Home » Posts tagged "reader’s advisory" (Page 17)

Women in Horror Fiction: Wednesday Lee Friday

 

Image of Wednesday Lee FridayAfter deciding against being a ballerina, an ichthyologist, and a famous singer, Wednesday Lee Friday decided to become a novelist just before starting kindergarten.  Her books include A Stabbing for Sadie (Crossroad Press 2014), The Cat’s Apprentice (StoneGarden.net Publishing 2008), Kiss Me Like You Love Me (Crossroad Press 2013), and The Finster Effect (Crossroad Press 2012). Her short fiction has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. She currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with some carnivorous plants, a few cats, and her husband. She is a very busy woman of horror!

 

1.) Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

Hi readers!  I am Wednesday Lee Friday, author of A Stabbing for Sadie, Kiss Me Like You Love Me, and The Finster Effect in addition to a bunch of wild short stories.  I’m also a TV and movie reviewer, a sex writer, and the managing editor of Under the Bed Magazine, a horror fiction monthly.  I’ve studied theatre and broadcasting and have worked as everything from a reptile wrangler to a phonesex operator to a manager at a now defunct video store chain (almost rhymes with Lackluster).  Mostly though, I love horror.

 

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


The horror genre is about exploring our limitations as humans and discovering what, if anything, could drive us to do things well outside out established morality.  Some people insist that there must be a supernatural element in horror, but I couldn’t disagree more.  Horror is in the everyday things that haunt us with their impending possibility.  Horror is what turns us against our fellow humans out of fear and desperation.  Horror is in every act of violence, every lie, every glare from a stranger, every wish that some annoying fuckwit would get hit by a truck just so we don’t have to deal with them anymore.  Horror is all around us.  Horror writers just want to make sure you notice.

 

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


I’m a firm believer in first-person narration.  To my mind, it’s the best route for intimacy, immediacy, and understanding.  I write horror with the desire to help people get their heads around the unfathomable.  Kiss Me Like You Love Me follows a very damaged man as he commits deplorable acts of violence on truly innocent people.  Readers have reported being extremely uncomfortable by experiencing the killer’s point-of view—that it makes them feel complicit in his deeds.  This perspective also makes the reader watch helplessly as the killer repeats his pattern over and over.

 

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


I confess, a lot of my favorite horror writers are fellas.  Stephen King, Jack Ketchum, Christopher Moore are my big three.  But I’ve been influenced by plenty of ladies: most notably Shirley Jackson, Mary Shelley, and the great Margaret Atwood.  I know Atwood isn’t typically called a horror writer, but her books scare the hell out of me.  The Handmaid’s Tale gave me nightmares for years afterward.  I’m still depressed over the end of Maddaddam.  I’m continually amazed at how Atwood uses such lyrical, beautiful prose even as she’s describing terrible people and horrific brutality.

 

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

I read a good one by Kate Jonez recently: Candy House.  Amy Grech also has a splendid collection called Blanket of White.  I enjoyed a collection recently by Antoinette Bergin called Bedtime Stories for Children You Hate.  I read those Hunger Games books recently.  Those should probably be called horror books, especially given the ending.  Yeesh!
6. Where can readers find your work?

My website is a great place to catch up with all my insidious deeds.  In addition to Amazon and Smashwords, my books are also available from Macabre Ink Digital and Crossroads Press. 

Thanks so much for letting me be a part of Women in Horror month.

 

Interested in learning more? Visit Wednesday Lee Friday’s Amazon author page, her Smashwords page, or the website for Under The Bed, the online horror fiction magazine she edits. And check out this incredibly awesome nonfiction piece on point of view and how it can make or break a story– something she mentioned briefly above.

 

 

 

Posted on February 28, 2014 by , Reply

Women in Horror Fiction: Resource on Black Women Writers of Horror Now Available

 

Author Sumiko Saulson has compiled a great resource, 60 Black Women In Horror Fiction, which is now available on Smashwords for free. February being both Black History Month and Women in Horror Month, this is a perfect choice to add to your reader’s advisory resources. Saulson based the short book on blog posts she has written over the past few years that provided short biographies of  followed up with interviews from some well known black women authors, including Jemiah Jackson and Linda Addison.  The women Saulson profiled have authored books from all over the spectrum, including erotica, urban fantasy, poetry, and science fiction… but all of them have published something that qualifies them as writers in the horror genre.

 

RA librarians, you’ll definitely want to check this out. The price couldn’t be any better, that’s for sure! Many thanks to Sumiko Saulson for compiling this reference– she’s an inspiration!

Posted on February 26, 2014 by , Reply

Women in Horror Fiction: Karen H. Koehler

Planet of Dinosaurs, The Complete Collection (Includes Planet of Dinosaurs, Sea of Serpents, & Valley of Dragons)Karen H. Koehler is a versatile writer who has written everything from kaiju novels to paranormal-tinged steampunk and noir. She is the author of  the stand alone novels Scarabus (KHP 2002), Raiju: The Kaiju Hunter  (K.H. Koehler Books 2010), Black Jack Derringer: The Complete Collection (K.H. Koehler Books 2011),  and Tales for 3 o”Clock in the Morning (K.H. Koehler Books 2012). She has also written several series, including    The Blackburn and Scarletti Mysteries and  the Slayer trilogy (both from KHP) , the Sasha Strange Chronicles, the Horrorotica Collection, the Nick Englebrecht books, and the Mrs. McGillicuddy Mysteries (all from K.H. Koehler Books), and the Anti-Heroes serial, written with Louise Bohmer (Anti-Heroes Press, 2013) She is the owner of K.H. Koehler Books. Her short work has appeared in the Bram-Stoker winning anthology Demons, edited by John Skipp, among other places.

 

1.) Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

 

I started writing books going all the way back to second grade, when I wrote, drew and stapled together a dinosaur book (rather unexpectedly, I might add) for my grade-school teacher. By the time I reached high school, I was regularly writing creepy little gothic, horror and science fiction stories all over the place. They were garbage, of course, but they lead me to reading Stephan King, Anne Rice, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, and countless other authors in a huge array of genres. Wonderful brain food for a young girl with a slightly spooky, overactive imagination! Now I attempt to emulate those authors with my own unique twist on the genres. It seemed a natural progression.

 

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

 

 
I have a lot of anger management issues, admittedly, and, yes, typing up carnal destruction does help feel the mental alligators. But, essentially, I write it because I believe horror is truly the most psychological of all genres. It’s the genre that dives deepest into the human psyche, tearing loose all the most primal concerns of the human race and putting them on morbid display: loneliness, fear, death, change. I guess I enjoy trying to figure out what makes humans tick.
 
3.) Can you describe your writing style or the tone you prefer to set  for your stories?

 

I’m a fairly eclectic writer, and I’ve been known to change voice and style frequently, depending on the sub-genre of the project or the particular needs of the story. In fact, some readers have trouble recognizing that I’ve written certain books at all, especially my pulp series like The Scorpion or Nick Englebrecht because those books are written in a decided “male” voice, you might say. But overall, when in “horror mode”–as opposed to, say, “pulp mode,” “steampunk mode”, or “mystery mode”–I usually try to convey feelings of isolation and oppression in my work. I’m interested in the inner workings of the damaged loner, the anti-hero, the freak, the castoff from society, the villain. I have to say I love the jaded, reluctant, sometimes even misanthropic voice of the Byronic Hero.

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

 

I’ve loved many authors over the years (from afar!). Probably the most influential are Poppy Z. Brite, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, and many of the pulp writers like Walter B. Gibson and Norvell. W. Page. More recently, I’ve come to love the ultra-clean, “power-ballad” styles of authors like Louise Bohmer and Christa Faust. They’re like a modern, more sadistic version, of Ernest Hemingway. I secretly owe them much as they have helped clean up my, at times, purplish–or, at least, mauve–prose.

 

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

 

See above! You cannot go wrong with any of them.

 

6.) Where can readers find your work?
 
My ebooks are available from all the usual suspects, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Nook and Smashwords. Recently, I started offering them at All Romance/Omnilit as well–a wonderful and often-overlooked resource for selling your work, I find.

 

7.) Is there anything else you’d like to share with librarians or readers?

 

Only that I appreciate all my fans’ support and that their feedback is always vitally important to me. Reviews are always welcomed and I love listening to my readers’ opinions. It helps me shape my future works.

 

Want to learn more? Visit Karen Koehler’s blog— it has links to all of her books at a variety of online bookstores.
Posted on February 26, 2014 by , Reply
First « 1516171819 » Last