February is “Women in Horror Month” or WiHM and this means an opportunity to meet new horror writers and participate in some exciting events.
I’m doing two interviews this month, organized by two horror writers, Fiona Cooke Hogan who blogs over at unusualfiction and S.K. Gregory at storyteller-skgregory.
I’m very excited and grateful to Fiona for including me in this event. She has put together quite a list of horror authors with interviews throughout the month and today you can read my answers on her blog. I really enjoyed answering her questions, although a couple of them were quite hard (hint: they both include the word “favorite”). I’m also talking about inspiration for my stories, favorite horror writers (this was easy), my short story The Door which was published in the horror anthology Descent into Darkness, and publishing plans for the future.
And yes, we finally get to meet. I’m the one in the picture sporting a t-shirt with the cover for Descent into Darkness which is actually too small to be seen clearly. I had a lot of fun taking this picture.
The second interview will be posted on the 27th on author S.K Gregory’s website and I’ll be back with the link.
In the meantime, my plans for this month include reading horror women of course and so far I’ve read Mrs de Winter by Susan Hill, which is a sequel to Rebecca, and Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson, both of whom I loved. Reviews to come.
My book club is doing a meetup on favourite female fiction writers – and I was discussing with a friend whether we can generalize and say that women writers have a different perspective than a male writer (cannot be something that applies to the entire gender.) But the example I thought of was Shirley Jackson; it seems to me that there is something distinctly feminine about her writing, other than the female characters… though I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s just the subtlety of the horror – it doesn’t jump at you and go boo! so much. I have only read the two books by her – Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but loved them both… But I digress. I had no idea Susan Hill wrote a “sequel” to Rebecca. Must make for an interesting read. Will add it to my ever growing pile of books to read.
Hi Priya,
Shirley Jackson belongs to a different generation and I think that’s why she seems – as you well put it – distinctly feminine in her writing. I mean, everything is so nice and proper and in keeping with the times (she died in the 60’s, I googled that because her stories seemed so distant somehow from our times), but then it suddenly veers off course. I love the subtle horror, never being a fan of gore, and after reading these stories I was so glad to have found a new author, someone whose writing is closer to the kind of stories I want to write.
I haven’t read We Have Always Lived in the Castle but it’s definitely on my TBR. I remember The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery, what a creepy little story that was, and full of foreboding.
Mrs de Winter is a great story, I enjoyed it a lot and wished it had another ending, but then I must admit it made sense to end the way it had. I read a lot of reviews on goodreads where people complained about it, but I think they were a little harsh. The book certainly deserves a chance to be read. I read it not long after Rebecca and it was good because Susan Hill makes some references to the original and it helps if you’ve read that.
What a fantastic initiative! Women have historically been so underrepresented in horror writing, it’s great to see more and more emerging now, and this event to celebrate them is just cherry on the icing on the cake 😉 Hope you had a great time!
Hi Sheree,
It’s a great event, and one I haven’t been paying as much attention to until recently. To be honest for me gender is not an important criteria when choosing a book to read. If the story is good, that’s it, I’m sold.