Welcome to 31 Days of Horror, the annual event where I post every single day in October. And why do I do this to myself you may ask. Well, it is to help you help horror readers all year long.

While your horror fans and I know horror is a good read 12 months a year, many of you, only worry about it every time October rolls around. And I get it. There are many genres, millions of books, and very little time to sort it all out, so while I provide horror reviews and info all year long, I concentrate my efforts when everyone is paying th impost attention to horror.

I have been doing this 31 Days of Horror event since 2011. You can pull up every post in the series [in reverse chronological order] by using the 31 Days of Horror tag, or go to my Features Archive to pull up the series by year. There is a lot of good information, suggestions, resources, book lists and more using the backlist of the series to also help you help readers.

Like in past years, this first week will have a lot of intro and beginner information. I will talk about horror in general and this resource in particular. But as we move through the month I have some new original lists, many authors, library workers, and reviewers sharing why they love horror with you, and a whole bunch of Summer Scares 2020 news.

But first, I want to kick everything off with a quick "crash course" in horror from the library worker perspective. As I mentioned in this post, I am excited to share with you a resource on horror for libraries that was not created by me. In fact, that is my goal with this blog-a-thon in general. I mix information from me and others so that you can all get as wide a view of possible because I may be the most active and loud voice in the world of horror in libraries, but I am no means the only voice, nor should I be.

Let's get 2019 31 Days of Horror started right now...

Webinar: Crash Course in Horror

Does the thought of helping horror readers terrify you? Whether your readers are fans of ghost stories or horror classics, let NoveList and LibraryReads break down the best horror has to offer your readers — from found footage to final girls.

Join us as they cover:

Why horror is so popular and how libraries can ramp up the thrills and chills in their collections
How horror developed, including classics, newcomers, and awards to know
Subgenres and trends
NoveList insider information on genre headings, themes, appeal terms, and more

We welcome anyone interested to stay for an additional 15-minute training to share search strategy tips and learn where to access genre-related information in NoveList.

The webinar is now archived.

Click below to watch the recording or skip ahead to the training session that took place after the webinar.

Resources

Panelists

Gregg Winsor is a member of the LibraryReads Board of Directors and works as a Reference Librarian and Readers' Advisory Specialist at the Johnson County Library in Overland Park, Kansas. He’s presented at several regional library associations and comic book conventions, including WorldCon and BookExpo America. He’s been a horror fan ever since he stumbled across Stephen King's short story collection Night Shift at his library at a far too young and impressionable age. You can usually find him dodging a teetering pile of unread books at his desk.

Autumn Winters is Recommendations Lead at NoveList. When she's not busy ensuring that NoveList's handwritten recommendations are stellar, she maintains the Recommended Reads lists for children and teens and the Diverse Reading BookSquad email. In 1986, Autumn couldn't sleep for a year due to the combined influences of V.C. Andrews and Freddy Krueger. She ran a public library haunted house before coming to NoveList, and can vouch for the power of a fog machine and a few well-placed teen volunteers wearing masks to make people of all ages very uneasy.

Kaitlin Conner is a Readers’ Advisory Librarian at NoveList, where she selects and annotates horror and nonfiction titles for NextReads newsletters, creates recommendations content, and spearheads the Navigating Nonfiction Book Squad email. She wasn’t always a horror fan (thanks to some traumatic playacting her sister insisted upon in childhood), but now she takes to the genre with gusto like Leatherface firing up the ol’ chainsaw. She loves social commentary in her horror, final girls, and Brad Dourif’s Chucky voice. She met Grady Hendrix once and it was pretty much the highlight of her year.

Have horror fans at your library? Promote your collection with these printables.