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Women in Horror Fiction: Barbie Wilde

Image of Barbie WildeThe horror genre actually has the capability of being a welcoming place for women, because it offers opportunities for participation in a variety of approaches to the genre. Barbie Wilde is an example of a woman who has successfully transitioned from acting to writing, with her role as the Female Cenobite in Hellbound: Hellraiser II leading to the publication of her short story “Sister Cilice” in Hellbound Hearts, an anthology themed around the Hellraiser mythology created by Clive Barker, on which the movie franchise is based. Barbie has since published short stories in a variety of anthologies and recently came out with a book, The Venus Complex, which we reviewed here. It’s great to see the horror genre lifting up women in the horror community so that they can take advantage of all it has to offer, and I can only hope that not only continues, but becomes much more common.

 

1. Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

My name is Barbie Wilde. As an actress, I’m best known for playing the Female Cenobite in Clive Barker’s cult horror movie, Hellbound: Hellraiser II. I’ve also appeared in Death Wish 3, Grizzly II: The Concert (along with then unknowns George Clooney, Charlie Sheen and Laura Dern) and numerous TV shows in the UK as either an actress, a mime artist or a host-presenter.

So far, I’ve written eight short horror stories published in eight different anthologies, as well as my debut dark crime-real life horror novel,The Venus Complex. Fangoria magazine has called me “one of the finest purveyors of erotically charged horror around.” (My mother would’ve been so proud, I’m sure!)

 

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

I didn’t actually start out as a horror writer. I was always more interested in crime, particularly the psychology of the scariest monster on the planet: man.

Then Paul Kane (who interviewed me for his book, The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy) asked me to contribute to an anthology that he was editing with Marie O’Regan called Hellbound Hearts. All the stories in the antho had to be based on Clive Barker’s mythology that he created for his novel, The Hellbound Heart, which the Hellraiser film franchise is based on.

When Paul contacted me about writing a horror story, I was initially reluctant, as I didn’t think I could write horror. However, two weeks later, I finished my first horror story, “Sister Cilice”, about the making of a female cenobite. I’m actually planning a Cilicium Trilogy and the second part, “The Cilicium Pandoric”, is appearing in Fangoria’s Gorezone #30.

So quite a few horror stories down the line, why am I drawn to the genre? I think that there is a great leeway for your imagination to take flight in horror. You can use all sorts of mythological, literary and historical research and then turn these sources into something (hopefully) unique. Also, I was very influenced and disturbed by horror and science fiction movies when I was a kid and they made their mark on me, fueling all sorts of uneasy and paranoid fantasies. Movies like The Thing From Another World (1951), Invaders from Mars (1953), Psycho (1960), The Innocents (1961) and The Haunting (1963) made a big impression on me. And of course, TV shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, One Step Beyond, Dark Shadows and Night Gallery were also very influential.

 

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

I like to keep things as simple as possible– I love spare and muscular writing. [See influences below.] There is a strong erotic thread through my stories, which I’d like to think is more sensual than romantic. Also, even when I’m writing about the most horrific crimes and events, there is always a sense of humour in there somewhere.

 

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

Influences: Rod Serling, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Hemingway, Clive Barker, Colin Wilson (for his crime non-fiction, like The Criminal History of Mankind and The Order of the Assassins).
Influential women authors: Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson and Margaret Atwood. I’m also inspired by writer-directors such as The Soska Twins, Jovanka Vuckovic, Mary Harron, Kathryn Bigelow and Ida Lupino.

 

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

All of the above authors, as well as Paul Kane. I just finished his latest compelling novella Rainbow Man and really enjoyed it. Other Kane books that I can recommend are The Gemini Factor and Red. All of Paul’s books are written so beautifully and so descriptively that you can just imagine movies been adapted from them. I also love the work of John Skipp and Craig Spector. Their novel, Light at the End, was a very cool and unusual take on the vampire genre.

My top pick of 2013 was the evocative and brilliant written Whitstable by Stephen Volk. The main character of the novella is Peter Cushing and it’s almost spooky how Stephen has channeled Cushing as a character in the story.

 

6. Where can readers find your work?

You can buy The Venus Complex as a paperback and Kindle on all the Amazons, as well as Barnes & Noble (online only). All the short stories that I’ve written are available in the following anthologies on Amazon. Most are published as both paperback and Kindle:
“Sister Cilice” (Hellbound Hearts)
“Uranophophia” (Phobophobia)
“American Mutant: Hands of Dominion” (Mutation Nation)
“Polyp” (The Mammoth Book of Body Horror and as a reprint for The Unspoken)
“A is for Alpdruck” (Demonologia Biblica)
“Z is for Zulu Zombies” (Bestiarum Vocabulum and as a reprint for Gorezone #29)
The following stories will be available soon:
“The Cilicium Pandoric” (Gorezone #30)
“Botophobia” (Phobophobias)

 

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

If your readers would like to read more news, reviews and interviews, then please go to:
www.barbiewilde.com
Follow me on Twitter at: @barbiewilde
Facebook: www.facebook.com/barbie.wilde
Facebook Author-Actress Page: www.facebook.com/BarbieWildeAuthorActress

I’ve got some interesting writing projects and appearances coming up in the future, so please keep an eye out for news on either Facebook or my website.

 

Interested in learning more? Visit Barbie Wilde’s Amazon page, her website, her Facebook page, or her Author-Actress Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter at @barbiewilde.

Posted on February 24, 2014 by , Reply

Women in Horror Fiction: Joan Aiken– Give Yourself A Fright

Joan Aiken, born September 4, 1924, was a British author well known for her children’s novels (especially for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase), but she also wrote excellent short stories, and fiction for teens and adults. While her work could be fantastic (as it is in the Armitage Family stories) and subversively funny (such as the tales of Arabel and Mortimer, her raven)  her writing for all three audiences often contained dark, Gothic, or supernatural elements.

Can you tell that I love Joan Aiken?

I have enthusiastically read everything of hers that I have found since I first read her A Necklace of Raindrops, when I was about eight years old. Which is not to say I have read everything she’s written. The book she’s probably most well known for is her Gothic historical fantasy for middle graders, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, but that was published in 1962, and she continued to write for the rest of her life. Although she died in 2004, her works are actually still being published (The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories, from Small Beer Press, was released as recently as 2011). A review from Bookslut, quoted on Small Beer’s website, compared Aiken to Shirley Jackson.

Because Aiken is mainly identified as a children’s author, it’s quite possible that you have never considered reading her work. But if you love ghost stories, Gothic atmosphere, and tales both disturbing and enchanting, you should.

In a blog post on Aiken’s short fiction, Jed Hartman notes:

…In general, Aiken doesn’t much distinguish between stories for children and stories for grown-ups…  And it’s often hard to decide whether to class a given Aiken story as a kids’ story or a grown-ups’ story, which is all to the good. Almost all of the best children’s books — from Alice onward — can be enjoyed by adults as well.

Ready to give yourself a fright, Joan Aiken style? Here’s the official Joan Aiken site’s  list of books specifically with supernatural themes. And here’s the complete biblography, just in case you get carried away.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Posted on January 24, 2014 by , Reply

It’s Elementary: Sherlock Holmes in the Horror Genre

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most beloved characters in fiction. He’s not particularly lovable, or even likable; in fact, he’s a depressed, drug-addicted, arrogant, misogynistic, obnoxious know-it-all. Even his  creator tried to kill him off. There’s just something about him that draws people to read about Holmes and his faithful chronicler, Watson, and to visit and revisit the characters. Holmes can’t be contained to just the stories Arthur Conan Doyle wrote anymore, most of which are now in the public domain. He belongs to his readers, the visitors to Baker Street.

 

Or does he?

 

The estate of Arthur Conan Doyle approached the publisher of the soon-to-be-released anthology In The Company of Sherlock Holmes, co-edited by Leslie Klinger and Laurie R. King, and attempted to extract a license fee, threatening to discourage distributors from carrying the book unless the fee was paid. Klinger sued the Conan Doyle estate in federal court, asking for a judgement that Sherlock Holmes and a variety of characters and elements from the Holmesian universe were in the public domain and that reference to them does not require that a license fee be paid to the Conan Doyle estate. The judge mostly agreed with Klinger. You can read that story here.

 

What’s important about this is that people don’t just want to read the original stories. They want new takes. There’s a tradition of Sherlock Holmes pastiches– homages to the Master Detective. Some are very good, and some are a lot of fun to read. And many of these fall into the horror genre. Did Arthur Conan Doyle deserve to profit from his creation? Absolutely. But should his estate be bullying writers and publishers a hundred years later, even after the majority of the stories have entered the public domain? It doesn’t make sense to me. It’s past time to explore characters that just can’t stay in the pages of their original stories, and see what new writers can do. Want to check out some of the horror genre’s takes on the Great Detective?  Here are some possibilities.

 

Victorian Undead  by Ian Edginton, illustrated by Davide Fabbri . Victorian Undead is a graphic novel that collects the comic books for this limited series of  six issues, which pit Sherlock Holmes and Watson against zombies, led by Professor Moriarty. It is followed by Victorian Undead II, in which the duo go up against Dracula. The Monster Librarian, a zombie fan, really enjoyed this series. Be warned, there is a fair amount of gore, which is not exactly a signature of the Holmes oeuvre, so this is probably a better way to introduce a zombie-loving reader to Sherlock than a Sherlock lover to the horror genre.

 

   Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes  edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec.  This is the third volume in a series of anthologies that introduce the supremely rational Holmes to the supernatural and horrific. You can read our review here. Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes and Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes precede this volume in the series. While these books have both excellent and not-so-excellent stories, there are definitely more winners than losers, and there are some fantastic authors included. Gaslight Arcanum includes a fantastic story by Kim Newman. This is a good volume to offer to both Holmes lovers and horror lovers, so if your library doesn’t have it already, you might consider it for its appeal to both mystery and horror readers.

 

   Sherlock Holmes: Revenant by William Meikle. William Meikle grew up in Scotland reading Sherlock Holmes, and you can really tell. Read our review here. It’s not long, but it gets the point across. Again, keeping in mind that you can’t please everyone all of the time, this is a great story appreciated by lovers of both Holmes and the supernatural.

 

  Shadows Over Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes) edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan. Here you’ve got a collection of stories in which Sherlock Holmes and company encounter the gods and creatures of the Cthulu mythos. I am admittedly not a fan of Lovecraft, so I haven’t picked this up, but it’s an intriguing concept and when the two come together in the right way, could make for some really effective storytelling. This might be a way to introduce Lovecraft and Lovecraftian fiction to a new audience– like Sherlock Holmes, the Cthulu mythos has moved beyond the original stories to reach its tentacles out in many directions.

 

The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson by Nicholas Meyer. Nicholas Meyer’s pastiches are considered to be some of the best. Preceded by The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and The West End Horror, The Canary Trainer pits Holmes against The Phantom of the Opera.

 

Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lynsay Faye. Naturally, as a horror review site, we couldn’t leave out Jack the Ripper.  The combination of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper is a tempting one for many authors, so there are quite a few pastiches that take on this theme. Faye’s 2009 debut novel received great reviews, so if you’re looking for a pastiche that pits Holmes against the Ripper, this one is a good choice.

 

  Sherlock Holmes and the Horror of Frankenstein by Luke Kuhns, illustrated by Marcie Klinger. Now, frankly, I don’t know anything about this book, but it appears to be a graphic novel, and just the cover makes me want to open it up. Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes– what a perfect combination! It’s just out, so if you decide to try it out I would love to find out what you think of it.

 

This is not anywhere near the number of pastiches of varying quality out there that you can check out, and I’ve shared just a few of them here (so please don’t feel indignant if I left one of your favorites out). There are many short stories as well, including Neil Gaiman’s excellent “A Study in Emerald”. For more suggestions, you can visit this blog post at Tor.com, which did a project a while back titled “Holmes for the Holidays”.  Enjoy!

 

Posted on January 6, 2014 by , Reply
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