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Women in Horror Fiction: Alexandra Sokoloff

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Alexandra Sokoloff is the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black Quill Award-nominated author of the supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, The Unseen, Book of Shadows, The Shifters, and The Space Between, and the Amazon bestselling new FBI thriller series Huntress Moon. The New York Times Book Review called her a “daughter of Mary Shelley”, and her books “Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.” It’s no surprise that reader’s advisory expert Becky Siegel Spratford spotlighted her as one of the top women writers in horror in the Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror Fiction

As a screenwriter she has sold original horror and thriller scripts and adapted novels for numerous Hollywood studios. She has also written two non-fiction workbooks: Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, based on her internationally acclaimed workshops and blog (ScreenwritingTricks.com), and has served on the Board of Directors of the WGA, west and the Board of the Mystery Writers of America.

Alex is a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where she majored in theater and minored in everything Berkeley has a reputation for. In her spare time (!) she performs with Heather Graham’s all-author Slush Pile Players. Fellow bandmate (not sure that’s a word, but I’ll run with it) and Monster Librarian reviewer Dave Simms asked her to answer some questions for us.

On a personal note, The Price was, for me, unforgettable. Since I read it, the story has never quite left me. Beyond the awards and bestseller status, Sokoloff is a genuinely talented storyteller and well worth recommending even to readers who wouldn’t traditionally approach anything labeled as “horror”.

1. Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

I’m the bestselling, Thriller Award-winning, Bram Stoker and Anthony Award-nominated author of ten horror, thriller and crime novels, with number eleven, the third book in my Thriller Award-nominated Huntress Moon series, coming out in May. I started my career in theater as an actor and director but turned to screenwriting so I could, you know, eat… then I worked as a film writer in L.A. for ten years before I snapped and wrote my first novel, The Harrowing (best career move I ever made – I’m MUCH happier as an author.) I’m both traditionally published and independently published; I also teach a very popular story structure workshop based on my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks and blogs.

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

I have to admit that a big reason I read and write horror is because I’m an adrenaline junkie and I love the sensual exhilaration of terror. But as a writer I also find horror one of the only genres adequate to express my outrage at the cruelty that exists on this planet. Horror allows me to explore the life question that most troubles me: Why is there evil in the world and how can we mitigate it? That being said, I don’t think of myself as a straight horror writer; I write more of a mix of mystery, suspense, thriller, and horror.

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

Being a woman I’m a fan of the slow, sensual build (!) My books have been described as nail-biting, poetic, page-turning, terrifying and addictive, always good stuff to hear. My particular style is to blur the line between horror, thriller and mystery: keeping the reader guessing about what’s really going on: Is it supernatural, or the distressed mental state of an unreliable protagonist, or a con, or even a crime? My current series, the Huntress Moon thrillers, aren’t really horror at all, there’s just the slightest possibility of the supernatural – which can easily be explained away. But the level of tension and suspense is still excruciatingly high, and the underlying theme is exactly the same as in my horror novels: What can good people do about the evil in the world?

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

I discovered Shirley Jackson and Charlotte Perkins Gilman when I was quite young and I was deeply affected by their mix of terrifying suspense and an overwhelming psychological state that is particularly feminine, and feminist, encompassing mental illness and a soul sickness that comes from societal repression, as well as the possible supernatural. I think women have a particular understanding of horror because we live with it on an intimate, daily basis that men in non-warring countries (or outside of prison) rarely experience. For us, a simple walk out of the grocery store to the parking lot at night can turn into the most horrific of nightmares. We have a lot to say about terror. A lot.

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

Besides the above mentioned, I’ve loved Daphne du Maurier and Madeleine L’Engle since I was a child. More recently – Mo Hayder is one of the most terrifying writers I’ve ever read, and I’m a big fan of Denise Mina and Val McDermid. I’m lucky to have extremely talented friends who provide me with lots of reading pleasure: Sarah Pinborough, Sarah Langan, Rhodi Hawk and Lisa Morton come to mind. There are some men, too. 🙂

6. Where can readers find your work?

And everyone has e readers now, right? You can find everything on Amazon, naturally. But you can browse the books on my website,http://alexandrasokoloff.com, and readers can sign up for my newsletter there to get announcements about special deals and giveaways. And libraries, of course – please support your local library!

7. You’ve been in a very cool group – the Killer Thriller/Slushpile Band – for years now. What has that experience been like for you?

The best! Maybe even lifesaving. I grew up doing music and theater, but I never expected to be in such a great group as part of my author life, and to be acting and jamming with my own literary idols like F. Paul Wilson, Heather Graham, John Lescroart, David Morrell, and Michael Palmer, plus so many new author friends like Scott Nicholson, Blake Crouch, Harley Jane Kozak, Beth Ciotta, Daniel Palmer and (ahem) Dave Simms. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising – so many authors have musical and theater backgrounds, and let’s face it, we’re such hams. When we’re writing we’re so much in our heads that it’s fantastic to be able to cut loose and perform with such talented friends.

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

For librarians – I am so aware that times are tough, and if you’d like to get more of my books into your branch, please contact me directly. And readers – I love to dialogue on Facebook. Please stop by my page and keep me from writing! I mean, say hi!

Interested in learning more? Visit Alexandra Sokoloff’s Amazon page, her website, her Facebook page, and, for tips on screenwriting, her blog, Screenwriting Tricks.

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Kirsten, Reply

Witches on Trial @ your library

“Are you a good witch, or a bad witch”? That’s the first question Dorothy is asked when she arrives in Oz. Kind of a bewildering question even if you haven’t just had your house blown into a magical country by a tornado and recovered from a bang on the head. Of course, the answer to that question is decided pretty quickly, since her house has squashed the Wicked Witch of the East. But that’s the way decisions seem to be made when it comes to judging who’s a witch and who is not. Lucky Dorothy managed to gain the support of the people of Oz, but that pendulum usually seems to swing in the opposite direction. And in America, the most notorious example, although not the only one, happened in Salem, Massachusetts.

Even children know the story of the Salem Witch Trials, and if they don’t, they really should. Any community can be shaken up by mass hysteria, the source of the horrific events that took place in this quiet New England town, and with the presence of social media in our midst, it can spread faster and further than ever before. Witch hunts are certainly no longer just the province of the superstitious. For a really excellent, accessible, and gorgeously illustrated historical account of the Salem Witch Trials, I recommend seeking out Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches! The Absolutely True Story of the Disaster in Salem. While the target audience is really older children and young adults, this is a great choice for general readers of any age. A great follow-up title is the Newbery winner The Witch of Blackbird Pond. That award is an award for excellence: don’t let the fact that it’s an award for children’s literature stop you from reading it (Kit, the protagonist, is sixteen). While it’s set in Connecticut in the early 1600’s, it does a great job of bringing home how personal and irrational these persecutions could be. It’s a memorable title you won’t be sorry you’ve read.

It’s hard to talk about Salem without bringing up Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. This is probably the first play I ever saw (my aunt was in it, in the dancing scene at the beginning). While it’s short, it surely makes an impact (it has been made into an opera, and may be the shortest opera I have ever seen). The play brings to life the Salem Witch Trials and the hysteria that accompanied them. The Crucible, written in the 1950s during Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “Red Scare”, is, under its surface, a rather pointed allegory about the “witch hunts” against supposed Communists that occurred during that time. Miller demonstrated exactly what I wrote about above: that incitement to mass hysteria is no longer limited to the superstitious, and any of us can become a target at any time. There’s an excellent movie adaptation of The Crucible, with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder, as well. It’s frequently used in American Literature classes to engage students’ interest in the play, which is generally required reading for those classes (Want to give required reading pizzazz? Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder can do that). I haven’t seen this next movie, but The Salem Witch Trials, originally a miniseries on CBS, and starring Kirstie Alley and several other notable actresses, is supposed to be a very good fictionalized version of the events of that time.

Authors have taken varied approaches to the events of the Salem Witch Trials and to witch hunts in general. One surprise is Robin Cook’s medical thriller Acceptable Risk, which involves a subplot with one of the main characters discovering she is related to a Salem witch. I don’t know that you can say that Robin Cook is actually a good writer, but he is a compelling and memorable one– books of his that I read in high school still stick with me. I constantly hear complaints from my dad that there are no good medical thrillers out there anymore, so why not take this chance to resurrect what is admittedly a rather elderly title?

More recently, Alexandra Sokoloff produced Book of Shadows, a supernatural thriller/police procedural that involves a contemporary witch living in Salem, who gets involved in helping a police detective solve the mystery of the murder of a college student that appears to have Satanic overtones. While not directly tied to the original trials, I happen to enjoy Sokoloff’s books, and many readers who normally skip over witch-themed horror may find themselves drawn in to this. And within just the past few months, the last book in Melissa de la Cruz’s trilogy Witches of East End, Winds of Salem, was released. While the image above is of the first book in the series, the second, Serpent’s Kiss, and the third, Winds of Salem, have a strong thread involving the Salem Witch Trials. With Witches of East End just coming out as a television series, including these books in a display on the Salem Witch Trials is a great way to draw readers in to a witchy world as Halloween approaches. These books are more urban fantasy than horror, but paranormal lovers will get right into them.

Witch hunts haven’t been limited to Salem and its environs, though. Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times, a non-fiction graphic novel by Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton, with shocking and effective artwork by Greg Chapman, also details witch hunts in Europe, from the time of the Black Death through the Reformation and finally to the Enlightenment. With torture and burning witches alive being methods often used by witch hunters, you can imagine what the artwork must be like. The book, written by Lisa Morton and Rocky Wood, noted scholars in horror non-fiction, treats its topic respectfully and seriously, and won the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Best Graphic Novel.

The movie Season of the Witch does not pretend to be a serious, non-fictional account of the Burning Times in Europe. It does take place in Europe, during the Middle Ages, at a time when accusations of witchcraft were very serious. Two former knights, played by Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman, are assigned to escort a young woman to an abbey to face accusations of witchcraft. It’s not a great movie, but it’s entertaining, and keeps you guessing as to whether the woman the two men are escorting actually is a witch.

There are a lot of other books, movies, and other materials on witches out there, so maybe I’ll come back to the topic again, but I think this is a good collection to get those interested in Salem, witch hunts, and witchery in general, started on that TBR pile.