As we enter the homestretch of 31 Days of Horror this year, I wanted to start this final week with a bang. So today, I have a link for all of you to read the formatted PDF of Tananarive's essay for my book, "My Long Road to Horror." This is the exact PDF that was formatted for the purpose of me submitting it for the award and for voters to be able to read it.
Click here to read "My Long Road to Horror" by Tananarive Due.
For those of you not yet familiar with WHY I LOVE HORROR (the book) I also wanted to include the example, from Tananarive's essay, of the content I added to each essay in the book:
Tananarive Due has been writing suspenseful, fast-paced horror that has an unapologetic social justice lens since the waning days of the last century. Her chilling and terrifying works of supernatural evil in many forms (zombies, witches, ghosts, and immortal evil creatures—she has dabbled in just about every subgenre) are grounded in the Black experience, including themes of racial discrimination, family dysfunction, and ancestral traditions. In her work as a professor, Due has written and lectured about the uniqueness of Black horror in many spaces, from the classroom to major newspapers to documentary films. Her expertise on this topic alongside her evocative and chilling stories have made her one of the genre’s current stalwarts.
In this essay, Due continues the theme of the last two entries, as she contemplates her experiences as a Black woman and a child of parents who fought in the civil rights movement, and how she came to understand that all her work is not only inextricably linked to the Black experience but also how it is responsible for her success—a realization she came to with the help of Jordan Peele, yes, but also an important conversation with Anne Rice.
Readers new to Tananarive Due should start with The Reformatory. For those who want to try a similar author, I suggest N. K. Jemisin.
I am sharing the above with all of you library workers because this is information you can use to help introduce readers to Due or any one of the 18 authors in my book.
Not a horror fan? No problem. I've got you. With the book, with this blog, with every review I write. I am here to help you help readers. Every single day, with just a click.
Click here to read "My Long Road to Horror" by Tananarive Due.
And get ready, Halloween is only 7 days away.
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