A former grad student of mine, WD Prescott, is running an interesting website bluntly called The Non-Horror Reader Survey that is studying what today’s readers think about the modern horror genre. It features interviews with various readers, writers, and scholars, along with a research questionnaire you can fill out, if you want to participate. It’s… Continue reading Interview with NHRS: The Uncanny in Popular Horror Fiction
Tag: writing
Uncanny Beauty and Weird Tales
Weird Tales magazine (issue #356) will have “uncanny beauty” as its theme, and I’m excited to see what it has in store. The cover art is gorgeous. Even Jeff Vandermeer’s cat loves it. I highly recommend subscribing to this longstanding genre fiction magazine, which has been around since the pulp era and helped draw attention… Continue reading Uncanny Beauty and Weird Tales
The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease — A Class Review
I am currently teaching an online horror literature course in “Psychos and the Psyche” for graduate students in our MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill University. This month we are studying Freud’s article on “Das Unheimlich” and reading a fascinating new anthology of horror fiction called The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease,… Continue reading The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease — A Class Review
Book Review: Blankety-Blank by D. Harlan Wilson
Blankety Blank: A Novel of Vulgaria by D. Harlan Wilson This disturbing read is a breakthrough work of fiction that deserves a spotlight on the literary landscape as one of the best works of experimental writing of the year, if not ever. The story is quite a mess, and difficult to encapsulate in a review,… Continue reading Book Review: Blankety-Blank by D. Harlan Wilson
My Unheimlich LibraryThing Books
My Library at LibraryThing [NOTE: Those covers above go to amazon.com with an “associate” link — this was necessary to include the widget with cover graphics. To just visit librarything, not amazon, click here!] What you see above is not a complete bibliography by ANY means. But over the past few years, I have slowly… Continue reading My Unheimlich LibraryThing Books
The Unlearning: Horror and Transformative Theory
My essay on the teaching of horror fiction — “The Unlearning: Horror and Transformative Theory” — just went live in the debut issue of the journal, Transformative Works and Cultures. Here’s the opening passage: I. Introduction: Fear is Never Itself The horror genre has many reasonable lessons to teach us, even though it is perhaps… Continue reading The Unlearning: Horror and Transformative Theory