This is a Guest Post submitted to Fangs for the Fantasy
I'd like to thank Fangs for the Fantasy for
having us.
Despite such lights as Mary Shelley,
Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Tanith Lee and Suzy Mackee Charnas, and
editors like Ellen Datlow, horror is perceived as a male field. There's even a
Women in Horror month, February. But it's still generally accepted that women
aren't as scary as the men.
I asked the founding members of the
Literary Underworld, (http://www.literaryunderworld.com ) an independent author consortium, to talk about their experiences
writing horror while female.
The three of us, Sara Harvey, Elizabeth
Donald and myself, Angelia Sparrow, all write dark fantasy or horror. Yet, all
three of us are consistently relegated to romance panels at conventions. Sara
and I usually get the steampunk ones, but I'm always on the 11 PM sex panel,
because I write erotic horror. Elizabeth
may have a zombie or vampire panel and Sara probably has a costuming one, but
we almost always get at least one romance panel.
I write mostly GLBT, heavy on the
paranormal and erotic horror. My gay Christmas werewolves may be peaceable
pups, just wanting to be left alone and enjoy their short story series, but my
post-millennialist vampires in Power in
the Blood aren't averse to forcible conversions to bring about the Second
Coming and their antagonists aren't shy about filling a megachurch knee-deep in
blood to make sure it doesn't happen.
My first experience with the general
attitude that men write horror, women write sexy vampires came at Hypericon. I
stopped Brian Keene and Bryan Smith, two writers I read, who were working for a
press I was researching to ask some questions. I said I had written a horror
novel, with about as much sex as Smith usually had, and was interested in knowing
some basic stuff about the publisher. The first words out of Keene's mouth
(Smith's very quiet) were “Are you sure it doesn't
need to go to the romance imprint?” I looked at them and said “Let me give you two words: buzzsaw penis. The main character's
reverse Prince Albert piercing turns into a buzzsaw threaded on a spindle of
flesh.” They both flinched,
nodded and said, “Yeah, horror.”
In that instant, I felt proud of myself for
making men who give me nightmares flinch, but I also felt deeply annoyed by
having to prove myself and give away the biggest, baddest scene in order to do
so.
But my single experience is nothing
compared to what my friends have gone through in a systemic way.
Sara Harvey:
I don’t necessarily consider myself a horror writer, per se. I do like a bit of the creepy stuff and in my
Blood of Angels series from Apex Publications, I definitely took things to dark
places.
Two things came out of this particular
experience for me.
The first was that The Convent of the Pure was reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly this is a really awesome step for a
small-press like Apex and a relatively new author like me. I was completely
thrilled to be noticed by such a prestigious reviewer.
The review was overall positive. Although I
wasn’t sure of the reviewer
had actually read the book, all the way through, all 36,000 words of it. See,
it’s a very dark fantasy
that some might categorize as horror. There is a romantic relationship between
the lead characters but sex never happens on the page, or anywhere in the book
as one of the main characters is a ghost that haunts the other. I reiterate
that NO SEX EVER HAPPENS IN THIS BOOK. It isn’t even the least bit sensual, flirtatious, or smutty.
The two protagonists are both women.
This led the Publisher’s Weekly reviewer to declare my book “fluffy lesbian erotica” right after calling it “gothic Steampunk.”
Did I mention at no time is there sex in
this book? For crying out loud, there isn’t even KISSING. But it has lesbians and was written by a woman and
therefore must be erotica, right?
Said review also felt the need to mention
that “Readers who aren't put
off by the cheesecake cover illustration of buff, busty Portia will appreciate
the mix of heat, horror and humor.” So we had some fun with the cover, spoofing Penguin classics and
pulp. Personally, I like it. It shows two strong women who happen to also be
attractive and it illustrates a scene that happens in the book. AND no one’s ass or boobs are hanging out and no one has
a tramp stamp.
For whatever reason, the other two books in
the trilogy did not make it to the notice of Publisher’s Weekly so we’ll never know what they
thought of those two, also very lacking in the sex department.
The joy of being recognized by Publisher’s Weekly was totally killed by my book being
so idiotically dismissed as “fluffy” miscategorized as “erotica.” Someone really needs to
read more smut, if they thought I was writing erotica here!
The second happened a few months later at a
panel talking about writing horror. This relatively well-known horror author
(he was no one I had ever heard of, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot since I don’t read widely in the genre) said that women were not as “effective” at writing horror as were men.
Mainly, in his opinion, because we womenfolk
get too bogged down in emotions and details.
Now, I don’t know about you, but as a human being, I like to read books that
are FILLED with emotions and details. Because otherwise I might as well read
the dictionary or the phone book. Because that’s what books are for! I said to him, “But if there is no emotional impact, then why are we scared?”
Because really, if you have a bunch of
characters that no one cares about, what does it matter if they are eaten,
tortured, turning into zombies, or coated with buttercream and set upon by
bees? The emotional investment in a story is what sells the story, otherwise,
we’re back to the phone
book.
I was really aggravated that this guy
seemed to think that emotional content in a story was A) something only women
did and B) something to be avoided in horror. I really thought we were past
that.
But what do I know? I’m just a woman who writes fluffy lesbian
erotica with too many emotional details.
Sara M. Harvey is a costume designer, and
an author of fiction and nonfiction, most notably having written multiple
articles for the Greenwood Encyclopedia
of Clothing Through World History. She is a regular speaker on the subjects
of costume design at science-fiction conventions, and has won awards for her
plus-sized creations. Her website
is http://saramharvey.com/
Elizabeth Donald:
Trapped in a Pink Ghetto
I
was digital before digital was cool. I was also a Mac person in the 1990s, when
you got beaten up on playgrounds for having one of those boring beige boxes.
But that stigma was nothing compared to writing ¡K wait
for it ¡K ebooks.
Worse, I wrote romance. I was young, I
needed the money. But since I was born with a love of things that go chomp in
the night, my “romance novel” was an erotic thriller about a vicious serial
killer that was released as an ebook more than a year before it was combined
with its sequel for a paperback.
It was a tough sell; while romance readers
welcomed the paranormal and futuristic in their formulas, the horror and
science fiction readers were not nearly so welcoming. One gentleman read my
cover card and commented to my face, “The only difference between this stuff and Penthouse Forum are the
words, ‘I never thought this
would happen to me.’”
And yet he lives.
By the third book, I’d brought the vampires out of romance entirely
and into horror. That’s where I wanted to be
all the time. But the stigmas followed me. The horror fans didn’t take me seriously because they thought I was
a romance author; other readers ¨C and often people higher
up in the industry ¨C didn’t take me seriously
because I had started in ebooks.
At one convention appearance, my biography
was actually rewritten to call me an “aspiring author.” This was more than two
years after the first book was released, and by then it had actually appeared
in print and was in every Borders in America.
The funny thing was, the romance fans kept
reading me. My reviews continued to be strong; for the third book, many of them
said, “No, it’s not romance anymore¡K but I
still like it.”
And then I wrote zombies.
My first zombie book was greeted with
skepticism by anyone who didn’t read it. I was begging
conventions to put me on zombie panels, and organizers were shocked when I told
them I had a zombie novel coming out. I was trapped in a pink ghetto.
Once when I asked to be put on a zombie
panel with Bryan Smith and Jonathan Maberry, the organizer told me, “I dunno, it’s kind of a guy thing.”
Yes, he was just yanking my chain. And his
wife threatened to glue his head to the table. He didn’t know he was repeating the attitudes I was getting throughout the
field: this is the man side of horror. Women write about brooding vampires and
tormented werewolves as romantic heroes. Leave the entrails to the men.
The funny thing was, my zombie book sold
out its first printing in 48 hours. It’s now a trilogy, with the third book coming out next year. The
reviews were great¡K except for a few people who didn’t like the swearing. I figured a former Marine leading a group of
paramilitary zombie hunters probably doesn’t say “oh fooey,” but then again, she was a female former
Marine. Did that have anything to do with it?
I’d like to think not. I really do.
Once my grandmother sighed at my latest
story of violence and blood, and asked, “Don’t you ever want to write
anything real?” By that, I assume she
meant mainstream fiction. To me, what I write is real. Horrors happen every
day; they’re in the newspaper
stories I write daily. Being a woman may inform what I write in a different
way, but it does not change its horrific nature ¨C even
when the characters occasionally knock boots.
And things are better now. The Kindle and
iPad changed the way we view ebooks ¨C they’re real books now! (They always were.) I don’t have to beg for the zombie panels anymore,
and while they still introduce me as the woman who writes vampire romance ¨C forever! ¨C they no longer call me an aspiring author and nobody compares my
work to Penthouse Forum.
I call that progress.
Elizabeth Donald is a journalist and
author, best known for the award winning Nocturnal
Urges vampire trilogy. Her website is http://www.elizabethdonald.com
The best way, in my opinion, to remedy the
problem is to buy books by female authors, creating a demand and more
visibility. Fran Friel, a several time Stoker award winner, Catherynne Valente,
Cherie Priest and others are out there, as well as those of us in the smaller
presses.
As a thank you to the readers, we are
offering a coupon worth 15% off your purchase at the Literary Underworld.
Simply type in LUBLOGTOUR at checkout.
