WiHM Part Three

Hi, I’m Rebecca Besser, author of “Undead Drive-Thru, NurseBlood,” and, “Hall of Twelve.” Dale asked me to write about what it was like (for me) to be a horror writer. I guess, first off, I should make it clear that I don’t only write horror; it’s just what I’m best known for. I also write poetry, nonfiction, and other fiction for various age groups and genres. I kind of fell into horror – I say “fell” because once I tried writing horror I loved it. I literally fell in love with horror writing. The other genres close to my heart are Scifi and fantasy.

Honestly, being a female in the horror genre has never been an issue for me. The only instance I can remember anyone saying anything to me that was negative was when someone (a man) told me I should abbreviate my first name down to an initial so no one would know I was female. I instantly got pissed and told him that I would write whatever I wanted. If people didn’t like it, they didn’t have to read anything by me. I refuse to pander to people’s close-mindedness.

I write some very twisted stuff (I’ve been told so by friends/fans), and have the respect of many male writers in the horror genre. I’ve even had many want to collaborate on projects with me. I’ve never in any way felt like an outcast. The sad thing is though, other women have, and that needs to stop.

I’m not a person who likes to fit in with everyone else by being the same. I like to be me, unrestrained. This is why I think my favorite genres appeal to me the most. I love the freedom of no limits – they actually encourage you to go beyond what you know, and think: What if? Horror in particular blows limits out of the water in ways that can disturb you into thinking, not only of what drives the dark in us all, but what makes each of us human and binds us together despite our differences – fear. We all fear something, and we all know there are sick people in the world that would do things to others for reasons we don’t understand…

Sometimes that monster of twisted sickness lives inside a seemingly sane person, and it’s released when the prison the monster is kept in, in their head, cracks. Stress, trauma, and/or grief can do just enough damage to people to turn them into what we fear – uncontrolled, unleashed beasts of carnage and destruction. Those are the stories horror writers tell, among others. Anyone who writers horror has to be able to turn a mirror on themselves that can see the darkness of humanity as truth; it’s not for the weak. You have to be able to push beyond what is comfortable and expose the shocking in a way the reader can relate to, and this is no easy feat. Not everyone can write horror. Not everyone can go where they need to inside and still stay sane enough to come back to themselves. Horror doesn’t care if you’re male or female, because that doesn’t matter. You just have to be strong to write it, otherwise it will break you.

As a matter of fact, the bias idea that someone of a certain gender can’t write in any genre they want makes no sense at all whatsoever. (Men who write romance or erotica have the same stigma as women in horror.) What could possibly hinder creativity because of gender? Do people think that if the writer is a certain gender they don’t know anything about fear or love? The reality is that everyone knows about love and fear – and a great many other things – they just have different experiences and views of it than others.

To fight against the close-minded taboo of genre/gender bias, I challenge everyone to read something by an author you’ve never read before, and if you’ve never read something in a genre from a member of a certain gender, do so. Everyone has their own writing voice, style, and insight into people and situations – regardless of being male or female.

Lose your mind in stories, and loose the possibilities of discovery.

ON BEING A WEIRDO – CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN HORROR WRITER

By Sara Jayne Townsend

 In my early 20s, I was taken along to a writing group meeting by a member of my amateur dramatic group.  She was an older lady, and indeed most of the group were older than me.  By about 30 years.  However, they were all friendly enough, at least until someone asked me what kind of writer I was.  “Horror, mostly”, I said cheerfully.  Everyone in the room fell silent, and turned to stare at me.  From the looks on their faces, I may as well have said I was a serial killer.  Eventually someone said, “Well.  We’ve never had one of those before.”  Needless to say, I did not go back to that group.

I’ve never really been into the ‘happy ever after’.  By age 12 I was reading Agatha Christie mysteries and by 14 I had discovered Stephen King and was a fully-fledged horror fan.  The teen romances that my classmates seemed to enjoy so much I found exceedingly dull.  They all seemed to be so formulaic – boy meets girl; boy eventually wins girl; everyone lives happily ever after.  “But life isn’t like that!” I’d shout at the page.  Of course, I was coming at this from the perspective of a girl that didn’t go out on dates.  As a teenager I was a somewhat overweight, intense swot who took life very seriously.  From my perspective, the boys went for the blonde bubbly cheerleader types who were full of fun.  They all thought I was a bit of a weirdo.

Since the age of 14, I’ve been a horror writer.  I loved writing stories with the shock twist ending.  I was particularly fond of decapitations.  Two of my earliest stories appear in my short story collection SOUL SCREAMS – they can be identified easily because they are the ones featuring decapitations!

 For me, there’s been something thrilling about the dark side of life, be it the darkness inside the human psyche, or the things that go bump in the night.  I relish throwing all sorts of horrible things at my characters.  As an angsty teenager, writing was a way of dealing with my own insecurities.  I wrote about loneliness; death; betrayal; isolation.  These were all things I feared and writing about them was a way of dealing with them.  It was a form of exorcism.  I did not want to write about ‘happy ever after’ and girls finding Mr Right.  Mostly this was because I wanted to hold onto the happy feelings, it was the bad stuff I wanted to exorcise.

I still prefer violence to romance.  I want to read – and write – about terrible things happening to ordinary people.  To me, horror is a safe way of exploring the darkness.  When you read about terrible things happening to characters in a horror novel, it can draw you in, make you feel genuinely scared.  But when you put the book down and return to your own life, it seems pretty good in comparison.  The population of the world has not been destroyed in the zombie apocalypse, and chances are there’s no unstoppable supernatural beastie out to eat you.  So maybe the washing machine is broken, you’re skint and it’s two weeks till payday, but these problems suddenly don’t seem insurmountable.

I am, by nature, not a very violent person.  I’m not about to crack and stab my colleagues from the day job with the paper knife for talking too loud on the phone when I’m trying to type my committee meeting minutes.  But I might write about someone who does that.  Yes, maybe that’s why they all think I’m weird, but they should be glad to know I keep my violent tendencies to my fiction.

As a horror writer, I aim to give you nightmares.  If I succeed, then remember that you will wake up from the nightmare, and in the warm light of day, perhaps your life will look brighter than it did in the dead of night.  I am a woman.  I am a horror writer.  And I am proud to be both.

BIO:

Sara Jayne Townsend is a UK-based writer and founder and Chair of the T Party Writers’ Group.  Her short story collection SOUL SCREAMS can be bought in paperback or e-book format from Amazon
UK link

US link 

Learn more about her writing from her website (http://sarajaynetownsend.weebly.com) or follow her blog (http://sayssara.wordpress.com). 

Marianne Halbert

“Are you sure? Because you really don’t look like a horror writer.”

That’s the response I get, verbally, or at minimum by the skeptical glance tossed my way when I tell people, “I’m a horror writer.” I’ve had dozens of short stories traditionally published by various magazines and in small press anthologies. Necrotic Tissue. Midnight Screaming. ThugLit. Evil Jester. Wicked East. The Four Horseman. Grinning Skull. Shall I go on? Because I could, and it would make me happy. Am I striking you as a horror writer yet? Is it my lack of tattoos? Piercings? Black lipstick? (I have been known to wear black nail polish on occasion, and I wear it well.) I just came out with my first collection, “Wake Up and Smell the Creepy”. New York Times best-selling author Rick Hautala said the stories in it “hit you like a punch you didn’t see coming,” and that I have “writing chops to spare”. But still, I get the doubtful shake of the head. I persist, “I’m working on my first horror novel. The Lady’s Pocket. It’s a ghost story.” And yet they repeat, ever so politely, “You just don’t look like a horror writer.” And that is one of the reasons we need a month to recognize “Women in Horror.”

Do women write differently than men? Perhaps. We think differently, we behave differently in some ways. I could claim we’ve got dibs on sexy, or vulnerable, but male authors convey those things quite well. Truth be told, when I’m reading a story, I’d just as soon not know who wrote it. Man, woman. Straight, gay. Race, age, hometown, sweet or dill. What does it matter? It doesn’t. What matters is the story, and getting lost in it. If the author is at the forefront of your mind as you’re reading a story, that’s a fail. Now, when I love it, and want more by the same pen, then I want to know who wrote it. Then I want to know all about them. Him. Her. Pinot Grigio or Pinot Noir. Savory or sweet. Tell me more.

I write horror because that’s what draws me. I shy away from gore, but feel the pull of sorrow. Of loss. Of fear. Give me a bent-eared copy of “Rebecca” or “Wuthering Heights”, or anything by Shirley Jackson over gore any day. I’ll see your gothic horror and I’ll raise you a spine-tingle. Anyone can bring a blade into a scene. It takes talent to bring a sense of dread. I like to think I’ve got my finger on the pulse of what makes people tick, what scares them, what rips their heart out, and the different ways they react. How that reaction, and inter-reaction between characters propels the plot. And when those images keep me awake, when they haunt me in the middle of the night, don’t I have just as much right to put them to paper, (or keyboard) and exorcise them from my thoughts and share them with you as any male writer would?

So yes, I’m a blue-eyed, Midwestern, strawberry-blonde. I don’t have a raven perpetually perched on my shoulder, or tentacles embracing my midriff (although a girl can dream). But I love heart-pounding, bump-in-the-night thrills. I love that even though men have cornered the market on horror writing for eons, and I’ve devoured their stories, we’ve come to a point of giving women an equal voice. Because I have a voice. My name is Marianne Halbert. I’m a horror writer. I have something to say. And I hope it creeps the hell out of you.

Dale Eldon on Patricia Cornwell, and ladies in horror

One of the first authors to really get me into reading (more specifically, horror) is Patricia Cornwell. My mother turned me onto her since at that point I was into crimnology, but the more I read, the more I fell in love with her ability to not only bring the characters alive, but the way she wrote the gruesome scenes. When I worked a steakhouse, I had one of her books with me, and as I was reading another told me that women can't write. I wanted to punch him in the throat. Cornwell is just a good of an author as any other professional author. Better than the crap that makes millions of dollars in the box office.

When I got into horror, it was horror authors, Rebecca Besser, and Rhiannon Mills that got me going. I remember that Rhiannon had mentioned something about women horror authors being frowned on, which surprised me. People get some strange bias opinions, especially towards genre and authors. Sure we like what we like, but sometimes it goes a bit too far.

Just my two-cents, I'm a fan of horror, period. And women write some of the best horror out there!