Women in Horror Month: Guest Post by Rachel Hoover

Today, I am having having the blogs work in tandem to promote Women in Horror Month.

From their mission:

Every February, Women in Horror Recognition Month (WiHM) assists underrepresented female genre artists in gaining opportunities, exposure, and education through altruistic events, printed material, articles, interviews, and online support. WiHM seeks to expose and break down social constructs and miscommunication between female professionals while simultaneously educating the public about discrimination and how they can assist the female gender in reaching equality.

One of the official participants is my fellow ARRT member and Chicagoland librarian Rachel Hoover.  I asked her to let my readers know about the celebration, her blog, and the weekly project she is undertaking to celebrate the month.

Thanks to Rachel and all the great women who work in horror.

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Women in Horror Comics

by Rachel Hoover

In my blog, Librarian of the Dead, I write about the sorts of things you’d expect from such a title. Many of my posts are about the horror genre whether it’s books, comics, movies or games because I’m such a big fan of horror. But I also talk about gravestone art and cemeteries, and include any items or topics that I stumble upon as long as they’re dark, spine-chilling or have something interesting to say about our relationship with fear or death. 

I am an actual librarian in a public library, I’ve been one for about five years, but I’ve worked in libraries for something like thirteen years now. The name of the blog popped into my head one day this past Fall and made me laugh because it was strange and sort of true. Then it made me stop and seriously think about the fun I could have writing under a theme so near and dear to me, and I have ever since.

Recently I had been thinking about comics quite a bit as well as an event a friend of mine started a few years ago called Women in Horror Month, which happens every February. The goal of the event is to bring more exposure and support to women working in the horror genre. I realized that I couldn’t think of very many women who worked on horror comics. Since I’m a researcher by nature, I took to Google. After I had unearthed several names I decided to do an official project for Women in Horror Month on Women in Horror Comics.

Each Monday in February I’m featuring a female horror comic writer and/or artist on my blog, introducing the work they’ve done in the genre and then including an interview from each of them about how they got started, who or what influences them, what they’re reading and what advice they have for other aspiring comic creators. I’m really excited about the series, and I want to earn as many new fans for these women as I can, because they deserve it. The work they do is engaging, innovative, visually captivating, and all for the love of the genre and the medium. 

My first feature is on writer, letterer and editor Rachel Deering who created her own epic werewolf comic called ANATHEMA. Each following post will go up on Mondays at Librarian of the Dead, and I hope you’ll tune in to find out more!

If you don’t want to miss them you can subscribe to my blog, follow me on Twitter @rachelsstorm or keep an eye on all of the Women in Horror Month events through their website: www.womeninhorrormonth.com, Twitter @WiHmonth or Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WomenInHorrorMonth.