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Book Review: 100+ Black Women in Horror Fiction by Sumiko Saulson

100+ Black Women in Horror Fiction by Sumiko Saulson

Iconoclast Productions, 2018

ISBN: 9781387587469

Available at Lulu.com in hardcover, paperback, and premium paperback, and on Amazon as hardcover, paperback, and Kindle edition.

 

February is both Women in Horror Month and Black History Month, and in 2014, author and blogger Sumiko Saulson compiled interviews and biographical sketches of black women writers who have written in the horror genre, composed for and shared on her blog, into a book titled 60 Black Women in Horror Fiction. Saulson published 100+ Black Women in Horror Fiction as an expanded edition in 2018. It includes additional, very brief entries on black women horror writers that Saulson uncovered after 2014. Entries are listed in alphabetical order and each is accompanied by website addresses for the author. Following the entries are interviews of 17 black women authors profiled in the book. Poet Linda Addison, Africanfuturist Nnedi Okorafor, and horror writers Lori Titus and Eden Royce, among others, are included in the interviews section of the book, and David Watson shares a short essay on L.A. Banks and Octavia Butler.

The book is clearly a labor of love, and even a list of black women writers of horror is needed, but unfortunately, the majority of entries do not include typical biographical information like date and place of birth, family members, and  background information. They do include a list of the author’s publications, specifically those related to the horror genre. I examined the Kindle edition, and the website links do work, but not all of them are current: a few of them are no longer in existence (unfortunately, one of them is a resource Saulson cited as using in researching and writing the book: darkgeisha.wordpress.com). It is clear that this is an expanded version– that is, new entries have been added– and not an updated one, after reading the introduction, but this is really a starting point for exploring these women’s work rather than a detailed biographical reference. There are unfortunately a number of typos and punctuation errors in the book, but they don’t interfere with the ability to understand and use what is still a unique book for reader’s advisory and for readers wanting to diversify their experience of reading horror fiction.

Saulson’s original work can also be found on her blog at sumikosaulson.com, and I highly encourage you to visit and explore her resources. There are more black women writers of horror than there were when Saulson started this project on her blog in 2013, but their writing, and recognition for it, is a part of the horror community that needs to continue to grow.

Saulson has also edited a companion volume of original short fiction by 18 black women writers of horror whose profiles are included in this book, which also came out in February of 2018, called Black Magic Women: Terrifying Tales by Scary Sisters. Stay tuned for a review later this month!

 

 

Posted on February 7, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste

The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste

Journalstone. 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1947654440

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

If there’s someone out there who is unfamiliar with Gwendolyn Kiste’s gorgeous prose of the macabre, The Rust Maidens would be a great place to start. After last year’s stellar collection, And Her Smile Will Untether The Universe, Kiste steps out with her debut novel, which rattles the soul in a disturbing, yet beautiful read.

Set in Cleveland in 1980,  this tale unwinds in a muted, depressive state that feels utterly claustrophobic, brought to life by Kiste’s exquisite, yet unobtrusive, prose. A group of girls in the neighborhood has contracted an illness that defies logic and science. What begins as something relatively innocuous, dripping water from their bodies, becomes much more dangerous and frightening: skin breaking open, revealing glass-like shards and rusted metal where bones should be. The horror is quiet here, like the best of Shirley Jackson and Charles Grant, as Kiste dissects the rotting body of the area which mirrors the internal strife of the people who live within the crumbling town.

The dual narrative of our protagonist, Phoebe, past and present, is a haunting one, as she returns home to revisit the bones of what she escaped long ago. The mystery of what happened to her best friend and cousin Jacqueline looms large over both timelines. The true antagonists of this novel are vague, and should be: the women who strive to hold power of the lives on Denton Street, the government agents who appear to investigate, the Rust Maidens themselves, the self-destruction of the town.

To give away more would strip away the power of this beautifully written novel by one of the best new writers out there today, a tale both unsettling and gut-wrenching. Kiste wraps her story in a veneer that feels like a mix of rust with the dust that has settled over the dying town, and the emotional heft between the covers weighs down on the reader like the crush of a rust-riddled steel beam, suffocating in mood but resulting in a story that begs to be read and savored. Kiste is a star, and The Rust Maidens is a slam dunk as a finalist for this year’s Stoker Award.

Highly recommended for lovers of any any genre.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

Posted on February 17, 2019 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Return of the Magazinists

Today I went back to a post I wrote some time ago on women writers of supernatural and Gothic fiction. I am sad to say that, as awesome a source of information as the Internet can be, some of the resources I linked to there now lead to “error–404” pages.A nicely done partial bibliography of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s work has disappeared (although her papers are now available through Harvard and Radcliffe, so that’s a pretty neat development), and at this time I am not able to find a single portrait or photo of Georgia Wood Pangborn. The draft introduction to a limited edition of Pangborn’s work published by Violet Ivy Press is no longer online.Even Wikipedia has little to say about her.  I did my best to update the entry and the links. While Perkins Gilman really needs no introduction, as her work has entered the canon of American literature, l’d like to reintroduce you to some women authors who haven’t received the same kind of attention– the magazinists. 

Click here to meet these talented, often-forgotten women writers of the Gothic and macabre.
Posted on February 5, 2019 by , Reply
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