Women In Horror Recognition Month

In less than a week, February will be in full swing. Along with it comes Women in Horror Recognition Month. It is only in its second year, but with the number of women involved in Horror, it will have many more years to bring notice to women in the genre and the fights to crush stereotypes. Through out the month, there will be numerous events around the world. From film festivals to interview series to blood drives, they will in some part honor the integral role of women in the telling of terror.

While the majority of the events last year have been about the film end of the genre, it doesn’t mean its limited. Horror literature is not separate from Horror films. Both are written, in some cases by the same people. Many movies are based of books and are just a visual interpretation of the text. What effects one effects the other equally. Many stereotypes that Horror literature are branded with stem from the current state of Horror films. The same women that don’t get recognized for directing, producing, writing, even acting in Horror films are hidden by the same veil that hides female authors. The stereotypes of female characters and the circumstances they face are equally perceived in both film and literature.

So, this month, pick up a book or magazine with a female author in it. Check out some of the events listed on the WiH website. To help out on the literature front here is just a small list of female writers:

• Fran Friel
• Deborah LeBlanc
• Sarah Pinborough
• Sarah Langan
• Lisa Mannetti
• Mary SanGiovanni
• Poppy Z. Brite
• Amy Grech
• Jezzy Wolfe
• Elizabeth Blue
• Alexandra Sokoloff
• Caitlin R. Kiernan
• Elizabeth Massie
• Sephera Giron
• Rhodi Hawk
• Gabrielle Faust
• Allyson Bird

These are just a few. There are many more out there. Through places like Twitter and Goodreads you can find even more. What ever your taste is, there is a female writer for you.

First Quarterly Results: Nov. 2010 – Jan. 2011

The first set of results are in for the survey. They are available to download over on the right side of the site as a .pdf. We apologize to any Mac users out there. The Box.net widget WordPress uses is flash based. If you have trouble, let us know and we will add a secondary link to the results.

To give you a taste of what was found so far:

• 15% think Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are not Horror stories.
• 25% think the undead and demons makes a story Horror automatically.
• 75% think women are underrepresented as writers of Horror.
• 35% think Horror does not enforce stereotypes.

See what else people responded.

Dark Harvest

Title: Dark Harvest
Author: Norman Partridge
Publisher: Tor
Pages: 169

One of the main tropes of horror fiction is Halloween. There is a lot to explore in just that one holiday that countless books and stories have already been written and there are still more to be offered. It is also a trope that, if done well, can set a writer apart from all other horror writers. Dark Harvest is that kind of book.

Starting right off in second person point-of-view, you are instantly unsettled. It is a artful choice considering the story Partridge paints with his succinct and immersive writing style. A story were sons are told to hunt down a a town sacrificial lamb every year in the hopes of freedom from the isolation in the cornfields and to make their families’ lives comfortable till they die. These boys are half starved and pushed by family, friends, and even themselves to win and are let loose in a fervor. Uncomfortibility is key to this story and that is what the second person point-of-view can invoke in the ready and pull the reader deeper into the story.

Partridge also does a great job at finding ways of mixing the history of Halloween and the current view of Halloween into a new idea that makes the day more eerie once you finish this book. When a writer can make candy seem innocent, yet malicious at the same time, you begin to understand the power of horror fiction and what it’s crafters can do.

While the bulk idea of the story is violent one, and while there are some gruesome moments, it is never takes away from the  unraveling hard-boil mystery that is the true momentum. Couple it with excellent control of information and rich characters, you have find even the most violent moments powerful in the discovery in the characters sense of self and strength when the world seems to be closing in ready to swallow them whole.

At only 169 pages, it is one of the shorter novels you are going to find printed in recent years. But even being short, it has as much, if not more, richness and detail as a regular length novel. Nothing is rushed, not a word wasted. It is pure, great, horror writing.

While rated Intermediate, I would still consider this a great book for those beginning or early in their exposure to Horror fiction. Everything that Horror is is done exceptionally in this book.

Horror Reading Level: Intermediate

New Feature for the New Year

Everyone here at NHRS would like to wish you a Happy New Year, at least in the Gregorian sense.

It also to let you all know that starting this year we are opening the Survey to those within Horror in the form of Guest Posts. Writers, editors, publishers, reviewers, all those that want to help set the record straight about Horror fiction. If you are interested, leave a message with your idea* of a post on our Contact page. We will respond within a week.

 

*(Ideas can even cross over into other features here {Interviews, Book Spotlight, Changing the Face of Horror}. If they do, let us know and we will tell you the criteria we have for those Features.)