31 Days of Horror: Day 31-- Announcing the 2022 Summer Scares Timeline and Spokesperson

Happy Halloween!

I made it. And today we celebrate with the official beginning of year 4 of Summer Scares.

Remember Horror is a good reading option all year long.

Don't believe me. Order my the new edition of my book and use it to help your readers all the year through.

HWA ANNOUNCES SUMMER SCARES READING PROGRAM: 2022 SPOKESPERSON AND TIMELINE

The Horror Writers Association (HWA), in partnership with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Booklist, is proud to announce the fourth annual Summer Scares Reading Program. Summer Scares is a reading program that provides libraries and schools with an annual list of recommended horror titles for adult, young adult (teen), and middle grade readers. It introduces readers and librarians to new authors and helps start conversations extending beyond the books from each list and promote reading for years to come.

Summer Scares is proud to announce their 2022 spokesperson as author Alma Katsu:

"I'm thrilled to be the author representative to the Summer Scares programming committee and to have the honor of representing my fellow horror writers and be an advocate for the great writing that's being produced by the horror community. Horror is a widely-loved genre, for many readers constituting their earliest reads, whether it's R.L. Stine or Edgar Allan Poe, and so I'm happy for the opportunity to work with librarians to introduce more horror stories and new authors to their patrons."

Katsu is joined by a committee of five library workers who, together, will select three recommended fiction titles in each reading level, totaling nine Summer Scares selections. The goal of the program is to encourage a national conversation about the horror genre, across all age levels, at libraries nationwide and ultimately attract more adults, teens, and children interested in reading. Official Summer Scares designated authors will also make themselves available at public and school libraries.

The committee’s final selections will be announced on February 14, 2022, Library Lover’s Day. Katsu, along with some of the selected authors, will appear on a panel to kickoff Summer Scares at the 6^th Annual HWA Librarians’ Day, Friday May 13  during StokerCon 2022 at the Curtis Hotel in Denver, CO.

Between the announcement of the titles and the kickoff event, the committee and its partners will publish lists of more suggested titles for further reading. Official Summer Scares podcasting partner, Ladies of the Fright Podcast, will also record episodes in conjunction with Summer Scares.

Of special note is the annual Summer Scares Programming Guide, courtesy of Konrad Stump and the Springfield-Greene County Library, which provides creative ideas to engage horror readers. Centered around the official Summer Scares titles, the guide offers tips and examples for readers’ advisory, book discussions, and special programs, and enables librarians, even those who don’t read or especially enjoy the horror genre themselves, to participate in Summer Scares. As Stump notes:

“The Springfield-Greene County (MO) Library is thrilled to continue working with the HWA to produce the 2022 Summer Scares Programming Guide. We’re excited to announce that not only will 2022’s guide be enhanced through an exciting new partnership with the Horror Studies archive at Pitt University, but we will be releasing the guide earlier than ever, on March 1, so library workers have more time to plan fun and thought-provoking programs that engage their communities with horror and Summer Scares.”

To see past year’s Summer Scares titles, spokespeople, and programming guides, please visit the program archive: http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/p/summer-scares-archive.html. 

And keep your eyes peeled for more updates coming soon from Booklist, Book Riot, and United for Libraries, as well as at the HWA’s website: www.horror.org and RA for All Horror: http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/p/summer-scares.html.

Questions? Reach out to HWA Library Committee Chairs Becky Spratford and Konrad Stump via email: libraries@horror.org. 

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Summer Scares Committee Members:

Alma Katsu is the author of six novels. Her books have twice-nominated for the Stoker and Locus awards and been on best books lists at Amazon, Apple, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, among others. THE HUNGER (2018), one of last year’s Summer Scares adult picks, was named one of NPR’s 100 favorite horror stories, and won Spain’s Kelvin 505 award for best scifi/fantasy novel as well as the Western Heritage Award for best novel. THE DEEP (2020) is a finalist for the Library of Virginia’s best novel award. Her most recent work, RED WIDOW (2021), is her first spy novel, the logical marriage of her love of storytelling with her 30+ year career at CIA and NSA. RED WIDOW was selected a NYT Book Review Editor’s Choice and is in development with FOX for a TV series.

Ms. Katsu has relocated from the Washington, DC area to the mountains of West Virginia, where she lives with her musician husband Bruce and their two dogs, Nick and Ash.

Becky Spratford is a library consultant and the author of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror, third edition which was released in September of 2021. She reviews horror for Booklist Magazine, is the horror columnist for Library Journal and runs the Readers’ Advisory Horror blog, RA for All: Horror. Becky is also a member of United for Libraries and is currently serving as Secretary for the Horror Writers’ Association.

Konrad Stump is a Local History Associate for the Springfield-Greene County (MO) Library, where he coordinates local history programming and works district-wide on Big Read, ASRP, and Springfield-Greene's popular “Oh, the Horror!” series, which attracts hundreds of patrons during October. He created the Donuts & Death horror book discussion group, featured in “Book Club Reboot: 71 Creative Twists” (ALA), and co-created the Summer Scares Programming Guide. Library workers and authors who are interested in cultivating horror programming can contact Konrad at konrads@thelibrary.org for free assistance.

Carolyn Ciesla is an academic library director in the Chicago suburbs. She has worked as a teen librarian and reference librarian, and reviews horror titles for Booklist Magazine. She’s currently enjoying providing all the scary books to her teen daughter, and revisiting a few along the way.

Kelly Jensen is a former librarian who works as an Editor for Book Riot (bookriot.com), where she runs the bi-weekly "What's Up in YA?" young adult newsletter and cohosts the popular "Hey YA" podcast about young adult literature Her books include the award-winning (Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation About Mental Health and Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World, both from Algonquin Young Readers. She's also a well-known and long-time co-blogger at Stacked (stackedbooks.org). A life-long lover of all things scary, she finds herself eager to scream about horror reads for teens with those who love good thrills and chills.

Julia Smith joined the Books for Youth team at Booklist in 2015, where she is now a senior editor. Her life-long love of horror movies and middle-grade literature draws her to creepy children's stories and books with bone in the title. You can follow her at @JuliaKate32 on Twitter.

31 Days of Horror: Day 30-- The Horror Studies Collection at the University of Pittsburgh Library

Yesterday, I introduced you to Ben Rubin the Horror Studies Coordinator at Pitt. For today, I asked him to introduce all of you to the collection and its resources. He not only lets you know what they have, he actively invites all to access and use these materials.

From the middle of this essay, I wanted to pull out a quote that sums up everything Rubin [and I] want you to know about Horror, whether you are a fan or not:

"All of these efforts support a central thesis: that horror has extraordinary social and cultural value. That genre studies generally and horror studies specifically is deserving of archival preservation and academic study. That rather than treating horror as a ‘ghetto’ genre, something at the margins to be maligned, it should be taken seriously. There is a reason that horror is present throughout all of human storytelling; there is a reason it has such a dedicated and passionate fanbase. It informs the human experience by laying bare out into the light our collective and individual fears and anxieties to interrogate and understand. " 

Major thanks to Rubin for this excellent piece and for his academic support of Horror. I can think of no better way to round out this month celebrating Horror in Libraries. 

Happy Halloween Eve.

Horror Studies Collections at Pitt
by Ben Rubin

Let me open with a vignette, a scene from the archive if you will: 

I open another box to sort and inventory; an older box, clearly enjoying fresh air after many years in the basement. It’s filled with overstuffed hanging file folders, envelopes, and loose papers. Sometimes the labels are correct, sometimes not. I pull out an envelope; from the coloring and feel of the paper, I can tell it’s old, as in decades old. In marker across the front is printed “GAR Old Projects”. The envelope is sealed shut, the adhesive like concrete after so many years, so I carefully tear along the top using my pocketknife like a letter opener. The label is correct - inside are some very old treatments or short stories.  From the appearance of the paper and the typewriter’s strikes across the page, I infer late 60s to early 70s.  I can already feel excitement build as I realize I’m probably reading writings that have not been seen in decades if they were ever shared with anyone at all.  The first story starts out describing the wet pavement of the Parkway East, what Pittsburghers call the main interstate thoroughfare coming into the city from the eastern suburbs. As I read through the 5 or so short works, I come across a set of pages on lined paper, folded in half. I open them and it is a letter, writing in longhand, about the development of a new project and some ideas about casting. It ends with a four-page opening scene for a new film, to be titled Dawn of the Dead. I am astounded. I am seeing, in George’s own handwriting, his first conceptions for the legendary film. The letter is dated 1974 – fully two years before any treatment or draft script for the film.  I can’t help but wonder if I’m the first to see this letter – did he ever even send it? It has clearly been forgotten; folded and tucked away among other scripts, sealed in an envelope, and filed in a box many years (or decades) ago. Oh, and that story that started with the Parkway East? It’s an apparent early version of Martin. Untitled, but from the characters and plot, it is the earliest seed of the story. The contents of that envelope were pure gold. 

It is these moments of discovery that make archives so important. While not everyone will get the chance to open a long-forgotten envelope, anyone can discover new works and new perspectives from visiting the archive. From viewing lost works or delving into the drafts and notes of a beloved classic, one can truly begin to gain greater understanding of the creative process of the author or filmmaker; to truly grasp the bigger picture around a work for which we only know the finished product.

That goal of preserving but also illuminating the creative history of horror is why we have established the Horror Studies Collections here in Archives & Special Collections at the University of Pittsburgh Library System. Founded with the George A. Romero Collection in May 2019, it has since grown to include the papers of Linda D. Addison, Gwendolyn Kiste, Kathe Koja, Daniel Kraus, and John Russo; the records for the Viscera and Etheria Film Festivals; the archives of the Horror Writers Association; and the papers and records of William ‘Chilly Billy’ Cardille and his Chiller Theater. Most of these collections document the creative processes of their contributors. The drafts, edits, galleys, proofs, research, and press that went into the creative works. Other collections document the community and the impact the genre has had upon our culture. This history is extraordinarily rich and truly enables one to understand the development of a work and its reach. It also serves as a powerful tool for students who dream of a career in writing or filmmaking.  In addition to these collections, I have also sought to grow literary and film holdings; build an archive of horror scripts and ephemera not tied to one specific donor or creator; and find small press, special edition, and rare books. All of these contribute to building a creative history of the genre while also serving as a resource base for scholarship.  

All these items are available for consult. Our collections at Pitt are intended to be research and teaching collections. We encourage anyone to come and use and learn from our primary sources firsthand. We view that as part of our stewardship responsibility – to not just ensure their preservation and care but ensure that they are accessible to inform and inspire. We have a robust program of teaching with primary sources in which we network with faculty to bring their students to our classroom. We curate materials that match their curriculum and give students an opportunity to have a different type of learning experience. It never ceases to be heartening when we see students become excited as they handle and examine rare books and archives; to see that moment of inspiration and awe as something clicks after reading a piece of marginalia or understanding the importance of materiality when holding a book hundreds of years old. This experience is not just limited to our University community but for all researchers who wish to visit and engage with our materials. 

We have also embarked upon programming opportunities to engage both our University community and the public on topics related to the genre. The pandemic forced us move everything online, but ultimately, I think our Horror Studies Webinar Series has been hugely successful. I have had wonderful conversations with authors I admire and never dreamed of talking to as we explore their work and broader themes within the genre. We specifically framed the sessions around highlighting and recognizing diversity in horror. We plan to continue in this theme, one we call Expanding the Canon. It allows us to share with the world what so many of us steeped in the genre already know: that horror is and always has been a diverse genre both in its content and its creators.  

All of these efforts support a central thesis: that horror has extraordinary social and cultural value. That genre studies generally and horror studies specifically is deserving of archival preservation and academic study. That rather than treating horror as a ‘ghetto’ genre, something at the margins to be maligned, it should be taken seriously. There is a reason that horror is present throughout all of human storytelling; there is a reason it has such a dedicated and passionate fanbase. It informs the human experience by laying bare out into the light our collective and individual fears and anxieties to interrogate and understand.  

This project upon which we have embarked at Pitt is both exciting and ambitious. Our goal is larger than just this archive – we hope to emerge as a destination for the study of horror through the development of curriculum and eventually a Horror Studies Center that can confer certificates or degrees in the subject.  As a lifelong horror hound, it is still supremely surreal to be part of this effort and be entrusted to build and curate these collections, but incredibly edifying. At heart I’m just the bookish horror nerd that somehow finds himself immersed in the genre in a way I never thought possible. I get to privately fanboy out a bit about seeing an early draft from Romero or Koja and then share that excitement with the world.  At times it is an indescribable experience.

In closing – I invite all to come and learn from these archives; to support us if you are inclined. If you are a writer or filmmaker reading this: don’t throw your stuff away! The creative history of your work is important and represents a piece of cultural history. Think about an archive as a home for your material (need to clear out space in that spare room? We have space!).  Join us for our programming, whether as a participant or attendee, as we explore the genre. Come to Pitt to study and add to the scholarship of horror studies. And keep unashamedly contributing to and loving this gory, subversive, and wonderful genre! 

Learn more and keep in touch; one note, some of the collections mentioned above are in process with finding aids forthcoming: 

Pitt Archives & Special Collections: 

https://library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections

Ask Us Questions and Contact Us: 

https://library.pitt.edu/ask-archivist

Horror Studies Blog:

https://horrorstudies.library.pitt.edu/

Newsletter:

http://pi.tt/horrornewsletter

George A. Romero Archival Collection Finding Aid: 

https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3AUS-PPiU-SC201903/viewer

Papers of Daniel Kraus Finding Aid: 

https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3AUS-PPiU-SC202001/viewer

31 Days of Horror: Day 29-- Why I Love Horror by Ben Rubin

Today I have the last of this year's Why I Love Horror essays, and it is fitting that we end with a librarian, Ben Rubin, the Horror Studies Collection Coordinator for the University of Pittsburgh's Library System. This special collection is already the home to the archives for George Romero, Daniel Krause, Gwendolyn Kiste, Linda Addison, and the Horror Writer's Association. And Rubin is actively working to acquire more.

Rubin and the HWA will be working together in the coming months, and I for one am super excited about our collaboration. I have met with Rubin and we already have some fun things in the works, including some exciting Summer Scares collaborations for 2022. With Pitt taking on the HWA's papers there are many chances for partnerships now and well into the future. 

I not only wanted to introduce my readers to the Horror Studies Collection, but also Rubin himself. He uses his essay as a chance to really delve into the WHY part of the prompt. And come back tomorrow for all of the details about the Horror Studies Collection itself. 

Finally, don't forget, there are now 85 Why I Love Horror essays, accessible with just one click here. Reading a few of these essays is a great way for you to better understand all of the different reasons fans love this genre, a resource that is especially useful if you don't enjoy the genre yourself. 

💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Why I Love Horror
by Ben Rubin

On one level the answer to the prompt ‘why do you love horror?’ is easy (yet tautological): I just do.  There is something about the genre that resonates on a subconscious and visceral level that is difficult to put into words. I can’t really remember a time in which I didn’t enjoy horror. I recognize its elements of terror, but I don’t really remember it specifically scaring me or causing nightmares. Rather it always evoked a curiosity, a fascination, and a thrill. It is a genre that pulls you in and immerses you. The monsters, the gore, the satire, the comedy, the dread; I can’t get enough. On the intellectual level, I recognize that these aspects fit into our psychology as a species - I truly believe horror allows us to understand what it means to be human through examining our fears and anxieties. But it is also just fun and just grabs you; there isn’t a deeper meaning or justification to be had. Yet, in reflecting on this question on why I love horror, rather than trying to explain, I kept thinking of experiences (particularly from my formative years) that stood out in developing, solidifying, and deepening my love for the genre.  That perhaps recounting these would be more instructive in arriving at why I love horror. 

Growing up in the boonies of the South was the perfect place to cultivate a love for horror. The region lends itself well the genre: it is constantly haunted by the ghosts of the past begging us to remember and learn from it. It is a place steeped in legends and hauntings, many of which serve as the vehicle from which we can remember the past. A region in which to be the outsider can be dangerous and the push to conform can be suffocating. A place in which isolation can be both literal and figurative.  

The all-encompassing darkness of rural spaces becomes tangible. The sense that ‘something is out there’ becomes very real. Sure, it’s most likely just a critter– an alligator, bobcat, opossum, or raccoon – shuffling along over in the shadows; but that just meant you were quite possibly about to find yourself in a creature feature. Going outside to explore in the pitch black the backyard or the nearby woods after watching a scary movie was a thrill. You could always imagine that that twig snap you just heard or wind through the leaves was really the monster or slasher about to emerge. You could close the book at night and imagine that shadow in the corner of the room was something other than an errant item of clothing; that the glowing eyes were not the pet cat, but the monster. 

 One of the most vivid experiences with horror as a kid was from a summer camp. I know that sounds immediately cliché, but it’s true. There was a camp that I was particularly fond of as a child. It was in a museum/preserve that focused on the natural flora and fauna of the area. It had an outdoor zoo of sorts that was really just large enclosures around natural habitat with some native animals (which also meant that sightings could be rare as they had plenty of space to hide). It also had a large preserve of wetlands and old growth pine forests. The perk of being a camper was we had full range of these swamps and forests. It was a blast. There was always a down time after lunch. Sometimes it included a movie, but sometimes it was story time. It was always the same counselor telling tales and it was always scary stories. And he was a master - he had a natural gift and would spin these amazing tales of ghosts, demons, and hauntings set in the very grounds within which we spent the day prowling. I was completely enthralled. I loved his stories and hung on every word. While I might not have consciously known it at the time, I think that in hindsight it is when I started to understand the art of the story. How important the craft of storytelling is – and how well horror itself it suited to this craft.  

And if that wasn’t cliché enough, there was also the uncle who stood ready at every turn to feed and guide me through horror fandom and discovery. Whose den was full of books that he would pass along for me to take on the long drive home after a summer visit. That summer when I was 11 or 12 and he gave me my first Clive Barker book to read, and my mind was blown by the boundaries horror could push. Reading the Borderlands anthology and again having the horizons pushed and discovering a wide range of new authors to explore. Watching movies; the cult classics steeped in gore that jumped off the screen as well as the lurid VHS box. Someone who I can still talk to about the genre and share a common bond.  

There is also something about the transgressive sense of horror that appeals. Perhaps it was growing up in the Bible Belt, subject to the veracities of the evangelical throngs eagerly waiting to berate any that crossed their paths, that the embrace of all that they would find most appalling became appealing. That this atmosphere led me to embrace the extremes in multiple forms of art: namely death metal and the goriest of the splatterpunks. The very oppositional nature of these art-forms becomes a tool to defend and undermine moralists blaming your interests for all of society’s ills anyway. That ultimately the oftentimes over-the-top nature of a splatterpunk story paled in comparison to the underlying violence to be perpetrated against the outsider within the evangelical society. That in the end, knowing the horrors on the page were fiction muted their impact and served as escape against the very real horrors of everyday. An understanding that the supernatural wasn’t the real threat, but humans. But also, it was inspiring – the outsiders won. Only in horror could the scrawny, bookish nerd, with the coke-bottle glasses win and persevere against the monsters.  

So why do I love horror? Lots of reasons. It is a genre with no limits, that often embraces the absurd. One that understands the outsider and lays bare humanity. A genre that is steeped in place and history. A medium that exemplifies the craft of storytelling. But ultimately one that is just plain fun. A genre that just resonates down to one’s core and defies explanation. I mean, come on, how can you not love the monster rampaging through town leaving a trail of destruction; the bullies and closed-minded townspeople getting their comeuppance from the slasher or the demon; the over-the-top gory, bloody finale when viscera, brains, and blood abound covering everything in sight?!

31 Days of Horror: Day 28- #HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 61: Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester

It's #HorrorForLibraries giveaway day and I have a giveaway of an ARC from my October Library Journal Horror Review column. But first, 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. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. 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. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
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 #60. Our winner was Hannah from Lakewood/Smokey Point Library [WA]. 

Now on to this week's giveaway-- Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester. This titles is slated to come out January 18, 2022. It will be very popular with your fans of female driven Psychological Horror. See below for more articulation of the wide appeal of this novel.

Here is my Goodreads review which includes my draft LJ review and a link to that full review:

Review in the October issue of Library Journal: https://www.libraryjournal.com/?revie...

For fans of Christina Henry and Rachel Harrison

Three Words That Describe This Book: dueling timelines, thick unease, mental health 

What is scarier, sexism in mental health care or an actual monster? DeMeeter’s empowering, engaging, and intense Supernatural Thriller seeks an answer through alternating timelines, and brisk pacing. 2019: Lila, aged 13 is dealing with an overprotective mother, an unrequited crush on her best friend, and the murders of local teen girls. 2004: Caroline, her mother, is a young adult, facing an eerily similar serial killer, one that sets off a series of events leading Caroline to become renowned for her grotesque and critically acclaimed sculptures, get treatment for severe mental illness, and destroys her marriage. The unease is thick, pressing down on the reader as both narrators intimately share their dark secrets on the page, but struggle to share their supernatural experiences and disturbing realizations with others for fear of being labeled “crazy.” As both timelines spin out of control, past and present collide in an epic showdown that will leave readers looking over their shoulders with every dog bark they hear. 

Verdict: An obvious choice for those who like the female driven Psychological Horror of Cross Her Heart by Pinborough or The Return by Harrison, but also a good suggestion for readers who want to explore the trauma and inequalities in mental health treatment such as in The Devil in Silver by LaValle.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for sending me the ARC so I could give it away to one of you.

31 Days of Horror: Day 27 -- Feel the Fear a Free Horror Roundtable Discussion hosted by Chicago Public Library

Tonight at 6pm central I am doing a FREE, virtual, live event with Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, and Hailey Piper for the Chicago Public Library. We will be talking about Horror and announcing the Summer Scares spokesperson at the end of the event. I am going to hand the announcement duties to Summer Scares veteran Stephen Graham Jones who's Mongrels was a 2019 inaugural suggestion and who led the program in 2020. 

This is the first year we are announcing the spokesperson LIVE and I am so happy to do this in conjunction with the largest library in the country who supports the Summer Scares program. We will also be having our normal Halloween announcement here on the blog and with a press release. 

We are going to talk about the state of Horror today, but we are also going to delve into the question of why those from marginalized perspectives are writing some of the bets horror today. All three authors are proof of that. Jones and Katsu were both up for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel in May and Piper will be appearing on at least 1 year end Best Horror list that I know of [and that is because I was on that committee]. This is not a trend, by the way, and we will discuss that openly and honestly. 

Also, side note, CPL does an excellent job with virtual live events. Take a look at their YouTube page where they live stream events [as well as on Facebook] and archive them all. CPL does not require a registration for these events which I think is a great idea. You can set a reminder for Facebook and YouTube to remember so people can quasi register, but without making them physically register you eliminate troubleshooting registration links as you are trying to start an event.

See below or click here to watch us tonight. 

But before I lose your attention, tomorrow, the Oak Park Public Library [a town which touches Chicago on its eastern border] is hosting Brian Keene, another former Summer Summer Scares author, for a live event. I will be attending that one as a viewer. You can live anywhere to join that one. Click here to register.

See some of you tonight. We will be taking questions. 

Feel the Fear: A Horror Roundtable Discussion

Wednesday 

October 27, 2021

6-7 pm central

Click here to join

Get in the Halloween spirit and join a lively discussion with three of today's hottest voices in horror: Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, and Hailey Piper, moderated by local librarian and Horror expert Becky Spratford. They will talk about why they love Horror, how they bring the fear to life on the page, and what creators they seek out for their own frightening fun. This will be a casual and fun conversation where participation by the audience will be highly encouraged. As a special bonus, the evening will be capped off by the official kick off of the 2022 Summer Scares program with a LIVE announcement of this year's author spokesperson. 

For more information about Summer Scares and for librarian vetted Horror for all ages of readers please visit: http://raforallhorror.blogspot.com/p/summer-scares.html. Come spend a spooky evening with us...if you dare!

How to Attend:

This event will take place on CPL's YouTube channel and Facebook page.
Can't make it to the live stream? We'll archive the video on YouTube to watch later as well.

Accessibility

Captioning is available via YouTube's captioning service. Just turn on the captioning option.

31 Days of Horror: Day 26- Tor Nightfire's Blog: A Go To Horror Resource

Yesterday, I asked Emily Hughes to visit the blog and share her "Why I Love Horror" story. Not only did I want her to share her love of the genre with all of you, but also, I thought it would serve as a good introduction to the human behind the fantastic coverage of the genre that she is responsible for-- The  Tor Nightfire Blog.

This blog is my favorite Horror Resource right now. You can see all of my preferred resources on this permanent page on the blog in the right gutter, but this is the top one, hands down and it is run by Hughes.

Why is it my favorite? Well, a couple of reasons:

1. Hughes keeps a list of the publishing schedule for all Horror, titles-- YA to adult, big and small presses, everything. She has a master list for the entire year and reminds you at the beginning of each month what is coming that month. Click here for the 2021 list. And Hughes told me I am allowed to tell everyone that the 2022 master list will be debuting on November 15th. Also note, this is not a static list. Hughes is constantly updating it. Let her help you do your Horror collection development, I already do. And let's be real, if it is good enough for me, it is definitely perfect for you too.
2. There is a stable of regular contributors who right reviews and create annotated reading lists on various themes and trends that are emerging. There is something new and useful every single day.
3. Hughes publishes essays by writers from across the Horror landscape on this blog. Often they have a new book coming and they are writing a piece that supports their new work, sharing stories, research, or insight. 
4. Like it's partner blog for Science Fiction and Fantasy, Tor.com, Nightfire does not only write about their authors on this blog. In fact, the site goes out of its way to cover the entirety of the genre, including movies, TV shows, and games.

I saved hyping the Tor Nightfire blog as a resource for the end of the month because I want you to remember it is there all year long to help you. 

Look, I can talk until I am blue in the face about how many of your readers enjoy Horror and how you shouldn't ignore them the other 11 months of the year. But some of you will never listen to me.

However, it is hard to argue with money. And Tor Nightfire is a division of Macmillan-- one of the big 5 publishers. And they have put money behind a 100% Horror line of physical titles as well as paying Hughes to run a blog to promote the entire genre. They have also given her a budget to pay contributors to write content for her. This is not something a publisher pays for if there is not money in it. Think about that.

As we wind down October, follow the money. And that money leads to Horror and it goes right though Tor Nightfire's Blog. 

Let Hughes and her team do the works for you and use this resource to help your patrons, build your collection, and promote titles all year long. 

31 Days of Horror: Day 25: Why I Love Horror by Emily Hughes

I am pretty sure some of you had wondered once of twice during the month why I hadn't posted about Tor Nightfire at all. Well that is because I had planned to save mentioning this publisher and their amazing blog until the end of the month so that I could promote this blog as your best resource to stay up to date in the genre all the year through.

Tomorrow I will have a post all about using the Tor Nightfire blog as a resource, but first, I wanted to give a day to the amazing human who oversees that resource, Emily Hughes, and give her a chance to tell us why she loves Horror. For Hughes, it is all about how she feels the fear, and she explains it in a way that you, the reader, can feel it too. 

Take it away Emily.

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Why I Love Horror

by Emily Hughes

My therapist tells me from time to time that I really need to get out of my head. 

It’s a little jarring, maybe, to hear the person who’s supposed to help you better understand your own psyche to tell you to take a break from it, but he’s not wrong. I’m an inveterate overthinker, an anxious little rabbit with a deep-seated suspicion that I can avert catastrophe by just thinking hard enough about all the terrible things that might happen. It hasn’t worked thus far (or, I don’t know, maybe it has - I’m still here, after all), but habit is a powerful thing.

What he’s actually asking me to do is move my consciousness out of the grey pudding in my skull and into my body, paying attention to where certain feelings and experiences manifest. He’ll tell me to track where in the body I feel anxiety, anger, fear. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, it’s not dissimilar to the body scan meditation many teachers will guide you through in savasana at the end of the session (that savasana translates to “corpse pose” is neither here nor there, though I like the resonance). 

But I find it much more difficult to follow this exercise when I’m on my own, with no chaperone to talk me through it. My brain is too loud; my thoughts and worries drown out whatever it is my body is trying to tell me. I can’t manage to send my awareness to my stomach or shoulders when my mind is doing its gerbil-on-a-squeaky-wheel routine. That’s where horror comes in.

Horror is a genre that’s geared more at the body than the brain - because we experience fear physically, in the nervous system. Think of the words we use to describe something frightening: visceral, hair-raising, heart-pounding, spine-tingling, gut-wrenching, bone-chilling. It’s a sort of emotional synesthesia - input in the mind becomes output in the corporeal form. And if there’s a better mindfulness exercise than being well and truly scared shitless, I’ve yet to find it.

Horror forces me to feel, to pay close attention to how my body is processing what I’m reading or watching. The way the muscles in my back tense, starting at the base of the spine and rippling upwards. Eyebrows creeping up my forehead, shoulders bunching around my ears, goosebumps radiating outward along my arms and legs. Reading a scene of body horror, I might reflexively protect that same part of my own body. Watching a slasher movie where the killer is in the house, I’ll turn my body towards the darkened doorway, on my guard. When I’m frightened, I’m not thinking about my to-do list, or the birthday card I need to send, or whether a loved one is still mad at me over a years-old fight. I am fully in the moment, and fully in my body.

When I think of the reading experiences most formative to me as a horror lover, I can feel the echoes of those physical sensations in the memories themselves. I think of 10-year-old Emily in her bedroom, glued to a John Bellairs book, drawn in first by the eerie Edward Gorey illustration on the jacket and enticed to stay by the occult mysteries within, back pressed to my bedroom wall for protection. 24 years old, reading the gut-wrenching subway tunnel scene in Colson Whitehead’s Zone One while riding the 4 train home from work, glancing suspiciously at my fellow commuters, stomach clenched tight. 26 and working in sales at a publishing house when an editor who’d heard I liked “the weird shit” asked me to read her newest acquisition - Josh Malerman’s Bird Box - which I did in one breathless afternoon in my cubicle, disregarding the work I needed to do, wanting to whip my head around at every sound from a nearby office but finding myself too scared to do so. (I woke up with a sore neck the next day.) 32 and bent double on the couch at 2am as I devoured The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher in a single sitting, terrified to look out the darkened window on the off-chance something might be looking back.

When I’m especially stressed, I have nightmares about zombies (and, occasionally, ex-boyfriends - but I repeat myself). The physical sensation of fear I have in those dreams lingers upon waking - or, rather, it slides seamlessly into the physical sensation of stress, of responsibilities bearing down on me, of uncompleted tasks shambling along behind me, slow but inevitable. It’s an oft-repeated truth among horror lovers that “rehearsing” fear responses in a highly controlled fictional setting helps us work through the things that really bother us, mentally and emotionally - Stephen Graham Jones wrote about this for the New York Times just last week - and that’s absolutely been true for me. (A couple dozen viewings of Jaws will do wonders for a kid with a paralyzing fear of sharks.) 

The physical aspect of all this, though, is underappreciated. The parts of the brain activated by fear are the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the pre-frontal cortex, but that’s only part of the picture - the amygdala triggers physical responses ranging from pupil dilation to increased blood flow to heightened senses. It’s a full-body affair. And in a controlled setting, the pre-frontal cortex and the hippocampus mitigate the experience, telling you you’re not in any immediate physical danger. Knowing that, I, at least, can focus on the feeling, can be in my body right here, right now. 

The body keeps the score, yes, but it also keeps the scare. 

______________________

Emily Hughes wants to talk to you about scary books. As the site editor for TorNightfire.com, she's dedicated to bringing the good word about horror to the masses. You can find her writing at Tor.com, Electric Lit, Thrillist, and Brooklyn Magazine. Formerly the editor of Unbound Worlds, she now writes an occasional newsletter about horror fiction and tweets bad puns @emilyhughes.

31 Days of Horror: Day 24-- Spooky Season Links You May Have Missed Part 3

 It's Sunday and again I am back with a roundup of links and information you may have missed.

• MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno Garcia won Best Novel at the 2021 Aurora Awards, Canada's top honor for Speculative Fiction. 
• Tananarive Due published an excellent essay entitled, "On Horror and the Creations That Shape Us" via Novel Suspects
• This essay led me down a rabbit hole into the site that is Novel Suspects. I was unaware of it before now. Worth a look for Horror and especially tangential genres.
• More from Ms Due, this time in Essence as she contemplates the "Modern Black Horror Landscape"
• Because I don't have a planned post on Horror Audio Books, but I did post about podcasts yesterday, here is a reminder that you can access AudioFile's professional Horror reviews with this link.
• Related: Book Riot had a post on 8 New Witchy Audiobooks.
• Emily Hughes [who you will hear from directly on this blog next week] had a post on Tor.Com "Horror Recommendations for Every Mood." She gives an appeal set up and then provides a suggestion with why. A great tool for you as you help readers.
• If you need a review resource for independently published horror, try Forward Reviews. You can put "genre:horror" in the search box to find all of their coverage. Or just click here, as I have run the search for you.
• From Book Riot and also reflecting one of my appeal factors for why people enjoy horror, "Craving Fictional Horror to Escape Real Horror."
• Brian Keene is doing a Virtual event for the Oak Park [IL] Public Library on 10/28. Register here.

31 Days of Horror: Day 23-- Becky's #HorrorForLibraries Nonfiction Podcast Picks

Yesterday, I introduced you to the Talking Scared podcast and it's host Neil McRobert, but did you know that I have a list of my favorite Nonfiction Horror podcast picks?

They are a part of my permanent Horror Resources page, which you can always access here. But below, I have reposted just the podcast portion of that page.

After perusing it, feel free to leave a comment with your favorite Horror Resources [print, electronic, audio, whatever] on this post or that page.

Nonfiction Horror Podcasts: While there are MANY options for podcasts that deal with the genre, and I highly recommend that you spend your time listening to podcasts that work best for you, below are a few of my personal favorites. These podcasts break down the Horror genre, talk to its practitioners, and break down the books and movies. You want to know about as many books as possible-- listen to any one of these.

• Booked: After 10 years, they have amassed a database of hundreds of interviews with horror authors and reviews of titles. With a two person team you are able to get multiple perspectives on the same title, titles you can “listen about” allowing you to be able to suggest them to your patrons with confidence without ever reading them for yourself. Booked is an excellent time saver for both  collection development and readers’ advisory, and with their long history, you can find great backlist suggestions that might otherwise just be languishing on the shelf.

• Books in the Freezer: A virtual book club where they discuss horror fiction with both reverence and a sense of humor. The two person team of a man and a woman are readers first and genre fans second, so their insight is quite useful to the library worker. The title refers to the pop culture reference that if a book scares you too much you should hide it in the freezer. 

• The Ladies of the Fright: Two time winner of the This is Horror Award, Lisa and Mackenzine  provide a more scholarly approach to the genre as they take deep dives into the genre, its history, seminal works, and tropes such as an entire episode about werewolves in horror fiction. This podcast is also the official podcast partner for Summer Scares.

• Talking Scared: Hosted by Neil McRobert, this British podcast is conversation based. Each episode is a dialog between the host and the author of a current book. McRobert breaks down the appeal and themes of the book with the author. This would be my top choice for understanding the most popular, current titles. McRobert does the work for you so that you can hand out these books, with confidence, to their best reader. 

• This is Horror: See above in the web resources section. 

31 Days of Horror: Day 22-- Why I Love Horror by Talking Scared Podcast Host Neil McRobert

Talking Scared is one of the newer nonfiction Horror podcasts out there, but it has quickly emerged as one of the best for you, the library worker. Why? Because host Neil McRobert uses each episode to have a conversation with the author of a current, popular Horror book. While in conversation, McRobert breaks down the appeal and themes of the book with the author there. He gets to the heart of why someone would want to read this book without any spoilers. You don't have to read these books  if you listen to this weekly podcast. McRobert does the work for you, so that you can hand out these books with confidence to their best reader.

Click here for a list of episodes. You will notice immediately that most of these titles are the same ones I have reviewed for LJ or Booklist. He is discussing the titles you need to know about.

Tomorrow, I will have a longer list of Nonfiction Horror Podcasts that I recommend you use as a resource to educate yourself and help readers, but I didn't just invite McRobert because of his podcast. He is also an academic, with a PhD in Gothic Literature. As someone who has spent years studying Horror and as a fan, I felt like his perspective and love of Horror was important to share with you. 

And as you will see below, I was correct.

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Why I love horror – Neil McRobert

I have always had a macabre mind. Tell me your holiday plans and I’ll picture a plane crash. A noise in the night? I assume ghosts, killers, then rats – in that specific order.  

It would shock nobody, then, if I were to say that horror is baked into my bones. After all, not only did I study the genre for more years than my mind or finances could really handle, I also devote days of each week to reading, researching and interviewing guests for the podcast. My friends know me as the person who knows horror and most of my family think I’m anything from mystifyingly odd to downright worrying. 

So, yeah, I’m the horror guy. The man who revels in the darkest things imaginable.

Except… I’m not.

Whoah, hold your headless horsemen. There is no need to rescind my goth credentials. I do love horror. Of course I do. From my earliest reading I’ve been drawn to the shadowy side of the page. When Enid Blyton sent her children out on adventures, it was always the midnight coves and the single gaslit window in the ruined tower that caught my attention. Between the ages of eight and twelve I read every Point Horror book available, forever enshrining R.L. Stine as a true king of the genre. At eleven I devoured James Herbert’s The Rats just as gleefully as the titular rodents devoured that poor baby. And the horror films… oh the sweetly sick, gloriously irresponsible era that was the early 90s, when video stores laid out their wares like trinkets in some old Arabian tale. Pick one, and you may be forever changed, for better, or worse – you could not know in advance. Even now, nearly 30 years after seeing Tina torn apart by invisible hands in the first A Nightmare on Elm Street, I can still feel the flutter of a long-subdued panic in my stomach. 

My life, and my various neuroses, have been shaped by confrontations with horror; each key moment bouncing me onwards in a zigging and zagging course, reeling in fear but rushing headlong toward the next impact. A pinball game of terror and anxiety and distress … that I just keep playing!

But, looking back now, I can see that it was never the actual horror that did it for me. It has never been the blood, or the pain, or the misery, or even the monsters that keep me coming back to the table and feeding in my coins. No, my love for the genre – I have come to realise – is based on something else. Something that is rare, and getting rarer. And to fully explain what it is and why I love it, I need to talk about three people who taught it to me.

The first, unsurprisingly, is Stephen King. Don’t roll your eyes; I know it’s a cliché and I know that the wealth of attention given to King has perhaps stymied the careers of other writers, and I know that he spins his wheels on occasion, and there’s that great Family Guy joke about how he could write about a scary lamp if he wanted to. I know, I know, I know. But nonetheless, he remains the great chronicler of dark modernity; the poet laureate of a haunted America. Those who love his books do so with a fervent, childlike adoration that will brook no criticism. Those who don’t make complaints of style and pacing and naivety, and they sound, quite frankly, like idiots (yes, I’m in the first camp.)

King’s strength isn’t in style or structure. Neither, in the end, is it in horror. 

He has created a pantheon of pop-culture monsters all of his own, but each of them is only a different mask pulled over the same chaos. It’s the thing that stands against the darkness that matters. Call it goodness, or heroism or, using King’s own lexicon, The White or Gan. In King’s novels and in all the other horror that I love, it’s what moves me, to tears as often as shivers. 

Take IT for example. My favourite book. Most people remember it for Pennywise, the child-killing clown. Not me, and not, I suspect, many of the other people who have taken it into their hearts. For me, IT is no more about a clown than Jaws is about a shark. It’s about bravery and friendship and loyalty and, yes, despite all the darkness held within, it’s about joy. 

And love, always love.

Now, you may say, if you want all that stuff, go read a romance. But all that stuff only works for me when the stakes are high enough to prompt a scream. Some naval-gazing narcissus can write about sex in the ruins of late capitalism, or a dying marriage in the postmillennial suburbia, but are you going to try to convince me that is a story? Compared to Roland’s search for the tower, or Bill Denbourough’s race against the devil, or Lisey in the twilit land of Boo’ya Moon? 

Good luck. 

Widen the net and it still applies. Whether it’s Paul Tremblay and the heartbreak of A Cabin at the End of the World, or the restrained sadness that haunts Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger, or any number of other great books by great authors, the horror hits hardest when it’s up against its own opposite. 

It’s not all fantasy though. The horror that I love can be found in the most mundane places. Which brings me to my second inspiration. It’s an odd one this, horror fans, you won’t have guessed it.

Bruce Springsteen. 

I was sixteen when I first heard The Boss and there is no other moment that I can so singularly distinguish as a turning point in my life. There are windows of time – maybe years, maybe days, or maybe just the single perfect hour – when you hear a song and it changes you. I heard ‘Thunder Road’ and ‘The River’ and beneath the drums and Clarence’s yowling sax I could feel the sadness. “Is a dream a lie, if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?” 

What’s this got to do with horror, you may ask. Well Springsteen’s music became the secondary bedrock for my understanding of American horror. It’s the other side of King’s coin, where all the same rottenness and brutality is exposed, but freed of its ghostly hues. Springsteen’s stories (because they are stories) are deeply Gothic and they inspire me and scare me all once. Desperate men, lonely women, working on a dream that may be always a lie. But again, there is such heart to them, shoring up against the night. 

And then there is the third person. That one is simple. My dad.

He wouldn’t understand it in these terms but my dad is a great lover of stories. We have always bonded over them. My earliest memories are of sitting around our kitchen table (an ugly piece of garden furniture we’d repurposed) talking about myths and legends and monsters. I knew about bigfoot before I went to school. It was my dad who informed me (with a childlike glint in his eye) that there are reports of dinosaurs deep in the Congo. He told me the story of Sawney Bean with relish when I was far too young, and eagerly watched The Hills Have Eyes decades later when I explained it was based on the same tale.

In short, my dad told me stories that tended towards the haunted and the horrific, wonderfully, inappropriately so.

  

In each of those stories there was someone or something fighting back. The underdog, up against some hideous minotaur or whatever beast is currently slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. Horror presents that Goliath battle better than any other genre. 

As grandiose as all this sounds, I’ll puncture it with mine and my dad’s favourite moment in horror. At the end of Dog Soldiers Private Spoon is facing certain death at the mouth of a werewolf. He looks the beast in the face and dies with some of cinema’s most immortal last words.

“I hope I give you the shits!”

Cue audience laughter. But there is something more there too, a quiet, understated bravery that all of my favourite horror stories evoke. Through all the years since, in all my own fear and worry, it’s an example that has kept me going. 

That’s what I love about horror, in the end – that it puts people to the test. It rarely leaves them undamaged or without scars, but in the final pages of the books I love, there they are. In Bruce’s words “they reach for their moment and try to make an honest stand.” In King’s, “The place where you made that stand never mattered. Only that you were there...and still on your feet.” 

My dad agrees. He told me so in stories. 

31 Days of Horror Day 21: #HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 60-- Days of the Dead: A Year of True Ghost Stories

It's #HorrorForLibraries giveaway day and I have a MUST BUY finished copy of a nonfiction title courtesy of the publisher. But first, 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. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. 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. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
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 #59. Our winner was Patrick from the Arapahoe Library District [CO]. 

Today I am offering Days of the Dead: A Year of True Ghost Stories by Sylvia Shults who you heard from yesterday.

Three Words That Describe This Book: true haunting, immersive, fun

This book is as advertised and even better than the hook promises it will be. As Shults says in her introduction, "Ghosts are with us, every single day." That hook is intriguing and seducing to those who love Horror.

She then gives us an example, a ghost story tied to every single day of the year. These stories are from all over the world, and across the entire time span of human storytelling. 

Using her 20+ years of paranormal research, Shults presents these true ghost stories in context, giving you the date, obviously, but also the place and year.  Even though readers are jumping around time and space, Shults unites it all with her solid writing. It reads as if she took each day as a new challenge to hook the reader immediately. 

I started reading this book thinking, oh I will read a few days in January and then skip around reading a few days in each month, but I was hooked and when I looked up, I was through all of January. 

The stories are compelling on their own. I got fully immersed in each story. But also don't underestimate the fun here. There is a story for every meaningful day in your patron's lives. They can use this to look up a scary tale for their birthday, the birthday of a loved one, an important event int heir lives, etc... Honestly, you need a copy of this book to circulate in your paranormal sections AND one in reference, for you and your patrons to consult as a calendar of days. You can use it as a prompt for displays or social media posts or to prank your co-workers on their birthdays. 

The uses for this book are endless, but again, it is also a solid nonfiction Horror on its own. 

Thank you to Haunted Road Media for donating a copy of this library friendly paranormal nonfiction title to me to giveaway to you. Consider ordering this title for your collections. Trust me, your patrons will LOVE it. And since it has a story for every single day of the year [even Leap Day] it can be incorporated into displays and promotions all year long.

And check out the other library friendly titles from Haunted Road Media. You will not be disappointed.