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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

The H-Word. Part 3

And now… The tipping point for me. The article that made me want to shake somebody at the Wall Street Journal. Did you know this summer is…

 

THE SEASON OF THE SUPERNATURAL!

 

Yep.  “Real” authors are now coming out of the closet. The genre fiction my creative writing professor, Clint McCown, banned us from writing in his class because it wasn’t “real” or “literary” is suddenly okay.  Except, wait! Let’s not call it horror fiction when literary writer Glen Duncan writes about a werewolf with “a lusty appetite for human flesh”.  Nope- it’s “a high concept literary novel.”  It just HAPPENS to have a man-eating werewolf as the narrator.  Hmm… How can the literary establishment avoid the stigma of writing genre books? Certainly, those books, populated with werewolves, zombies, ghosts, and vampires, couldn’t possibly be horror fiction. Of course not. It’s “supernatural literary fiction”. I’d like to thank Glen Duncan’s publicist for taking the time to offer us here at MonsterLibrarian.com, a horror fiction review site, a review copy of The Last Werewolf.

The Wall Street Journal did briefly acknowledge the horror genre, but none of the books in this article were mentioned as part of the horror genre. And, while I understand that different imprints have different audiences, I was appalled at Knopf’s attitude that “we don’t do those kinds of books”.  It’s so disrespectful to readers’ preferences, and readers are the lifeblood of any publishing house.  The author of the Journal’s article tried to justify the popularity of these titles by counting Homer, Shakespeare, Dante and Milton as writers in the literary tradition who tossed gods, monsters, and the undead into the mix, but those guys cared about telling a story, not whether it was “literary”.

And that’s why my five year old is begging me to tell him about Odysseus and the Cyclops for the billionth time, and preparing for the zombie apocalypse (in spite of my attempts to protect him from all things zombie). The stories and the monsters are just that good. There’s no reason to be afraid of the H-word. There are a LOT of good storytellers out there. Even if they write “those books”, that’s no reason to write them off, or treat their readers with contempt.

Look, the horror community is not as organized as the romance community. RWA has hard data on sales and on who their readers are.  Writers in the horror genre don’t. And it would be hard to collect… are there ANY major publishers who publish horror since Leisure went by the wayside? But horror readers, writers, and books are here, and it’s foolish for publishers, mainstream authors, and book critics to write them off.  Horror fiction. Not “paranormal”, not “supernatural”, not, “thriller”, “science fiction”, “fantasy”, “dystopian” or “lowbrow”.(although it can be any of those things as well). It’s okay to read and write horror fiction with pride. No one should have to defend that choice.

No matter what anyone else doesn’t say.

 

Posted on May 29, 2011 by , 4 comments

The H-Word.

Horror fiction.

There. I said it.

There IS such a thing as horror fiction. There’s actually enough of it to constitute a genre.

That would be the HORROR GENRE. Not science fiction, not fantasy, not “thrillers”, urban fantasy, or paranormal romance. Nothing wrong with those. There are a lot of fantastic crossover titles, and there is a reason that we review them.

But, hello? The horror genre exists. It’s here. And I’m tired of not reading about it when it is completely discounted, or when books that clearly fall into the category of horror fiction are described as everything else.

Let’s see… In the past month here’s what I found (or didn’t find).

First, in the field of research on literacy, reading engagement, and advocacy…

1.) I was rereading Stephen Krashen’s The Power of Reading. I admire Krashen and his research has been and is incredibly important because it’s about engaging and creating readers, and it’s backed by data. Krashen was an early advocate of (ahem) “light reading” for kids. In the book, he mentions a study he co-authored in 2000. In this particular study (not the only study he’s done, this is just an example) Krashen found that 53% of 124 fourth grade students remembered the first book to make a major impact on them (in his words, a “home run book”). That’s about 65 kids. Of these, SIXTEEN were “scary books”. In other words, nearly a quarter of kids who remembered their “home run book” remembered a “scary book”. And that’s just one study.

Krashen discussed the value of teen romances and strongly advocated the use of comics and graphic novels to engage kids and teens in reading. But in all his discussion of “light reading” he never uses the H-word, and when he does mention scary stories, he is dismissive of the books of R.L. Stine, who was hugely popular at the time the first edition was published. That is, he dismissed the valued reading material of nearly 25% of the kids (fifteen of the sixteen books mentioned were R.L. Stine books). Since Krashen wrote this book, graphic novels have become relatively accepted as legitimate reading material, and there’s been a lot written about their value. Scary stories? Horror fiction? Not so much.

2.) Let’s fast-forward a bit to a more recent book, Readicide, by Kelly Gallagher. Gallagher addresses the problems inherent in giving kids the opportunity to get “lost in a book” when teachers and schools are overwhelmed with the pressure to succeed on standardized tests. He’s a passionate advocate and it’s an important book.

And then we get to the book list at the end. “101 Books My Reluctant Readers Love To Read”. A list of coming of age stories, sports stories, nonfiction and memoirs, poetry, mystery, and (surprise!) graphic novels. And… the extremely awkwardly named category award goes to… “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”!

Yep. Christopher Pike is on that list. He wrote Point Horror titles. Is it THAT HARD to say “horror”? Which of those categories does World War Z fall into, Kelly? I’m pretty sure most readers of zombie fiction would be surprised to find themselves described as readers of “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”. Heck, do any of your students call themselves readers of “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”?

And these are the advocates for reluctant readers and reading choice in schools, in libraries, and at home. I have tremendous respect for the work they do- it informs my whole way of looking at the world. I am so disappointed that horror fiction is so far beneath the radar that they don’t notice what is right in front of them.

But there’s more. It will have to wait though, because it’s time for dinner.

Posted on May 28, 2011 by , Reply
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