Announcing the 5th Annual HWA Librarians' Day at StokerCon 2021

 Today I am announcing the lineup for the 5th Annual StokerCon Librarians Day. This year Librarians' Day is included in the price of attending the full StokerCon. For $75 [which is usually the price for just Librarians' Day] you will have access to all programming from May 20-23. 

But specifically, Librarians' Day is set. The schedule is below. Click here to signup today.

And finally, a thank you to returning sponsors NoveList and LibraryReads.

I really hope to see you there. We have worked in tons of networking time, breaks, and of course, learning. 

5th Annual StokerCon Librarians Day

May 21, 2021

10am - 7pm Eastern

Click here to signup: https://hopin.com/events/stokercon

• $75 gets you access to the entirety of StokerCon, not just Librarians' Day

All on one stage. 30 minutes between panels to network and chat with the authors or just take a break.

10-11 The Appeal of a Good Scare: Moderated by Becky Spratford  -- Tim Waggoner, Grady Hendrix, V Castro, Jessica Guess, John Fram, Emily Hughes [Nightfire]

11:30-12:30  Thrilling Communities with Chilling Experiences: Konrad Stump, Moderator; John Edward Larson, All Access Con;  Alex Giannini, Westport [CT] Library; Evelyn Gathu, Crystal Falls [MI] District Library; Corey Farrenkopf, Sturigs [MA] Library

1-2 Meet the 2020 Diversity Grant Recipients: Linda Addison, Moderator, Jacqueline Dyre, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Gabino Iglesias, Nicole Givens Kurtz, Tejaswi Priyadarshi, Sumiko Saulson

2:30-3:30: Meet the Press: Omnium Gatherum: Konrad Stump, Moderator. Lee Murray, Lisa Morton, Kate Maruyama, Donna JW Munro, S. Alessandro Martinez

4-5:  Totally Bloodless Horror Promotion: Moderated by Lila Denning: Ally Russell [Nightfire blog and Instagram], Ladies of the Fright, Adam Cesare, Cameron Chaney [Librarian and YouTuber].

5:30-6:30: The Scary Truth About Horror Reviews: Sadie Hartmann, moderator. Emily Vinci [Library Journal], Silvia Moreno-Garcia [Washington Post], Gabino Iglesias [NPR and others] Beth Griffith [Night Worms], Nina James [NIght Worms].

Summer Scares 2021 Author Panels: Adult moderated by Konrad Stump, YA moderated by Becky Spratford, Middle Grade moderated by Julia Smith:

• These three pre-taped panels, debuting at the event but available after on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE13ETUUd_upHroDXS2yh2A 

• For more information about the Summer Scares program: http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/p/summer-scares.html 

Don’t forget to check out the 4th Annual Librarians’ Day, currently available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgpoctHeIrvwI7dRO25rKoTwOLtuvastm

Librarians Day is sponsored by:

Cynthia Pelayo in Conversation with Chicago Public Library

I am a bit behind in posting this, but the Chicago Chapter of the Horror Writers' Association recently sponsored an event with the Chicago Public Library to celebrate the release of Cynthia Pelayo's Children of Chicago which I gave a STAR in Library Journal. 

Click here or on the image below to watch this great conversation. Feel free to share it with your patrons too.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway # 36: Whisper Down the Lane

  It's #HorrorForLibraries Giveaway day. Here is a refresher on the basic rules to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that  week.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here to see giveaway #35. Our winner was Pam from Bedford [MA] Free Public Library.

Now onto to this week and an ARC of one of the most hotly anticipated Horror titles of this Spring: Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman. I gave it a full glowing review here, but for the lazy among your, here are the highlights of that post:

Professor Howdy, the school rabbit, disemboweled and spread out ritualistically on the school soccer fields, opens Chapman’s (The Remaking) deeply unsettling and unputdownable novel which mines the real trials that launched the Satanic Panic of the 1980s for inspiration. Told from two, alternating first person perspectives, Richard in 2013 and Sean in 1983, readers follow Sean’s gut wrenching experiences as one of the defendants in those trials and Richard, who is living with the repercussions of those events in the future, repercussions that are coming back from the grave to rear their demonic head and punish him. Readers can tell from the start that Ricahrd is hiding important information and yet, he draws them in, urging an uneasy and discomforting emotional participation in both stories. When the dots between the narratives begin to connect, that’s when the terror unspools, spilling all over the page. Creepy and engaging, this is a tale for readers who enjoy true crime like We Believe the Children by Richard Beck, horror like My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, and intensely, disorienting psychological suspense where what is real and what is imagined blur beyond recognition like Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.

Three Words That Describe This Book: engaging, intensely unsettling, dual narratives

The novel comes out on 4/6/21. I am sure most of you have ordered this Quirk Books title for your collections already. If you haven't go fix that. 

And in the meantime, while you wait, enter for a chance to win this title or one of my upcoming #HorrorForLibraries giveaways.

I have copies of the upcoming Stephen Graham Jones, Grady Hendrix, and Caitlin Starling coming soon, as well as a few excellent titles by up and coming authors. You don't want to miss out. Enter today and you are entered going forward.

Good luck!

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway #35: Horror Adjacent Titles

 The #HorrorForLibraries Giveaway is back today. Here is a refresher on the basic rules to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that  week.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here to see giveaway #34. Our winner was Megan from Loudoun County [VA] Public Library.

Now on to this week. I have two horror adjacent titles, one backlist and one upcoming, but both excellent titles for readers who want to experience the feelings of horror but aren't quite sure they are ready for a full out creature feature.

The first is a title you  all have already in your collections, Room by Emma Donoghue. This copy is courtesy of the publisher as part of my part in the process of this book's choice as the One Book, One Community for Schaumburg Township District Library. You can watch me interview Ms Donoghue for an hour at this link.

The second book is an ARC courtesy of Sourcebooks, a buzzy Southern Gothic coming out on 4/6, The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustain. Here is the back cover copy: 

Murder breaks through the racial divide that separates two teenage girls, forging an unlikely friendship in this Southern debut that’s perfect for fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and If the Creek Don’t Rise

Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her unbearable life on the swamp, and to her harsh father in Mississippi. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father.

Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle. She forms a plan to go north, to pack up the secrets she's holding about her life in the South and hang them on the line for all to see.

As the two girls are drawn deeper into a dangerous world of bootleggers and moral corruption, they must come to terms with the complexities of their tenuous bond and a hidden past that links them in ways that could cost them their lives.

I am very  excited about this book. It is a novel that captures all of the atmosphere of horror but without the supernatural elements. You all know I LOVED The Boatman's Daughter by Andy Davidson. While The Girls in the Stilt House is not that exceptional it is VERY good and is an excellent readalike to the Davidson. Mustain's novel will be enjoyed by a wide range of readers. Get your orders in now and enter to win this 2 pack of horror adjacent titles.

Good luck

2021 Splatterpunk Award Nominees

2 weeks ago, the 2021 Splatterpunk Award Nominees were announced. The full press release is below,  but before I post that, here are three important points for library workers specifically. 

First, Extreme Horror is a huge trend in Horror right now, especially the "Splatter Western." Some library workers shy away from the term "Splatterpunk" thinking it will be "too extreme" for a general collection. To this I say no on two fronts. 1. Do you have erotica in your collections? I don't actually need you to answer because I know the answer is yes. If you carry Erotica, you can carry Extreme Horror. and 2. These are the VERY BEST of the subgenre, so you have a "resource" to back up your purchase.

Second, the biggest growth in this subgenre is from women and people of color. 

Third, I am on the record as saying that Awards Lists make for the very best RA Tool. I keep a permanent page of the Horror Awards I trust in the right gutter of this blog.

Now, here is the 2021 Splatterpunk Award Nominees official press release:

February 17, 2021

Best-selling authors and Splatterpunk Award founders Wrath James White and Brian Keene are proud to announce the nominees for the 2021 Splatterpunk Awards, honoring superior achievement for works published in 2020 in the sub-genres of Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror.

The nominees are recommended by readers, fans and peers. The nominees are as follows.

BEST NOVEL

1. Pandemonium by Ryan Harding and Lucas Mangum (Death’s Head Press)
2. Tome by Ross Jeffery (The Writing Collective)
3. Dust by Chris Miller (Death’s Head Press)
4. Slaughter Box by Carver Pike (Self-Published)
5. Gone To See The River Man by Kristopher Triana (Cemetery Dance Publications)
6. They All Died Screaming by Kristopher Triana (Blood Bound Books)
7. The Magpie Coffin by Wile E. Young (Death’s Head Press)

BEST NOVELLA

1. The Slob by Aron Beauregard (Self-Published) *
2. Bella’s Boys by Thomas R. Clark (Stitched Smile Publications)
3. Juniper by Ross Jeffery (The Writing Collective)
4. Red Station by Kenzie Jennings (Death’s Head Press)
5. True Crime by Samantha Kolesnik (Grindhouse Press)
6. The Night Silver River Run Red by Christine Morgan (Death’s Head Press)
7. How Much 2 by Matt Shaw (Self-Published)

BEST SHORT STORY

1. “The Incident at Barrow Farm” by M. Ennenbach (from Cerberus Rising, Self-Published)
2. “Full Moon Shindig” by Patrick C. Harrison III (from Visceral: Collected Flesh, Death’s Head Press)
3. “Phylum” by Tom Over (from The Comfort Zone and Other Safe Spaces, NihilismRevised)
4. “Footsteps” by Janine Pipe (from Diabolica Britannica, Keith Anthony Baird)
5. “Next In Line” by Susan Snyder (from Devour the Earth, Madness Heart Press)
6. “My Body” by Wesley Southard (from Midnight In the Pentagram, Silver Shamrock Publishing)
7. “The God In The Hills” by Jon Steffens (from The God In the Hills, Filthy Loot Press)

BEST COLLECTION

1. War of Dictates by John Baltisberger (Death’s Head Press)
2. Cerberus Rising by M. Ennenbach, Chris Miller and Patrick C. Harrison III (Self-Published) **
3. The Essential Sick Stuff by Ronald Kelly (Silver Shamrock Publishing)
4. Rhapsody In Red by Peter Molnar (Stitched Smile Publications)
5. Visceral: Collected Flesh by Christine Morgan and Patrick C. Harrison III (Death’s Head Press) ***
6. The Comfort Zone and Other Safe Spaces by Tom Over (NihilismRevised)
7. Blood Relations by Kristopher Triana (Grindhouse Press)

BEST ANTHOLOGY

1. Chew On This edited by Robert Essig (Blood Bound Books)
2. Brewtality edited by K. Trap Jones (The Evil Cookie Publishing)
3. Welcome To the Splatter Club edited by K. Trap Jones (Blood Bound Books)
4. Worst Laid Plans edited by Samantha Kolesnik (Grindhouse Press)
5. Crash Code edited by Quinn Parker (Blood Bound Books)
6. If I Die Before I Wake Vol. 3: Tales of Deadly Women and Retribution edited by R.E. Sargent and Steven Pajak (Sinister Smile Press)

7. Psi-Wars: Classified Cases of Psychic Phenomena edited by Joshua Viola (Hex Publishers)

* Qualifies due to being significantly revised from its original edition.

** Qualifies as a collection, rather than an anthology.

*** Qualifies as a collection, rather than an anthology.

A panel of judges composed of professionals, critics and scholars in the field will now begin the process of reading each nominated work, and selecting a winner for each category. Winners will be announced at KillerCon, taking place in Austin, Texas this August. If national health concerns prevent a physical convention, then the winners will be announced in an online ceremony instead.

In addition to the winners, author and editor John Skipp will receive the annual J. F. Gonzalez Lifetime Achievement Award honoring his significant contributions to the sub-genres of Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror. Previous recipients are David J. Schow, David G. Barnett and Edward Lee.

Three notes of interest regarding this year’s awards:

While each category normally has five nominees (six if there is a tie), press will note that each category for this year contains seven. That is due to the overwhelming response in recommendations from the public this year. More new readers were engaged with Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror in 2020, leading to an increase in public response. As such, Wrath and Brian decided to extend the nominees to seven for each category, to better serve the community.

Building on a trend we pointed out in 2019, this year saw a continued significant increase in the number of women and authors who identify as female writing Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror. The recommendation process evidenced readers and fans mentioning a number of new female voices.

Splatter Westerns (which combine elements of Splatterpunk or Extreme Horror with the traditional Western genre) were clearly a favorite among readers in 2020, as evidenced both in the nominees and in the recommendations.

Press inquiries can be sent to Wrath James White or Brian Keene