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Gasp…The “H-Word” Appears in the Wall Street Journal!

What can I say? It wasn’t in the title, and maybe it was accidental, but in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Alexandra Alter, in her article “A Crime Wave in Publishing”, used… the “H-word”. You know the one I mean.

While Ms. Alter’s focus was on crime fiction, apparently that’s too narrow a focus for most publishers, who now throw a whole bucket full of genres under the heading “suspense”. Ms. Alter specifically mentioned Mullholland Press, a new imprint at Little, Brown. Mullholland’s lineup includes a horror novel (gasp!) by the writers of Saw, and is looking for books in a variety of genres, including…

…supernatural thrillers, hardboiled detective fiction, espionage, horror, dystopian thrillers, and high concept adventure fiction.

They’re looking for the next James Patterson, but who knows, maybe they’ll find the next Stephen King. Kudos to Little, Brown and Mulholland Press’ editor John Schoenfelder for having the vision to notice that  “those books” (as an editor from Knopf referred to them in an earlier WSJ article– see my response here) have a hungry audience. And to Ms. Alter, who distinguished horror fiction from other genres, including supernatural fiction.

One day maybe she’ll write a whole article.

Posted on July 9, 2011 by , Reply

Horror @ Your Library

The American Library Association has a marketing initiative called “@ your library”. Their conference is rolling around (it’s in New Orleans this year) and ALTAFF (Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations) is holding a session called “Mystery and Horror @ Your Library”. When I saw that I thought “How cool! My professional association is actually shining a light on horror fiction and highlighting horror authors”!

Library Journal’s description of the event gives you an idea of how a lot of the profession thinks of the genre.

Mystery and Horror @ Your Library. Mystery, of course. But horror? Horrors! Best-selling authors in both genres will make your spines tingle.

So, very cool of ALTAFF to buck the trend, right? Except that not a single one of the authors writes horror. Cammie McGovern is on the panel. She’s written a fantastic literary mystery called Eye Contact. Erica Spindler writes romantic suspense. C.S. Harris writes the Sebastian St. Cyr books- historical mysteries. Bill Loehfelm is a crime novelist. S.J. Watson is the only one who might qualify, as a writer of psychological thrillers, but he appears to be a first time author whose first book, Before I Go To Sleep, came out on June 14 of this year.

It sounds like a great book, and I am sure someone on our staff would love to review it (hint, hint), but I don’t think he’s necessarily the best candidate to represent an entire genre. There are so many horror writers out there who would be articulate and passionate, and happy to promote the genre and talk about their books and their “writing life”. How about Brian Keene, Scott Nicholson, Alexandra Sokoloff, Lisa Morton, or, for a librarian’s perspective, Becky Siegel Spratford?

I think this is why we have such a problem with recognition of the genre. Librarians can’t even identify what belongs in it, or who writes it (except for Stephen King). This week I sent out a list of potential review titles- probably 20 books were on the list, at least. One reviewer wrote me back to tell me that she had searched her library system to find if there were any copies of the books available there. Her library system has 58 libraries. Yep, that’s right. How many of the books was she able to find? One. One horror novel off a list of 20, in a library system with 58 libraries.

I appreciate that ALTAFF is trying to promote the genre, even if they can’t exactly identify what it is or who writes it. But what’s the reality? For all the librarians out there, let me ask… where’s the horror @ your library?

Posted on June 21, 2011 by , 2 comments

The Monster Mash(up)

Kudos to Booklist Onliine for including this article, Classic Monster Mash-ups as the topic of their May 15 Core Collection feature. (Core Collection, for those of you who are not librarians, means “you gotta have this one in your collection, NOW!)

Christine Meloni put together a nice introduction to the subgenre, with an annotated booklist of some of the better known books (she did note that some of them, like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer are not actually mash-ups. I was familiar with a lot of these but good Lord, someone out there really thinks Jane Austen and zombies are a rockin’ combination! I counted FIVE related books on Meloni’s list, and she didn’t even include the two sequels to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

My only quibble, and I mention this mainly because I’ve recently become sensitive to it, is that once again, these books are never described as horror fiction- they are “supernatural literary fiction”. You know, if a teenage boy picks up a book promising zombies and “ultraviolent mayhem”, it’s probably not because he cares about the literary value of the timeless romance between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Outside of that, I really appreciated Meloni’s comments about monster mash-ups- that they can be fun and are worth reading. Thanks, Christine!

 

Posted on June 2, 2011 by , Reply
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