Small Beer Press | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Women in Horror Fiction: Joan Aiken– Give Yourself A Fright

Joan Aiken, born September 4, 1924, was a British author well known for her children’s novels (especially for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase), but she also wrote excellent short stories, and fiction for teens and adults. While her work could be fantastic (as it is in the Armitage Family stories) and subversively funny (such as the tales of Arabel and Mortimer, her raven) her writing for all three audiences often contained dark, Gothic, or supernatural elements.

Can you tell that I love Joan Aiken?

I have enthusiastically read everything of hers that I have found since I first read her A Necklace of Raindrops, when I was about eight years old. Which is not to say I have read everything she’s written. The book she’s probably most well known for is her Gothic historical fantasy for middle graders, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, but that was published in 1962, and she continued to write for the rest of her life. Although she died in 2004, her works are actually still being published (The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories, from Small Beer Press, was released as recently as 2011). A review from Bookslut, quoted on Small Beer’s website, compared Aiken to Shirley Jackson.

Because Aiken is mainly identified as a children’s author, it’s quite possible that you have never considered reading her work. But if you love ghost stories, Gothic atmosphere, and tales both disturbing and enchanting, you should.

In a blog post on Aiken’s short fiction, Jed Hartman notes:

…In general, Aiken doesn’t much distinguish between stories for children and stories for grown-ups… And it’s often hard to decide whether to class a given Aiken story as a kids’ story or a grown-ups’ story, which is all to the good. Almost all of the best children’s books — from Alice onward — can be enjoyed by adults as well.

Ready to give yourself a fright, Joan Aiken style? Here’s the official Joan Aiken site’s list of books specifically with supernatural themes. And here’s the complete biblography, just in case you get carried away.

Enjoy!

Kelly Link, Small Beer Press, and Weightless Books

Kelly Link is one of the most original writers I have come across in many many years of reading all kinds of things. She started out writing for small press, and in the past few years had a collection of short stories for teens, called Pretty Monsters, published by Penguin, and reviewed here. I first discovered her work when I was looking for books published by Shaun Tan (I had just experienced his graphic tale, The Arrival) and once I started reading, I couldn’t stop with just one story. I told everyone who would listen to me about the book, and was very excited to have the opportunity to interview her last summer when the paperback edition of Pretty Monsters came out.

Pretty Monsters was not her first book. Stranger Things Happen, her first full length collection, was published in the small press, by Small Beer Press, in 2001. This is the book Karen Russell described and read from on NPR recently (here’s a link to Karen Russell’s introduction. If you’d like to listen to her read from the book, you can do that from this page too). Karen claimed that Kelly’s work transcends a librarian’s ability to catalog it. Which is nonsense. To quote one of my favorite essays “Librarians can catalog anything… They can even catalog you.” Even though we can (and do) catalog Kelly’s work, though, she is an amazing, boundary-defying writer. In addition to writing, she also is a college professor, and runs both a zine (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet) and Small Beer Press, with her husband, Gavin J. Grant.

When I learned about the story on NPR, I was inspired to revisit Kelly’s website, where I learned that Kelly and Gavin had published an ebook called Sea, Ship, Mountain, Sky. A new book I could try… I had to find it. A link sent me to Weightless Books, which I had never heard of. But it’s a pretty neat place! It’s a small, independent online bookstore, and it provides an opportunity for writers to publish things that don’t fall into established categories, for small presses to make their works available, and for readers to acquire DRM-free ebooks that can be downloaded in a variety of formats to a variety of devices. Weightless Books does appear to be selective about the authors and publishers they will accept, but also appears to be slowly expanding its offerings, and many of their titles fall into genres such as science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction and, yes, horror. It’s an interesting place to explore, and I encourage you to check it out. I think Sea, Ship, Mountain, Sky is a fantastic story, and I like the philosophy behind the site. Amazon.com is well-known, and library wholesalers capture a significant chunk of the library market. Places like Weightless Books will make it possible to fill in gaps for audiences who want to read interesting authors and books from interesting presses, that aren’t available easily in any other way.

Once again, Kelly, and Gavin J. Grant (who runs the site) rock.