Get Ready for Spooky Season with 40% Off My Book and a Chance to Discuss It

 I am very excited to announce that ALA Edition is beginning a FREE book club and my book is the first one. See below for the details. Not only do you get to talk horror just as the Spooky Season is getting into full swing with me, but I have invited some of my friends. 

Did I mention it is FREE? Oh, wait, I did. And if you miss it, they will have it on their YouTube page for free as well.

But if you act now, there is a code to get my book for 40% off. You need this book to help you help your Horror readers all year long but especially during the Fall. 

Use this link or the ones below to register and join me and my star studded list of guests as we talk about the state of horror today and how to my book can help you help more readers.

REGISTER for the first event in this free series now! 

ALA Editions | ALA Neal-Schuman launches Edi and Neal's Book Club for professional development with The Readers' Advisory Guide to Horror, Third Edition by Becky Siegel Spratford as its inaugural selection. 

Join I Love Libraries editor and host Phil Morehart (moderator) for the first Zoom meeting from 1 to 2 PM CT on Wednesday, September 18th. Expected guests from the world of horror and libraries include author Becky Siegel Spratford, writer/poet Linda Addison, librarian Lila Denning, writer Gabino Iglesias, writer Hailey Piper, and writer Matthew Salinas for panel discussion and audience Q&A. 

Use code ENSEPT at alastore.ala.org to purchase the book for 40% off the ALA Member price between now and September 30, 2024. Offer valid only while supplies last.

The Summer Scares 2024 Programming Guide is ALIVE!

 

 

Click here to access the full guide

One of the best parts of the Summer Scares program is the annual Programming Guide created by Konrad Stump and his team at the Springfield-Greene County Library District in Springfield, Missouri.

Starting yesterday, you can access this guide for Free. There is a page for each book just like this one for Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison.

There is also an article by Library Advisory Council member, Jocelyn Codner about using Summer Scares in Academic Libraries. And more, all accessible here for free.

This is also the perfect time to remind you that there are Programming Guides available for every year since 2020 available at the Summer Scares Resources Archive here.

However, the most important reminder is that all of this bounty of books, programming ideas, readalikes, discussion questions, and more can be used anytime of year and in any year. We create a new guide, for the 9 new titles each year, but the information is useful all year long. The 2020 guide has 9 vetted titles with readalikes and discussion questions and program idea just as the guides for 2021, 2022, 2023, and now 2024 do. 

Use them all, at any time, to help Horror readers of any age. Our info in a past guide still work today. And let us know if you need help at anytime by emailing libraries at horror dot org.

2022 Summer Scares Programming Guide is Now Live!

  

Click here for the Summer Scares Resource Page
with archive access to past years.

Today, as promised, the Summer Scares 2022 Programming Guide, under the direction of Konrad Stump and the team at the Springfield-Green County [MO] Library District is live.

Click here to access it. 

Or go to the Summer Scares Resource page anytime to see everything we have prepared to help you work these books into your service to leisure readers of all ages.

I cannot stress enough how much this guide has elevated the Summer Scares Reading Program. With an overview of the program and then a page for each of the 9 books, we are able to offer you readalikes, programming suggestions, and book discussion questions for every single book. And it is FREE thanks to the wonderful staff at the Springfield-Green County [MO] Library District.

It is beautiful useful, and free to all at this link.

New for this year: 

• An article by Yaika Sabat, from NoveList, entitled "Connecting Summer Readers to Summer Scares," to kick off our official partnership with the database. There will now be extra Summer Scares content available to those who subscribe to NoveList. 
• Three program ideas [one for a book at each reading level] from our programming partner, Ben Rubin, Head of the Horror Studies Collection at the University of Pittsburgh.
• A back page [below] that promotes the upcoming releases by all 9 of our 2022 authors and all four of  our  spokespeople-- past and present.

Click here to enter the guide

Speaking of all 4 spokespeople, this is year 4 of the Summer Scares Program and year three of the Programming Guide. The past 2 years of programming guides are also a great resource for you to use to promote horror all year long. You can access the Summer Scares Resource page here, which has a link to the archive for past year's or click here to go to that archive page directly. 

No one says you cannot use those previous guides to work with your horror readers, in fact, I encourage you to use all three of them, them all year long. There is some excellent RA content there. Konrad and his colleagues did all the work, so 

Basically we give you no excuse NOT to try Horror titles as part of your Summer Reading strategies-- for all ages of readers.

And trust me, I make my living promoting this genre, you are mistaken if you don't think readers love to feel the fear. 

When you promote Horror with help from Summer Scares, you will have hordes of happy readers. We guarantee it.

Download the 2022 Summer Scares Programing Guide now!

31 Days of Horror: Day 30- #LovecraftFridays Finale and How to Get Up to Speed

This year on 31 Days of Horror I worked in partnership with @ItsNiaMya from Library Journal as we hosted #LovecraftFridays on Twitter and here on the blog. This was part of the larger Library Journal #LJReads program. Every Friday in October we will dissected LOVECRAFT COUNTRY the novel by Matt Ruff and the hit HBO show. We came up with 4 larger themes and took a deep dive into them each week.

Each Friday in October around 5pm eastern, Nia posted a thread on Library Journal's Twitter to start the larger discussion on the topic. To supplement the discussion, I prepared some more reading lists and background information to help you put it into a broader context and help your library patrons.

I hope you enjoyed the month long discussion and engaged with us. Actually, even though we are done, you still can participate in the conversation anytime using the #LJReads and #LovecraftFridays hashtags. Pass it on to your patrons and encourage them to participate too.

Today to wrap it all up we have a live, free, wrap up program. Sign up now and find all the details by clicking here or on the graphic.

I know the event will be recorded, so if you cannot join us, you will still have access to the recording. 

One of the participants is Alex Brown, an award winning critic, who wrote the official episode reviews for Tor.com which you can access here.

Brown's episode recaps with commentary along with the #LovecraftFridays threads will help you get up to speed on the conversation, the show, the book, and the intersection of modern horror and racism. 

I hope you can join us, but if not, I will make access to the recording available as soon as I can.

And as I said here on the blog last week:

I can't wait. I don't know if I am more excited that we all get to nerd out together or that I know our entire program will be making Lovecraft spin in his grave while we do it.

*Cue Evil Laugh*

Summer Scares 2020 Begins Online

Welcome to the 2020 edition of Summer Scares, our second annual outing, and although this year is a bit different, I dare say, the program is better than ever.

From the Summer Scares FAQ and Resource Page:

The goal of the Summer Scares program is to introduce horror titles to school and public library workers in order to help them start conversations with readers that will extend beyond the books from each list and promote reading for years to come. Along with the annual list of recommended titles for readers of all ages, the Summer Scares committee will also release themed lists of even more “read-alike” titles for libraries to use when suggesting books to readers this summer and all year long. And, in order to help libraries forge stronger connections between books and readers, the Summer Scares committee will be working with both the recommended list authors and horror authors from all over the country, to provide free programming to libraries. From author visits (both in person and virtual) to book discussions to horror themed events, Summer Scares is focused on connecting horror creators with libraries and readers all year long.

Originally, the kick off for Summer Scares was scheduled for May 7, 2020 with HWA Librarians' Day, an all day event at the Naperville Public Library. While that event was rescheduled for November 12th, Summer Scares forges on.

Last year all we had was that online resource page. [Click here for the Summer Scares archive from 2019, which by the way you can still use for more reading options]. We still have an excellent resource page filled with links, interviews between our spokesperson, Stephen Graham Jones and the selected authors, and more suggested reading links. Click here to view it.

However, after speaking with libraries who ran with Summer Scares last year, we quickly realized that if we wanted to get more libraries involved, we needed to provide more assistance. Since the Summer Scares Team is 100% volunteer, we needed to look outside of ourselves, and approaching one of the libraries that went all out with Summer Scares in 2019 made sense.

Today, I am happy to present to you our "spooktacular" programming guide courtesy of Konrad Stump and his team at the Springfield-Greene County [MO] Public Library. They got on the Summer Scares bandwagon early last year. They generously offered their experience and staff to help us help all of you. Click here to access the entire guide, but here are two sample pages:

Cover

Full list of titles

This guide has a page for each title focusing on that book's appeal, a list of readalikes, programming ideas, and book discussion questions. Just this amazing guide alone is enough for you to run a successful Summer Scares program at your library, but wait, there's more.....

This year we have also created a Summer Scares 2020 video playlist to provide you with more help and content for your patrons too. You can click here for the Summer Scares YouTube playlist hosted by the Horror Writers Association.

Those videos introduce the program. Konrad himself is even there to walk you through the programming guide and give you some of his expert tips on how to use Summer Scares at your library [in person or virtually]. We have videos with the 2020 Summer Scares authors [more coming soon]. We asked them to record a short video to introduce their book, give you some background behind the title, and suggest more reading options for your patrons. 

These videos can be embedded onto your websites to share with your own patrons. And, all of the Summer Scares authors have agreed to connect with your library virtually if you are interested. Please send those requests to me and I will connect you. My contact information can be found here.

Besides featuring the authors and explaining the program over on YouTube, we are also working with HWA author members who have already worked with libraries, libraries which has recommended them and their programs. These authors will be submitting videos introducing themselves to libraries, providing contact info is you are interest in hosting a virtual program with them. Our first one is already up.

Everything on the Summer Scares resource page, including the links to the YouTube videos and the programming guide are available for FREE. You can use them with your patrons, at your library, on your social media and websites, etc.... There are no restrictions.

We will be adding more content to the YouTube playlist and the Resources page in the coming weeks, so check back often. In fact, if you do something with Summer Scares that you want to share with all of us, contact me. I'd love to showcase your library.

Summer Scares is brought to you by the Horror Writers Association, United for Libraries, Library Journal/School Library Journal, and Book Riot.

31 Days of Horror: Day 11- Horror for Book Clubs via NoveList

Susan Brown is the Director of the Chapel Hill [NC] Public Library, a passionate advocate for marketing in libraries, and one of my contributor colleagues at NoveList.  Recently, she let me know about a series of articles she has been doing for the database on genre choices for book clubs. Her most recent one is on horror, so of course, I asked Susan and NoveList if we could post it here.

They both graciously agreed. Thank you all. Below is the article and here is the link to it on the NoveList blog where you can find a lot more horror related and 100% FREE posts this month.

I will have another guest post from a NoveList employee soon, and this one will be a RA for All: Horror blog exclusive.

In the meantime, why not consider trying a horror title with your book club? I did one last year-- The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon. It was a bigger hit precisely because it was October. Click through to read the discussion report.

 This article is part of a series inside NoveList and NoveList Plus on finding great genre choices for book clubs. To find these articles, search "but my book club doesn't read" in the search bar, and click the Lists and Articles tab to see the full series. 

Selecting books for a book group can be challenging -- there are so many titles to choose from and only so many months in a year. To help narrow the field, many book clubs use the calendar as a selection tool -- choosing an African-American author for February and Black History Month or an Irish author for March and St. Patrick's Day.  As fall approaches, book clubs who use this method -- and are open to exploring genre fiction -- should consider choosing a horror novel for October and Halloween.

Like science fiction, westerns, and other genres I've explored in this series, horror seems, at first glance, out of step with what most book clubs tend to select. However, if we understand the underlying appeal of horror, we can move beyond genre stereotypes -- and any potential hesitation to select genre fiction -- and move toward encouraging book clubs to expand their horizons. After all, horror fiction has been engaging and enthralling readers for more than a century -- a fact worthy of discussion itself.

What is the enduring appeal of horror? As Becky Spratford explains in Horror at the Service Desk, "The central appeal of horror is the feeling it generates. More than any other type of literature, the horror novel's ultimate objective is to scare by manipulating the reader's emotions." When we read horror, we can confront, explore, and understand our fears from the safety of our reading chair.  And when a book club reads a horror novel together, they can collectively confront, explore, and understand both their individual fears and those of society.

Horror authors have addressed societal fears since the earliest days -- Mary Shelley's Frankenstein looks at society's fear of modernity and technology.  Modern authors continue to do so -- recent takes on the vampire story such as The Passage and The Strain explore societal fears of disease and pandemics, both natural and man-made.  

While book clubs might discuss what a horror novel says about the time and culture it reflects, they can also talk about their individual fears, sharing how they felt when reading the book, what about it they found scary, or perhaps -- to make the conversation a bit lighter -- what they would do if the zombies came or how they would survive a night in a haunted house.

While book clubs may be intrigued by considering horror fiction, they may well not want too much of the bloody stuff.

Here are few selections that are light on blood and gore yet heavy on great writing and engaging themes to spark good discussions:

Dracula  by Bram StokerMany book clubs work classics into their regular rotation and Dracula is a great choice as both a literary classic and a horror novel. The vampire is such a familiar figure that going back to the book that started it all is an interesting endeavor. Book groups might consider what effect the epistolary format has on the story or how the women -- Lucy and Mina -- function in the story or what comment the author might be making about religion and science and modernity. They might also discuss why the vampire is such an enduring character and how it has changed over the years, from Anne Rice's Lestat to Stephanie Meyer's Edward Cullen. 

The Haunting of Hill House  by Shirley JacksonStephen King called the opening lines of The Haunting of Hill House some of the finest in the English language. Beyond fine writing, the rest of the book provides much for book groups to enjoy and discuss.  The story follows four characters as they spend a weekend in a notoriously haunted house, trying to understand its secrets. Book group discussion might focus on the two very different women in the novel or how the haunted house functions as a metaphor or whether or not the house is actually haunted or a figment of the unreliable narrator's mind. However, the most intriguing question may be this -- why does a book with hardly any blood, gore, or graphic violence scare the pants off so many readers? 

Different Seasons by Stephen KingNo list of great horror fiction would be complete without something from the modern master of the genre. However, selecting one his books for this list is difficult because many of them are very, very scary and many are very, very long. Different Seasons has a more dramatic and less terrifying feel, although there are a few dead bodies in it. It is also comprised of four novellas, so a book group might choose to read just one or two and discuss. Also, three of the four novellas have been made into movies -- most notably Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption -- which makes good fodder for a book club discussion. 

Rosemary's Baby by Ira LevinLike Shirley Jackson, Stephen King also admires the work of Ira Levin, whose works many know through their film adaptations, including The Stepford Wives, Sliver, A Kiss Before Dying, and his most famous work, Rosemary's Baby. While many may have seen the movie, perhaps fewer book clubbers will have read the book -- which has been hailed by critics as "perfectly crafted" and a "modern masterpiece."  Book clubs will want to discuss the naïve young housewife, her ambitious actor husband, and of course, the evil that lurks in the apartment next door -- as well as how the novels reflects the time it was published (1967) and why this story was so terrifying (and popular) then and now. 

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Vampires, haunted houses, the occult -- what's missing from this list? ZOMBIES. Forget the mega blockbuster with Brad Pitt and an endless stream if CGI zombies pouring over that wall. Max Brook's novel takes the familiar idea the zombie apocalypse and brilliantly presents it in a framework of multiple accounts from various characters. This author uses the oral history format to comment on isolationism, corruption, science, and politics -- all things that book clubs will want to ring in on as well.

---

Susan Brown took her first library job to earn beer money while in college. After several years in academic and government libraries, she finally found her true calling behind the reference and reader's advisory desk at a public library. She has an M.L.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has worked at libraries in Virginia, North Carolina, and Kansas. She is currently the Director at Chapel Hill Public Library in Chapel Hill NC and is passionate about readers' services, social media, and marketing and merchandising for public libraries Susan blogs about practical marketing for public libraries at 658.8 -- Practical Marketing for Public Libraries.

Bring a Zombie to Book Club

Over on Book Group Buzz, Neil Hollands had this post on the best zombie books for book discussion groups. What I like most about his post is that it considers the literary merit of these genre titles.

If you like what he has to say here, check out Neil's new book Fellowship in a Ring: A Guide for Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Groups.