HWA's Statement on Maus and Other Banned Books

 

Statement on Maus and Other Banned Books The Horror Writers Association condemns banning books in no uncertain terms. We believe authors need to be able to tell their stories without fear of reprisal. The banning of “Maus” in a Tennessee school district, which was done on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is nothing less than censorship and anti-Semitism. "Maus'' is not the first text to be excluded from school libraries. Recently, LGBTQ+ texts have been banned in a Washington state school district, and many other books by authors of color have been censored in districts across America. These are chilling examples of censorship, racism, anti-Semitism, and white washing. We all need to be more vocal each and every time this happens. These actions set a dangerous precedent in a free society. They cannot and should not be tolerated. The HWA condemns all attempts at censorship, particularly these obvious attempts of the establishment to silence marginalized voices. We urge you to speak out in your local communities against such autocratic tactics that not only threaten our creative community but also make our world less safe. Signed, The HWA's Officers and Board of Trustees

COME CELEBRATE MIDDLE GRADE HORROR ALONGSIDE THE HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION via Tor NIghfire

This is the title of a great article about the current state of Middle Grade Horror by Ally Russell on the Tor Nightfire Blog. Click here to read it.

Also don't forget, the Summer Scares program where we have 3 years (soon to be 4) of 3 Middle Grade [and adult and YA] vetted horror tiles that are perfect for all Horror library collections. 

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 70: Two Books in One Shot

This week's #HorrorForLibraries giveaway features two books. One, a novel I reviewed in the January issue of  Library Journal and one, a story collection  by one of the hottest voices in Horror right now. Details below, but first, how 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 #69. Our winner was Tracy from Lincoln [NE] City Libraries. Now on to today's giveaway.

First up, The Doloriad by Missouri Williams, a debut novel. From my Library Journal draft review as posted on Goodreads here:

A climate disaster has wiped out civilization and poisoned the land. The Matriarch and her brother have tried to restart humanity, on the edge of a ruined city, but now two generations into an incestuously created family, things are looking worse, not better. In the hopes of connecting with other survivors, the Matriarch sends out her legless, mute daughter Delores, as a marriage offering. However, after Delores rolls herself back home, all semblance order begins to unravel, except for the constant in their lives-- an old TV show, Get Aquinas In Here, featuring the medieval Saint facing ethical dilemmas. This disquieting story of survival meant to evoke a visceral and uncomfortable reaction in the reader is enhanced further by an eerily detached omniscient narration, revealing intimate and depraved details, and an uneasy physical layout of long unbroken paragraphs. Nods to human storytelling traditions from the Old Testament to Greek Epics to Shakespearre anchor this shocking tale to a terrifyingly possible near future.

Verdict: While not for everyone, this deeply unsettling, odd story will have readers alternating between overwhelming disgust and an inability to stop thinking about what it all means. Fans of critically acclaimed, macabre tales like Tinfoil Butterfly by Moulton and The Seventh Mansion by Meijer will find a kindred spirit here.

Three words that describe this book: macabre, shocking, deeply unsettling

This title comes out on March 1, 2022. This copy is an ARC courtesy of the publisher MCDxFSG Originals. 

The second title is a book I bought with my own money, The Strange Thing We Become: And Other Dark Tales by Eric LaRocca. Click here to read my friend and colleague, Emily Vinci's Star Library Journal review of this collection. 

I am about to start reading LaRocca's upcoming book for review in the April issue of Library Journal and he just made the Stoker Preliminary Ballot for his novella, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, so I was thinking about this collection already. But why give away my personal copy? Well, because this edition is now out of print as a new edition from a larger publisher is going to be put out soon. If I want libraries to add LaRocca's books, I have to hand mine over. 

This is a finished copy and I am urging the winner to add it to their collection.

Good luck to all.

RUSA CODES Reading List: 2022 Horror Winners

One of my favorite library worker based awards I the RUSA CODES Reading List awards. From the site:

Established in 2007 by the CODES section of RUSA, The Reading List seeks to highlight outstanding genre fiction that merit special attention by general adult readers and the librarians who work with them.

The Council, which consists of twelve librarians who are experts in readers’ advisory and collection development, selects one book from each of eight different categories. The eight genres currently included in the council’s considerations are adrenaline titles (suspense, thrillers, and action adventure), fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, and relationship fiction. However, the Council is constructed in such a way to be adaptable to new genres and changes in contemporary reading interest.

This year's winners are not up on the awards page website yet, but the announcement can be found here. As it says above there are 8 categories-- all genre based! Each category has a winner. That titles gets an annotation [which you can use to book talk the title to a patron] and 3 readalikes. There is also a short list of other titles as well. And Horror is its own category.

This means that for each of the 8 categories you have 8 titles that you can trust for each genre. That is 64 genre titles at your fingertips just this year alone! And then, take into account that the Award homepage goes back to 2014, and, well, try not to explode with genre resource happiness.

Also, it is VERY important to note that these are genre titles picked NOT by genre specialists, rather by general adult services librarians. That's what I love about this list. It reflects what is most appealing to a wide audience, not just hard core fans of each genre.

So what you are getting in terms of Horror is an excellent overview of MUST buy titles, ones that will resonate with a wide audience. 

Click through to look at the current genre award winners. And then go to the main Reading List web page for backlist access back to 2014. Just a quick perusal of these lists will give you a sense of where Horror is right now.

And last, but not least, I am reposting the entire Horror entry below, with links to my reviews because I have reviewed every single one of these titles in the last year:

Horror

Winner
“Nothing But Blackened Teeth” by Cassandra Khaw (A Nightfire Book, published by Tom Doherty Associates)

A wedding party camped in a crumbling Japanese mansion falls prey to their own creeping dread and the encircling yōkai–hungry inhabitants led by a ghostly bride. She was buried alive long, long ago, and she has been lonely.

Read-alikes: “The Ring” by Kōji Suzuki, “Night of the Mannequins” by Stephen Graham Jones; “It Will Just Be Us” by Jo Kaplan

Short List
“The Death of Jane Lawrence: A Novel” by Caitlin Starling (St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group)
“My Heart is a Chainsaw” by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.)
“Near the Bone” by Christina Henry (Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC)
“This Thing Between Us: A Novel” by Gus Moreno (MCD x FSG Originals, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 69: Sundial by Catriona Ward

This week's #HorrorForLibraries giveaway features the hotly anticipated, new novel by the author of one of the unanimous BEST Horror titles of 2021.Details below, 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 #68. Our winner was Katie from Bloomingdale [IL] Public Library. Now on to today's giveaway.

As I teased to above, one of last year's most beloved horror novels was The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward. Her second novel with Tor Nightfire, Sundial, comes out in March. My review ran in the January 1 & 15 issue of Booklist. You can see my draft review with more information here.

Today I have a copy of that novel, courtesy of the publisher for one of you as well as an enamel pin from the marketing swag for The Last House on Needles Street.

Remember, if you enter once, you stay entered going forward. 

Good luck.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 68: Mestiza Blood by V. Castro

This week's #HorrorForLibraries giveaway features one of my favorite Horror authors, V. Castro. Her 2021 novella Goddess of Filth, made my personal and Library Journal's 2021 best lists, and it is a book I still think about even a year after I first read it. This month, Castro has her first story collection coming out from Flame Tree Press and they have given me a copy to give away to you. Details below, 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 #67. Our winner was Jo from NYPL. Now on to today's giveaway.

I reviewed Mestiza Blood in the January issue of Library Journal. Here is my draft review:

Castro returns after a very busy 2021 with her first collection of violent, erotic, and visceral tales driven by vengagance and featuring familiar Horror themes, reinvigorated by an application of the Chicana perspective. The opening story, “Night of the Living Dead Chola,” sets the tone perfectly, as a murdered woman rises from the dry Rio Grande River bed, to seek revenge on the living. Castro continues to unveil horrors both real and supernatural, written in language that is simultaneously brutal and beautiful, engaging all five senses into sentences that make the characters fly off the page and into the reader’s brain, where they lodge, forcing all to think about the larger, real world implications at the core of every monstrous encounter. Because Castro’s prose shines brighter the longer she monopolizes the reader’s attention, the decision to close the book with the two longest and strongest stories, “Truck Stop” and “The Final Porn Star,” makes for a satisfying conclusion. 

Verdict: This collection provides an excellent introduction to Castro’s style of unflinchingly raw, unapologetically sexy, and unsettlingly realistic supernatural Horror. While not every reader will love every story equally, taken together this is a solid volume of terrifying, thought provoking, and fun tales. Readers seeking more should seek out the work of Gabino Iglesias and Cynthia Pelayo.

Everything Castro writes should be on library shelves. Thankfully, her last two books are with Flame Tree Press who have distribution through S&S, so they are easy to acquire through your normal channels.

Castro also is committed to giving back to the Horror community and has served on the HWA's Diversity Grant Selection Committee for its first 2 years. She will be appearing at StokerCon Librarians' Day to talk about the experience and co-moderate a panel with the current grantees.

Order this collection today and enter the giveaway for this ARC which I read to write the above review. Thank to Flame Tree Press, one of my preferred Horror Independent Presses, for their commitment to working with libraries.

Good luck!

Resource Alert: The Lineup

 I started writing for a new outlet that I am excited to let all of you know about. It's called The Lineup and friend of RA for All, author, and Summer Scares podcast partner Lisa Quigley is their new Senior Editor. 

She asked me to write a 2021 Year in Horror wrap up piece. You can read that here. But the point of this post is to introduce you to the resource itself because Quigley is working very hard to make the content responsive. It is not only a place for you to go to stay up to date on Thrillers, True Crime, and Horror, but it is also a great resource to pass on to your patrons for their own use. 

I often write [and lecture] about how we should be using resources geared toward the book professionals and those geared at the average reader in tandem. This is a great example of an excellent reader focused resource.  

But enough from me, I asked Quigley to introduce her site to you since she knows it best. Take it away Lisa...

I am so excited to be back on RA for All! In October of 2021, I took up the helm as Senior Editor of The Lineup (and sister site Murder & Mayhem.) The Lineup aims to be a premier destination for fans of all things creepy—from horror books and films, to unsolved true crime cases, to bizarre paranormal events. We publish everything from highbrow literary think pieces to fun Internet memes, all in the name of sharing our dark interests with fellow enthusiasts.

My aim as Senior Editor is to have fun, as well as mix up entertainment with ideas that challenge readers to question the status quo—much like the horror genre itself! In addition to all our horror faves, I want the space to be a platform to uplift the wide array of emerging, diverse, and innovative authors horror (and adjacent genres) have to offer—all while having a total blast. Another area of focus for me is bringing in freelancers with their finger on the pulse of horror, true crime, and paranormal—people like Sadie Hartmann aka Mother Horror, Gabino Iglesias, and of course, Becky Spratford!

The cool thing about The Lineup is that, while we are an informative and entertaining destination for lovers of all things strange and spooky, we are primarily book lovers. Our newsletters are a fantastic place for readers to stay up to date—not only with our latest content, but also with our regular weekly ebook sales and deals. We have a fantastic back catalog of horror, true crime, and paranormal eBooks—and our passion is connecting readers with books. Not only is our newsletter a great resource for librarians such as yourself to stay up to date with the latest creepy conversation, it’s also an ideal resource for library patrons. They can sign up for the newsletter here!

Get these resources [now under new editorial management] on to your radar and into your patron's in boxes ASAP. 

Announcing the 2022 Librarians' Day Schedule Live at StokerCon

 Today Konrad Stump of Springfield-Green County Library District and I are officially opening up registration 2022 Librarians' Day at StokerCon 2022. This is an all day continuing education event for all library workers focused around Horror. This is for the in-person event in Denver, but we will also have hybrid and virtual only options coming at a later date.

Click here for the official Librarians' Day page on the StokerCon 2022 website or simply skip directly to the EventBrite to signup.

Please note, if you are signing up for the full StokerCon, or already have signed up, and want to add on Librarians' Day, you only have to pay $35 extra, to cover your lunch. The EventBrite link has that option setup for you, but if you have questions, please reach out to Konrad at I by emailing libraries at horror dot org. Special note for Colorado library workers: we have a local contact for you as well.

I have also posted the full announcement below. I hope you can join us.

May 13, 2022
Curtis Hotel, Denver Colorado
8:45am- 4:45pm
$65 by 3/15 $75 after

Registration: https://www.stokercon.com/librarian-s-day 

8:45-9: sign in
 
9-9:50am: Genre Blending in Horror: moderated by librarian and  HWA Volunteer Coordinator, Lila Denning and featuring Gabino Iglesias, Alma Katsu, Clay McLeod Chapman, and Cynthia Pelayo:
 
Our current Horror renaissance is drawing new readers to the genre, but it is also inspiring many Horror authors to push at the edges, weaving elements of other popular genres into their works. 

10-10:50am: Promoting Collections through Horror Programming: moderated by HWA Library Committee Co-Chair, Konrad Stump and featuring Ben Rubin from the University of Pittsburgh’s Horror Studies Archive, Hillary Dodge Librarian and HWA Colorado Spring Chapter Co-Chair, Yaika Sabat from NoveList, Michael Allen Rose from the Oak Park Public Library, and librarians  from the Denver Public Library
 
Listen to our panel of experts share their wide variety of successes at their different libraries from across the country. We hope they inspire you to try more Horror programming at your library.
 
11-11:50am:  Meet the Current HWA Diversity Grant Scholarship Recipients  -- moderated by Diversity Grant selection committee members Larissa Glasser and V. Castro and featuring our current recipients.
 
The HWA Diversity Grant Recipients introduce themselves and discuss their work in this hybrid conference panel..
 
12-1:15pm: Buffet Lunch
 
Grab a plate of delicious food and join your fellow attendees and presenters in casual conversation. 
 
1:15-1:30pm: HWA Chapters and You
 
HWA National Chapter Co-Coordinator Shawnna Deresch and local Chapter Coordinators, Carina Bissett and Hillary Dodge explain how library workers can join the HWA and their local chapter.
 
1:30- 2:20pm: Horror Press Roundtable: moderated by TorNightfire Blog Coordinator Emily Hughes and featuring representatives from Burial Day Books, Raw Dog Screaming Press, Off Limits Press and Black Spot Books among others. 
 
The vibrant Horror independent press community features many publishers whose books are a great fit with most public library collections. Meet some of the representatives of our favorite small presses and learn about their upcoming titles. Electronic access to some of those titles will be made available to attendees.
 
2:30- 3:20pm: Middle Grade Horror: moderated by HWA Library Committee Co-Chair Becky Spratford and featuring Daniel Kraus, Fleur Bradley and Josh Roberts from Spooky MIddle Grade, as well as, Cat Scully and more.
 
With the announcement of the MIddle Grade Bram Stoker Award category for 2022, it’s time to learn more about the very best spooky books for grade schoolers. 
 
3:30-4:45pm: Different Paths to Horror Success: Moderated by HWA Trustee and Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Linda Addison and featuring StokerCon 2022 Guests of Honor, Brian Keene and John Edward Lawson, as well as Stephen Graham Jones and Lisa Kroger.
 
To end the day join us for a lively and honest conversation about what it means to be successful in Horror. 
 
Special thanks to our Librarians' Day volunteers from the HWA's Colorado Springs and Chicago Chapters

Click here to join us

More information About the New Middle Grade Bram Stoker Category and a Great MG Horror Resource

Beginning with titles published in 2022, there will be a Bram Stoker Award category for Middle Grade Horror. I have been involved with this process for many years.

When the category was announced, a group of Middle Grade Horror authors reached out to the HWA to help promote the new category to their authors and I was tapped to be the official HWA interviewee.

That group is call Spooky Middle Grade and before I get into the interview I did with them, I want to pass this website on to all libraries. It is a coalition of authors who write horror for ages 3-8. They have banded together to work with schools and libraries to promote their work. Please check out the website and contact them to appear at your library. There are big name, best selling authors here.

And they are supper easy and nice to work with. I reached out and we have 2 authors coming to be a part of Librarians' Day at Stoker Con.

Now on to the details about the history of the HWA's support of Middle Grade Horror and about the addition of the Middle Grade category beginning with books published in 2022 and going forward.

Click here for my interview with best selling author Jaqueline West and learn all about it.

Finally, bookmark Spooky Middle Grade as a go to Horror resource. I have already added it to my Horror Resources page here on the blog.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway 67: Dead Silence

Calendar year 3 of the #HorrorForLibraries giveaway begins with a crowd pleaser of a SF-Horror blend that will be hugely popular with library patrons. It is fun and creepy and terrifying all at once. It comes out this month and I just reviewed it in LJ. Details below, 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 #66. Our winner was Rebecca from Racine [WI] Public Library. Now on to today's giveaway.

Yesterday I posted the links to the 8 titles I reviewed for my January 2022 column in Library Journal on the regular blog here.

One of those books was Dead Silence. You can read my full review here. My three words for this book are visceral tension, engaging narration, excellent world building. But again, this book is fun and creepy and terrifying all at the same time. 

Further readlaikes are anything Titanic related such as THE DEEP by Alma Katsu, but also this is a great book for fans of reality TV-- read and you will see why.

It is fun, yes, and vacillates from creepy to terrifying, but if you want to step back, there is a lot to think about here as well. But also, you don't have to think about it to enjoy it. Like the very best SF, it is a commentary about society now set in a speculative future, and like the very best Horror it hits you with fear in your gut. It is a true genre blend of both. 

Finally, our narrator is tragically flawed but also so sympathetic. She drives the story and keeps it grounded and centered.

This will be a crowd pleaser. Order multiple copies for your collections but for now, you can enter to win the ARC I read for review courtesy of Nightfire.