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Book Review: Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature edited by Becky Siegel Spratford

Cover art for Why I Love Horror edited by Becky Siegel Spratford

Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature edited by Becky Siegel Spratford

Saga Press, 2025

ISBN-13: 9781668205099

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

Buy: Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com

 

 

Librarian Becky Siegel Spratford presents eighteen essays by current horror authors on why they love horror. The collection begins with a welcome to the reader by Sadie Hartman, followed by Spratford’s own essay, “Why Ask Why,” where she tells her story about how she found herself working with horror and curating this book full of talented horror writers. Before each essay, Spratford includes an introduction to the authors, a book recommendation to start with from their works, and a recommendation of an author in a similar vein.

 

My experience reading this was like opening a door to different times in my life where horror made significant appearances, despite having never really left me. Childhood memories and horror are foundational for some in this community. In “Brian Keene’s Giant-Size Man-Thing,” the author discusses his introduction to horror through comics and how horror helped him cope with dread and fear. John Langan writes of his childhood fascination with cryptids in “In the Bermuda Triangle with Sasquatch, Flesh Smoldering.” Jennifer McMahon’s “Monster Girl: How Horror Gave Me a Place to Belong” hit particularly close to home in terms of feeling out of place, being the weird girl who liked horror, and experiencing struggles at home. “My Mother Was Margaret White” by Cynthia Pelayo discusses abuse she experienced at home and at school, never feeling safe anywhere. Horror saved us both. “Permission to Scream” by Rachel Harrison and and “Tales From My Crypt” by Mary SanGiovanni specifically focus on girlhood and horror, both also speaking to similar experiences for me.

 

Horror providing comfort or a safe space is another thread that ties these essays together. Hailey Piper describes, in “The Giant Footprint of Horror”, how Godzilla introduced her to horror, and that there is joy in this dreadful genre. “My Long Road to Horror”, by Tananarive Due, describes horror as feeling. She writes a short but powerful history of her family and their personal horrors of racism and struggle.

 

Authors remind the reader that horror is more than a genre, it is an entire community. Alma Katsu’s “What You Can Learn from Horror: Don’t Run from Darkness; It’s Trying to Teach You a Lesson”, presents an essay questioning why people shy away from horror. A true crime writer I had a conversation with during my undergrad found it fascinating that there is a line in the sand between what his audience will and will not read: that line is fictional horror. Katsu states “I’m here to argue against running away from darkness,” (52) and provides personal information regarding past employment with government agencies as an intelligence analyst. Gabino Iglesias, in “Horror is Life: A Blood-soaked Love Letter,” discusses his life in Puerto Rico and discovering horror, which turns into a moving statement on how horror changed his life. In “A Day in My Psychedelic World,” Nuzo Onoh, dubbed the Queen of African Horror, reminds us there is horror for everybody.

 

There are so many great essays in this book. Other authors who contribute are Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, whose piece is accompanied by his daughter Emma, Grady Hendrix, Clay McLeod Chapman, Victor LaValle, David Demchuk, and Stephen Graham Jones. This would make a great addition to a general library collection, as well as essential reading for a course on horror. Highly recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on June 3, 2026 by , Reply

Book Review: Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror edited by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith, foreward by Lisa Kroger

Cover art for Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror edited by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith

Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror edited by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith, with a foreword by Lisa Kroger.

Black Spot Books Nonfiction, 2023

ISBN-13: 978-1645481300

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

I read an uncorrected ARC of this book.

 

Unquiet Spirits is a collection of 24 personal essays by women across the Asian diaspora, grounded in the authors’ family history, relationship to their culture, and the supernatural.

 

One of the takeaways from reading this is that the Asian diaspora is far from monolithic. Each of the authors has a distinct background and set of circumstances: one certainly cannot speak for all.

 

Some of the authors include Nadia Bulkin, who is Javanese-American, Geneve Flynn, who is a Chinese-Australian born in Malaysia, Rena Mason, who is a first-generation immigrant to America of Thai-Chinese descent, and Tori Eldridge. who was born in Hawaii and is of Hawaiian, Korean, and Norwegian descent, all of whom approached their essays differently.

 

The diversity of the authors and their choices of what each individual focused on is what really drew me in. That I read almost 300 pages in tiny print on a PDF is a testament to the quality of the writing.

 

I learned a lot from these essays: in Lee Murray’s essay on displaced spirits I learned that Chinese immigrants to Australia expected to be returned to China for burial, or become hungry ghosts, and from Nadia Bulkin’s essay that the terms “amok” and “latah” originated in Indonesia, to name just a few. The authors wrote about growing up feeling out of place, feeling unwilling or unable to meet expectations about filial duty, marriage, and motherhood. They wrote about hungry ghosts, fox demons, and yokai
They wrote about finding and using their voices.

 

I read this a few essays at a time. There’s a lot to think about in each one, so I think that’s a good way to approach this book. I highly recommend taking the time to do so.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on January 7, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Untold Horror by Dave Alexander

 

Untold Horror by Dave Alexander

Dark Horse Comics, 2021

ISBN-13: 9781506719023

Available: Paperback, Kindle, comiXology  ( Bookshop.org )

 

Untold Horror includes interviews by the former editor-in-chief of Rue Morgue, Dave Alexander,  about horror projects that never saw the light of day, with horror legends such as Joe Dante, John Landis, William Lustig, George A. Romero, and more.

 

Among the discussions in Untold Horror, I found quite a few that were more eye opening than others. An interview with film historian David J. Skal reveals historical information about early drafts of Dracula, Frankenstein, and a few other titles that never came to be. A discussion with Jared Rivet, John Goodwin, and Brandon Wyse regards Tobe Hooper’s vision for a remake of White Zombie. Joe Dante and Matty Simmons at one time wanted to create a National Lampoon version of Jaws. Interviews with William Lustig, Buddy Giovinazzo, and Stephen Romano reveals information on Lustig and Spinell’s Maniac sequels that never came to fruition. Particularly interesting is the revelation that George A. Romero “nearly kick-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe” (p. 67) in the 1980s with a project titled Copperhead. This chapter comes complete with preliminary sketches of characters and storyboards.  

 

There are so many other projects that I could mention, but I think anyone interested in film history should pick up Untold Horror. The book features scripts, sketches, photographs, and other material from unfinished projects. It is heartbreaking to see how many films were never made. Who knows? With the unearthed history, maybe some of these can be resurrected somehow…I can hold out hope anyway. Highly recommended

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on April 3, 2022 by , Reply
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