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?
Greg Fisher
June 22, 2011 at 10:41 am
I work at two buildings in the library system — the main library and a branch.
At the main library, fiction is separated into fiction, mystery and science fiction. Horror books can be found in either fiction or science fiction with no rhyme or reason.
At the branch library, I started an experiment where I pulled out a selection of horror books for its own section. But due to limited shelf space, I can’t claim to have all the building’s horror fiction in one area, but I do have a good representation.
I’ve watched Stephen King, Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton draw readers to Brian Keene, Wrath James White, Jack Ketchum, Douglas Clegg as well as numerous zombie and vampire anthologies. I’ve shamelessly used urban fantasy to lure readers to horror.
Mostly I offer myself as the system expert for horror fiction — a resource that any building can use.
Brandi
June 23, 2011 at 3:41 pm
My library system has 30 branches with one of those concentrating on genealogy. There are surprisingly more horror books floating around than I expected. Most of them are older. But none of the branch managers, that I know of, read them. So as these older books get weeded, I don’t know what the future horror collection will look like.