Today I welcome my friend and colleague Emily Vinci. I first got to know Emily better when I served on the Adult Reading Round Table's Steering Committee with her. You may have seen Emily before in person co-chairing the Grand Rapids StokerCon Librarians' Day or online through our two Virtual Librarians' Days for the HWA. Emily is a writer, presenter, and public librarians in the Chicago Suburbs. This year, Emily was on the committee [with me and others] for the HWA's Dennis Etchison Scholarship for Teen Writers. She also reviews horror for Library Journal. You can see all of her pieces at this link; including this brand new Q&A with Horror author Eric LaRocca. [I will be featuring that piece and hosting Eric later this month].
But today, Emily isn't worried about moderating panels or writing reviews. Today, I asked her to share why she loves horror with all of you.
Emily chose to share very personal stories about her life in order to share why Horror is healing for her. While I knew these stories, even I was surprised that she shared them here, but I was not surprised at her eloquence as a writer.
I want to applaud Emily, publicly, for being so open and raw here. Her truth stands [below] as a clear, moving, and beautiful testament as to why Horror can be an escape from the real Horrors of life.
For more from Emily, you can follow her on Twitter @mlevinci or read her content for Library Journal which comes out regularly.
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by Emily Vinci
For most of my life I thought very little about why I love horror.
I just do. It’s cool.
It’s twisted. It’s shocking. It’s sexy. It’s dangerous.
And, as I’ve come to understand in past few years, it’s home.
I am the youngest of four daughters, raised by a single mother, and I knew fear at a young age.
My sister Jenny suffered a brain injury the summer before I began Kindergarten, when she was 8. This brain injury didn’t result in permanent physical impairment, but her cognitive development was affected severely. I don’t remember who Jenny was before “the accident” (as my family refers to it) but in my memories of those first few years after it, she is a monster.
By forces she couldn’t control, Jenny was prone to tantrums which were, more often than not, violent. I have a vague memory of screaming for help as she sat on my head in our bedroom.
She was trying to crush me. To hurt me. To kill me??
It was unclear what would set Jenny off - to her as much as to us. My family would tread lightly and as lovingly as possible, and be ready to execute defensive maneuvers at the drop of a hat.
As the youngest and therefore littlest one, my defensive maneuver was to run and hide. When shit got real and Jenny had an “episode” (a sterilized, palatable term that in hindsight only reinforces how regular these occurrences were) my directive was simple: Go to your room and shut the door and do your best not to hear anything.
That didn’t always work.
I heard my mother cry out as she was pushed down the stairs. Saw my oldest sister brought to her knees as Jenny locked fingers with her and proceeded to force hers to bend backward.
Some years later it would be my mom and said oldest sister engaged in screaming matches. Doors would slam, feet would stomp. Threats would be made, clothes thrown onto the front lawn.
And I would hide.
Other times the screaming was between my mother and stepfather, Paul, who was in my life for a little over ten years and whose damage to my psyche I still feel.
I was a junior in high school when I found Paul naked, passed out in his and my mother’s bedroom closet after an unsuccessful suicide attempt.
This time there was no yelling and I didn’t hide. I called 911. And I was only a few minutes late to first period.
Growing up in chaos and dysfunction and experiencing real terror leads plenty of people, understandably, to create a life devoid of such things.
Not me. I’m done hiding from the scary. I seek out horror and in doing so, I’ve come to realize, reconcile with the horrors of my past: the fights, the screaming, the crying. The fear. It’s not an intention - I don’t read or watch horror and consider it therapy. But it is healing. And whether or not I’m cognizant of the catharsis, horror allows me to exercise the demons. It shows me fears beyond what I can ever imagine and yet will never compare to what I’ve actually seen.
And I mean it IS really cool.
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