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Women in Horror Fiction: Mercedes Murdock Yardley

 

Image of Mercedes M. Yardley   Mercedes M. Yardley’s most recent book, Nameless: The Darkness Comes, is out this month. In addition to this and the titles she mentions below,  her fiction can be found is such anthologies as Demons: Encounters with the Devil and His Minions, Fallen Angels, and the Possessed (2011 Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers), Tales of Jack the Ripper (2013 Word Horde), Undead and Unbound: Unexpected Tales From Beyond the Grave (2013 Chaosium), and a number of collections from Shock Totem.

 

1. Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

My name is Mercedes M. Yardley and I write dark fantasy and whimsical horror. I write about monsters who love, sympathetic serial killers, and the ominously beautiful. I have a book of short stories out titled Beautiful Sorrows, a novella titled Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, and my debut novel just came out in January of 2014. It’s titled Nameless: The Darkness Comes and it’s Book One in THE BONE ANGEL trilogy. I wear red lipstick, stilettos, and poisonous flowers in my hair.

 

2. Why do you write horror?  What draws you to the genre?

Horror is pure. There’s something so very honest about writing darkness. It’s thrilling. I find that sweet things are a joy, but they get tedious after a while. I like my sweet little stories to have bones and teeth underneath.

 

3. Can you describe your writing style or the tone you prefer to set for your stories?

My style tends to be elegant and very feminine. I love language, love the way words soun

 

4. Who are some of your influences?  Are there any women authors who have particularly inspired you to write?

One of my major influences growing up was Erma Bombeck. She was brassy and hysterical and kind. She took mundane things and found beauty in them. I also love the dreamy style of Aimee Bender. Her work is amazing.

 

5. What authors do you like to read?  Any recommendations?

I find that I read more newer authors than fully established ones, and that’s really fun. My favorites that I usually recommend are Lee Thompson and Christopher Barzak. I also enjoy Kristen Lamb’s books on social media. They’re so helpful!

 

6. Where can readers find your work?

I’m all over the place! My blog is www.mercedesyardley.com. I have a list linking to finding my work. I’m also on Amazon and Goodreads. Stop by and say hi!

 

Want to find out more? Visit Mercedes Yardley’s recent article for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer here.

Women in Horror Fiction: Women in Horror Month– Introducing “Shelley’s Daughters”, by Colleen Wanglund

 

February is officially Women in Horror Month, and while it began with a focus on women in the horror film industry—including actresses, writers, directors, and others working behind the scenes— our goal is to expand this focus to include female horror authors. There are so many women writing horror, some famous but many who are not well-known. Their work is not published and pushed by the major publishing houses; most female authors are published by small houses and in some instances, they self-publish (hooray for the internet!).  And yet, time and again, “Best of” lists continue to be made up of male writers.  Are the women any less worthy?  Is their work not as good as their male counterparts?  Hell no!  We don’t know why female horror authors, for the most part, are overlooked, but we hope to remedy that. So, here at Monster Librarian, we are going to make an active effort to promote women in horror not just by occasionally publishing interviews, but by compiling an index of published women horror writers from Ann Radcliffe to the present.  It’s an ambitious project, but there is no resource that really addresses this topic: in her Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror Fiction, Becky Siegel Spratford was able to spotlight only five women writers, although I know she would have liked to include more.  Colleen Wanglund and I are going to be spearheading this project, which we’re calling “Shelley’s Daughters”, If there are people who would like to contribute, you can contact  me at our general email address, monsterlibrarian@monsterlibrarian.com, or at kirsten.kowalewski@monsterlibrarian.com. And now, some words from one of my favorite women in horror, and partner in crime (or at least in promoting women writers of horror), Colleen Wanglund.

 

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Women in Horror Month

by Colleen Wanglund

I am a woman in horror; I am one of Shelley’s Daughters, and I am proud to be able to say that.

I was exposed to horror at an early age, both books and movies, thanks to my parents. When I was in high school I wanted to be a writer, but life got in the way and I got sidetracked. At the age of 39, I was asked to write a book review as a favor for a friend of mine. The book was Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head (2009 Coscom Entertainment). That began my journey back to being a writer. And I cannot thank that friend enough as he has also become a sort of mentor. For years I’ve written book reviews, eventually branching out into film reviews, and the genre I’ve always written about is horror. I have dabbled in fiction here and there, but only recently have I begun to seriously write horror fiction. I won a horror fiction contest for unpublished writers with my short story “Slugs”, I’ve recently sold a short story titled “The Mad Monk of St. Augustine’s” to an upcoming anthology, and I’m working hard on finishing up a novella based on Japanese Pinku (exploitation) films.

But why the love affair with horror? One answer is that I have many fears in this life and horror allows me to face some of those fears at a safe distance. I can put my fears and anxieties to paper as a sort of therapy. It has the potential to help me wrap my brain around some of the horrible atrocities committed by humans all over the world and throughout history. I also find horror to be the most “real” genre out there. Everyone suffers tragedy—in varying degrees, mind you—and horror can act as a catharsis for the feelings associated with those tragedies. We can relate, empathize, or sympathize to what is happening on the page (or on the screen).

As a society horror brings people together to face our collective fears, whether real or imagined. Serial killers, monsters, ghosts—they all represent something for everyone. And I’ve said before that I think women have a unique perspective to bring to the table when it comes to writing horror. We are more emotional and I believe that translates well to the development of characters and the situations they may find themselves in. We live our own horrors in childbirth, letting our children out into the real world, love and loss. We are viewed as the weaker sex, depicted as needing saving, yet at the same time we are expected to be strong for the people around us—our children and loved ones. We are the caregivers and that doesn’t stop because the apocalypse is upon us.

I would like to eventually see Women in Horror Month become unnecessary, but for now it’s needed.  All too often women are being overlooked in a genre they—we—love, and that’s just wrong. I think my main objective is to get the reader to see that gender shouldn’t matter in writing horror stories.  What should matter is the story itself.

 

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Stay tuned and see what we come up with next to promote “Shelley’s Daughters”, and the women of horror fiction!

 

Women in Horror Month: A Look Back

An enormous amount of content was produced by and about women in horror during Women in Horror Month, 2014. I linked to a lot of this content via our Facebook page  However, since a lot of people don’t visit our Facebook page, I’m going to provide a list of links to places I visited and shared during the month that are related to WiHM(I really recommend that you visit there often, because not only will you get all kinds of awesome content that comes my way, but there are also links to all our blog posts– not just this blog, but the one for Reading Bites, and the one that notifies you of new reviews. So it’s a great way to see everything current).

Enjoy!

Mary Shelley Letters Discovered in Essex Archive-– The Guardian, January 15

Flowers in the Attic: The Value of Young Reading Perspectives-– Kelly Jensen, BookRiot

The Ghost of V.C. Andrews: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Mysterious “Flowers in the Attic” Author—  Kate Aurthur at Buzzfeed. For the first time, the family and colleagues of the author speak out to provide a fuller picture of her life.

The Literary Gothic— A web guide to biographical information on early supernaturalist authors, set to close down in June

Please Don’t Bring Me Flowers— Allison Peters, BookRiot

20 Black Women in Horror Writing— Sumiko Saulson. Essential reading for the month of February, for multiple reasons. Saulson also published a short ebook on black women horror writers in February of this year, available for free at Smashwords.

Women in Horror Recognition Month Facebook page

Gothic Pioneer Ann Radcliffe May Have Been Inspired by Mother-In-Law— The Guardian, January 30

Women Who Write Lovecraft by Silvia Moreno Garcia of Innsmouth Press

RA for All: Horror— Becky Siegel Spratford asks who your favorite woman writer in horror is.

Ania Ahlborn’s interview with J. Lincoln Fenn

The Rise of the Women in Horror Movement: Admirers, Haters, and Everything In-Betweeners at Brutal as Hell

Statistics on genre writer submissions by gender at Tor UK, by editor Julie Crisp. Crisp’s statistics demonstrated that women submit fewer manuscripts than men, at least at Tor UK, so sexism by the publisher isn’t the only factor at play.

Women in Horror Month: Girls Can Kill, Too!— Bloody Disgusting

Writing female protagonists, by Lisa Morton– HWA blog

Genre-blending from Mary Shelley to the present by J. Lincoln Fenn– HWA blog

Horror Roundtable on Sexism— HWA discussion. Read the comments section– it’s very interesting!

Women Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter— Lightspeed Magazine. In spite of everyone’s insistence that all-women issues are not desirable, this Kickstarter campaign to fund an all-women writers’ issue of Lightspeed Magazine was so successful that the people at Lightspeed expanded to include issues called Women Destroy Horror (published as an issue of Nightmare Magazine) and Women Destroy Fantasy (published as an issue of Fantasy Magazine). The campaign is over, but this shows there is clearly a demand for work by women writers. Look for the special issues later this year!

Mary SanGiovanni on her personal experiences as a woman writer of horror.

Creating female protagonists, by Lisa Morton (again, although not the same piece)– RA for All: Horror

Women in Horror Month: Pseudonyms and Author Anxiety— KC Redding-Gonzalez

Rabble Rouser Wednesdays: On the Issue of Misogynist Writers and Readers by Paula Ashe

Hugh Howey on Self-Publishing

Mark Coker responds to Hugh Howey

Tonia Brown on her personal experience with self-publishing

What’s Wrong With Female Werewolves in Popular Culture? at Darkmedia

Women in Horror Month Archives 2014— Darkmedia

Spreading the Writer’s Word— A daily spotlight on a book by a woman writer of horror

Siren’s Call Publications— download their free ezine devoted to Women in Horror Month

60 Black Women in Horror by Sumiko Saulson— free download to this guide at Smashwords.

 

There is some great stuff at those links and I hope you will take the time to explore them. I hope you had a great time learning about women in horror, and especially women in horror fiction, during the month of February. Don’t think that just because the month is up that it’s time to stop, though! Keep your eyes open for news on how Monster Librarian plans to keep women writers visible over the next several months– it will be a challenge to keep it up with the Stokers coming up and all kinds of reviews to edit, write, and share, but it’s totally worth it. So welcome to March– another month set aside to recognize women’s contributions to the world. Let’s see where it takes us!