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Teen Read Week: Stories to Give You the Shivers

As I’ve said in the past, what better audience could there be for short stories than the teen audience? For every teen who loves hauling around gigantic tomes, there is another who prefers to consume reading material one small, satisfying, bite at a time.  October is the season for short and scary stories, in my opinion– a fall campfire is the perfect occasion for the right tale,  or a sleepover could involve tempting “Bloody Mary” out of the mirror.  There are so many opportunities to fit a scary story in as we approach the day of the dead.

So here’s a short list of short story collections you (and by you I mean anyone, but especially teens) can check out if you’re seeking out a story to give you the shivers.

 

    The Restless Dead: Ten Original Tales of the Supernatural, edited by Deborah Noyes. With authors like Kelly Link and Annette Curtis Klause contributing, you will surely find something here to give you the creeps.

 

 Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror,  edited by R.L. Stine.  This collection has an interesting collection of writers, including F.Paul Wilson and Heather Graham, who write thrillers for adults, and Peg Kehret, who writes middle grade mysteries and suspense. So it’s not surprising that the collection is somewhat of a mixed bag– but there’s also quite a lot of variety!

 

 All Hallows’ Eve: 13 Stories by Vivian Vande Velde. This is an individual collection, and again, these are stories of the supernatural and spooky rather than the gory. Vivian Vande Velde is a fantastic writer and this could be a good way to see if you like her stuff before trying out a longer work. And, of course, this collection is thematically about Halloween, so how could I leave it out?

 

 Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link. One of the stories in this book, “The Wrong Grave”, is also in The Restless Dead, mentioned above. So if you tried that and liked it, definitely pick up Pretty Monsters.  These are not typical scary stories, but they’ll definitely creep you out!  Kelly Link is a favorite author of mine, and I really recommend this one.

 

 Extremities: Tales of Death, Murder, and Revenge by David Lubar is his first venture into the young adult genre. We’re giving a copy away this week, that’s how good it is!

 

 Ghostly Gallery: Eleven Spooky Stories for Young People edited by Alfred Hitchcock. This is just one of a series of short story anthologies that Hitchcock published in the 1970’s and that were available in libraries and through Scholastic book orders in the 1980s as well. It’s really a tragedy that these volumes and others like them are no longer in print, as most of the early exposure I had to scary stories was through these types of books.

 

 Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories edited by Roald Dahl. You may think of Roald Dahl as a children’s author, but he also wrote for adults and really, even in his children’s books, proves that he is a master of the macabre. His choices here include many older, classic, ghost stories, from authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu, Edith Wharton, and Robert Aickman. These are literary horror stories, some quite frightening, so I’d recommend it for older teens.

 

The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissack, illustrated by Brian Pinkney. These stories have the eerie feeling of truth to them, possibly because of McKissack’s introduction, where she describes listening to the stories the adults around her told when she was a child. This is a Caldecott Award winner, and also a Coretta Scott King award winner, but beyond that, it’s just really good storytelling, made even better by the dramatic illustrations. I have this on Kindle, and I’ve got to say, this is one of the books that you really need to hold in your hands and see the artwork complementing the story across a double page spread, to truly appreciate. Don’t let the award for children’s book illustration fool you: this book is often used with and appreciated by middle school aged kids and older.

 

 The Scary Stories Treasury: Three Books to Chill Your Bones, Collected From Folklore, edited by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell.  Make sure you have the books illustrated by Stephen Gammell. I don’t care how old you are, these are still scary. And I’m definitely not the only one to think so– read this article and you’ll see what an impact these books make.

I really can’t follow that up with anything better, so I’ll stop now and give you a chance to track these down and give yourself a fright!

Posted on October 17, 2013 by , Reply

It’s Giveaway Time! Teen Read Week is Here!


Congratulations on joining us for Teen Read Week. This year the theme is “Seek the Unknown”, so what better place is there to be than smack dab in the middle of the horror genre? From cosmic horror to creatures of the night, the horror genre is filled with unknowns.

Today, we’re having a giveaway! David Lubar, best known for his “Weenies” books for children, has crossed over to the dark side of YA     fiction after many years of struggle, as he documented here (link). I wrote about this essay a while back (link)  and the good folks from Tor Teen contacted me and asked me if I would like for them to provide a copy of his new book for review or set up a giveaway. The answer, of course, was “YES!”  They’ve probably been tapping their toes waiting for the review, but that will go up later today, and in the meantime, WE HAVE A GIVEAWAY!

The book is called Extremities: Stories of Death, Murder, and Revenge and it has really amazing cover art and excellent, creepy, interior artwork. And it also has thirteen chilling tales inside the covers. For a teen who’s just growing into the genre and maybe ready to move a little past the Scary Stories books, this is a perfect choice. So let’s give teens the gift of reading horror! All Hallows’ Read is just around the corner.

All this can be yours if you comment and tell me your favorite scary book.  People don’t seem to comment here often, and if they did, maybe I’d hold more giveaways. It’s really not that hard, folks. You’re already sitting at the keyboard (or touch screen, whatever) so just do it. Let me give this book away!

 

Happy Teen Read Week!

 

 

Posted on October 14, 2013 by , 2 comments

Guest Post by Paula Cappa: The Literary Ladies of Horror’s Haunted Mountain

It may not be February, but October is just as good a time (if not a better one) to recognize women in horror, especially women writers. Paula Cappa, author of the supernatural novels The Dazzling Darkness and Night Sea Journey (both reviewed here), gives us her take on women writers in the genre from the beginnings of their journey until the present day. Love quiet horror? Visit her blog to discover what classic story she’s presenting as her Tuesday Tale of Terror. Really. It’s awesome.

Want another take on women writers in the horror genre? Check out this post by Colleen Wanglund, which includes a fantastic list of contemporary women writers and recommended titles.

The Literary Ladies of Horror’s Haunted Mountain

By Paula Cappa

If there is ever a time to hear a night-shriek, it is October, a month that welcomes readers to the dark mountain of the horror genre. Listen to the hallowed voices, their devouring muscular growls and hot stinging hisses. Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, author of MaddAddam, says “Some may look skeptically at ‘horror’ as a subliterary genre, but in fact, horror is one of the most literary of all forms.”

The literary ladies at the summit are as ghoul-haunted as the gentlemen claiming Haunted Mountain as their territory with their persistent footprints and pulsing voices. Their names are familiar: Poe, Hoffman, James, Blackwood, LeFanu, Lovecraft, Stoker, King, Koontz, Herbert, Straub, Saul, Strieber, Bradbury, Barker, Campbell– the list goes on.

With women so under-represented, one would think the only woman writing horror in the early years was Mary Shelley, setting up ropes and spikes, blazing a wide path up horror’s haunted mountain with Frankenstein in 1818. But look closely at the mountain, and you’ll find the distinctive footprints of Ann Radcliffe, who tore open supernatural paths with The Mysteries of Udolpho as early as 1794. Radcliffe’s writing of suspense about castles and dark villains influenced Dumas, Scott, and Hugo. Mary Elizabeth Braddon, author of Eveline’s Visitant, wrote eighty novels and volumes of short stories during the 1800s, and was known as the Queen of Sensation. The little-known and much-overlooked Margaret Oliphant scaled the rocky mountainside with a heady ghost story, “The Secret Chamber.

By 1865, Amelia Edwards’  The Phantom Coach cut popular tracks across the haunted mountain. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky cleared the way for future women writers with her collection of nightmare tales, The Ensouled Violin, as did Elizabeth Gaskell with The Poor Clare, which deals with a family evil curse, complete with witches and ghosts. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written at the turn of the century, became the earliest feminist literature to expose 19th century attitudes against women’s mental health, in less than 6000 words. I like to think of Charlotte as the Wallerina, dancing up the haunted mountain.

Gothic writers like Edith Wharton (Afterward) and Mary Wilkins (Collected Ghost Stories) remain treasures.  V.C. Andrews, Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, Mary Sinclair, Rosemary Timperley, Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, Joan Aiken, Phyllis Whitney, and Barbara Michaels, all were prolific writers on horror’s haunted mountain during the 20th century, and some are still writing today. Then, of course, there’s Anne Rice, with her newest release The Wolves of MidWinter. This queen of the damned has practically established a private driveway up the haunted mountain, with more than thirty enormously successful novels of vampires, angels, demons, spirits, wolves, and witches.

Horror’s haunted mountain, traveled by women writers from Ann Radcliffe to Anne Rice, is still being trailblazed by fresh talents, writers of gothic, ghost, supernatural, traditional, and dark horror: Alexandra Sokoloff, The Unseen; Barbara Erskine, House of Echoes; Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl; Chesya Burke, Dark Faith; Elizabeth Massie, Hell Gate; Gemma Files, The Worm in Every Heart; Joyce Carol Oates, The Accursed; Kelley Armstrong, Bitten; Linda D. Addison, How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend; M.J. Rose, Seduction; Melanie Tem, Slain in the Spirit; Nancy Baker, Kiss of the Vampire; Nancy Holder, Dead in Winter; Poppy Z. Brite, Drawing Blood; Rose Earhart, Salem’s Ghost; Susan Hill, The Woman in Black; too many more to list.

What about the short story? Look to Billie Sue Mosiman, with 150 short stories to her credit. Her “Quiet Room” is about a ruthless evil killer, written in “quiet horror” fashion. For collections, try authors Kaaron Warren’s Dead Sea Fruit, Carole Lanham’s The Whisper Jar, and Fran Friel’s Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales.

Men may continue to dominate horror’s haunted mountain, just as women continue to be fierce climbers with hawkish voices. But story is story; writers are writers. What does gender matter in art? In the words of Virginia Woolf: “It is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex. It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly.” Oh wait, I forgot one more ghostly title for you: Virginia Woolf’s A Haunted House.

Bio:

Paula Cappa is a published short story author, novelist, and freelance copy editor. Her short fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Every Day Fiction, Fiction365, Twilight Times Ezine, and in anthologies Human Writes Literary Journal, and Mystery Time. Cappa’s writing career began as a freelance journalist for newspapers in New York and Connecticut. Her debut novel Night Sea Journey, A Tale of the Supernatural launched in 2012. The Dazzling Darkness, her second novel, won the Gothic Readers Book Club Choice Award for outstanding fiction. She writes a weekly fiction blog about classic short stories, Reading Fiction,Tales of Terror, on her Web site http://paulacappa.wordpress.com/

 

Posted on October 3, 2013 by , 1 comment
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