or if you’re looking to specifically seek out great women writers in the genre, read what she’s written, print it out, and, if you are a reader’s advisory librarian, keep it with your Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror.

 

 

Women in Horror

 

February is Women in Horror Recognition Month, thanks to a cool chick and my friend Hannah Neurotica. While most of the focus tends to be on the film industry (after all it is a boys’ club) I’m pushing female horror authors. I recently saw a comment left on a particular forum where someone had asked for some recommendations for female authors. The comment in question was a response and went something like “….it is an unassailable fact that men are better writers…” and it really pissed me off. Really? You think across the board that men write better than women? Well, tell me, my friend, who have you been reading? I can name dozens of female horror authors that write stories that are just as disturbing, if not more so. Personally, I believe women can tap into the deep well of our emotions because we tend to lead with them, whether they are positive or negative. This gives women a perspective that men don’t necessarily have.

Let me begin with the obvious. Mary Shelley. Without her there would be no Frankenstein or his monster. There have been countless books and movies that use Shelley’s central theme against playing God, whether it’s creating life or destroying it. Sadly, when her novel Frankenstein was first published, it was done so anonymously, because it was believed that no one would read the book if it were written by a woman.

Then there’s Anne Rice. Lestat is easily one of my favorite literary characters. In the third book of the Vampire Chronicles, Queen of the Damned (Ballantine Books 1989), Rice presents one of the best origin stories I’ve ever read for vampires, and Maharet cuts an imposing figure. How about Shirley Jackson and her novel The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Books 1959)? It’s been adapted into a few successful films over the years. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (Penguin Books 1969) was adapted into a film by Alfred Hitchcock. Two short stories by du Maurier were adapted into Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and Don’t Look Now (1973) which has turned up on a few scariest horror movie lists.

I also think you should be reading Linda Addison, the first African-American to win a Bram Stoker Award—and she’s won three for her horror poetry collections—Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes (Space and Time 2001), Being Full of Light, Insubstantial (Space and Time 2007), and How to Recognize A Demon has Become Your Friend (CreateSpace 2011). Elizabeth Massie’s short story “Abed” is one of the most disturbing zombie stories I’ve ever read—by a male or female author. Massie’s Bram Stoker Award-winning novel Sineater (CompletelyNovel 2010) has been re-published for a new audience. Monica O’Rourke’s Jasmine & Garlic (Biting Dog Publications 2011) was so gory and violent it has forever changed how I approach a visit to the gynecologist!

There’s Carole Lanham’s collection The Whisper Jar (Morrigan Books 2011) with its subtle but frightening horror themes, including “The Blue Word”, another very unsettling zombie story with a twist that you won’t see coming. Suzanne Robb’s Z-Boat (CreateSpace 2011) is another great zombie story with a twist—and a relevant message about overpopulation and dwindling resources. Tonia Brown expertly covers all of horror lit’s sub-genres, and Jessy Marie Roberts wrote one of my favorite short stories ever about a woman who literally puts her all into a special Halloween dinner, titled “Pumpkin Soup”.

You should also seek out:

Poppy Z. Brite—Exquisite Corpse (Touchstone 1997), Drawing Blood (Dell 1994)

Mary Sangiovanni—The Hollower (Leisure Books 2007), Found You (Leisure Books 2008)

Carol Weekes—The Color of Bone (Genius Publishing 2012), Dead Reflections (JournalStone 2013)

Lisa Morton—The Castle of Los Angeles (Gray Friar Press 2010), Night-Mantled: The Best of Wily Writers (Wily Writers 2011)

Chesya Burke—Dark Faith (Apex Publications 2010), Dark Dreams: A Collection of Horror and Suspense by Black Writers (Kensington 2004)

Yvonne Navarro—Music of the Spears: Aliens Series (Spectra 1996), Deep Cuts: Mayhem, Menace and Misery (Evil Jester Press 2013)

Melanie Tem—The Deceiver (Leisure Books 2003), Slain in the Spirit (Leisure Books 2002)

Billie Sue Mosiman—Widow (Berkley 1995), Red Moon Rising: A Vampire Novel (DAW 2003)

Caitlin R. Kiernan—The Drowning Girl (Roc Trade 2012), Tales of Pain and Wonder (Subterranean Press 2008)

Gemma Files—Kissing Carrion (Prime Books 2003), The Worm in Every Heart (Prime Books 2006)

Sheri Gambino—Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head (Coscom Entertainment 2009), Rellik (2011)

Damien Walters Grintalis—Ink (Samhain Publishing 2012), Arcane (CreateSpace 2011)

Fran Friel—Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales (Apex Publications 2008), “Wings With Hot Sauce” (The Horror Library 2005)

Tananarive Due—The Between (Harper Perennial 1996), Domino Falls: A Novel (Atria Books 2013)

Lucy Snyder—Chimeric Machines (Creative Guy Publishing 2009), Shotgun Sorceress (Del Rey Books 2010)

Alexandra Sokoloff—The Unseen (St. Martin’s Press 2009), The Harrowing (St. Martin’s Press 2006)

Sarah Pinborough—The Taken (Dorchester Publishing 2007), Breeding Ground (Leisure Books 2006)

Sarah Langan—The Keeper (HarperTorch 2006), Audrey’s Door (Harper Publishing 2009)

Tonia Brown—Badass Zombie Road Trip (Books of the Dead Press 2012), Skin Trade: An Historical Horror (CreateSpace 2012)

Jessy Marie Roberts—Bloody Carnival (Pill Hill Press 2010), Kinberra Down (Pill Hill Press 2010; with Eric S. Brown)

I hope the women I left out will forgive me.

Do yourself a favor and read some of these fantastic women. You will find women have been greatly overlooked in the horror industry, whether it’s film or literature. I’ve heard it said that these women “write like a man” and I guess if that’s what you need to hear to check out female authors, then so be it—but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

~Colleen Wanglund

Posted on March 1, 2013 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: GIRLS NIGHT OUT Podcast at Charred Remains

I’m a little late to the party, but, as part of Women in Horror Month, our fantastic reviewer Colleen Wanglund participated in GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT, an episode of Char Hardin’s podcast Charred Remains, devoted to women in horror in both visual and written media. Movie producers, directors, actresses, reviewers, writers, podcasters, and more, all participated in this Women in Horror Month themed episode.  Be warned, there is content and language you may not want children or coworkers to hear, but it’s fun to hear the women of horror speak about it with passion.

As Char said, the genre can be pretty male-driven, but women can be “just as twisted, just as perverse, and just as gross.”  Maybe more. Read Colleen’s reviews, and you’ll see. Whether you listen to the podcast or not, it’s definitely important for reader’s advisory librarians to understand that the audience (and the creators) of the horror genre, are a varied group, and one that is certainly not limited by gender.

Posted on February 22, 2013 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Researching Women in Comics– Guest Post by Rachel Hoover, Librarian of the Dead

Rachel Hoover is a librarian and aspiring writer living in the Chicago area. She runs the blog Librarian of the Dead, where she blogs about the sorts of things you’d expect from such a title. She writes frequently about the horror genre–whether it’s books, comics, movies or games– as well as gravestone art, cementeries, and other items or topics that are dark, spine-chilling or have something interesting to say about our relationship with fear or death. Rachel is an official participant in Women in Horror Month this year, and is spotlighting women in horror comics this month.

With comics and graphic novels such a big topic in libraries right now, we wondered how you discover horror comics created by women, and Rachel offered to share her research strategies. It takes some work, but there are some interesting surprises. Until Rachel wrote about it, I had no idea Nancy A. Collins, who won the Bram Stoker Award for Sunglasses After Dark, also wrote for comics, including Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing! Want to introduce women in horror comics to both comics and horror readers? Read Rachel’s suggestions below.

 

On Researching Women in Horror Comics

Rachel Hoover

In honor of Women in Horror Month , an annual event put on by the Viscera Organization each February, I’ve been writing about Women in Horror Comics for a weekly series on my blog, Librarian of the Dead.

The goal of WiHM is to provide exposure, support and education about the typically underrepresented women working in the horror genre. So each Monday, I’m featuring a specific female writer or artist that works on horror comics, discussing their work, and asking them a few questions about the industry, what influences them and what advice they have for aspiring comic creators.

I came up with this project was because I couldn’t think of that many women working on horror series that I read or was aware of. It’s not always easy to stumble upon the names of all the artists, colorists, pencillers, letterers that make up one issue of a comic, one graphic novel, let alone the many people that could contribute to work on a trade paperback that collects multiple comic issues. It’s even harder when you’re only looking for women in one genre.

Since I am an actual librarian (that blog title isn’t just for fun!) I was up to the challenge. I used a couple of different strategies. No one had already created the kind of resource I was looking for, so I went with the next best thing: a list of women working in comics in general, and I found a nice long one on Wikipedia.

Part of my work was looking through lists like this and trying to either identify horror titles, or watch for publishers that I knew did horror series (Dark Horse, for example). I also worked the other way around sometimes, looking up a specific comic series or a graphic novel and checking if they had any women working for them. The main websites that I used to explore names and titles were things like Comic Book DB, Comic Vine, and  DeviantART, as well as the publisher and convention websites.

Librarians looking to stock female comic creators on their shelves should dig deep into the comics or graphic novels they already read and seek out the names of all of the writers and artists who have contributed to it. Research their careers and you’ll find new titles to check out. But be open to seeking out independent comics, there are a lot of wonderful unknown writers and artists that self-publish or work with indie publishers. They may not have easily-available trade paperbacks, and most libraries don’t stock individual issues of comics, but what about buying digital issues and loading them onto a tablet? Slap a barcode on that device and you still get circulation stats!

I would also recommend going to comic conventions and visiting with the female comic creators and artists that are there, talk to them about what they’re working on right now, what they’re reading and other women in the field who do work they enjoy. Once you start learning their names you’ll see them everywhere and realize what you and your library users were missing out on before. Maybe you can inspire them to become a fan of something they wouldn’t have picked up on their own. Maybe the girls and women in your community will even try their hand and writing or drawing their own comics when they see the possibilities. It’s a win-win: you and your library benefit, and so do the women out there already creating comics.

If you’d like to learn more about the women I’m featuring in my blog, I have a few up already. My first feature is on writer Rachel Deering and her epic werewolf comic ANATHEMA and my second is on cover artist Jenny Frison, who works on titles like HACK/SLASH, REVIVAL and ANGEL . I have two more to go, plus bonus posts of more women I discovered, but couldn’t fit in February. I’m excited and passionate about my project, because I believe these ladies are doing amazing work and deserve the exposure.

If you don’t want to miss the next features in my series you can subscribe to my blog, follow me on Twitter @rachelsstorm or keep an eye on all of the Women in Horror Month events through their website, Twitter @WiHmonth or Facebook page.

Posted on February 22, 2013 by , Reply
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