Oct 10, 2019
If you ask a random
reader to name foundational women horror writers, you might get two
or three names. Mary Shelley. Shirley Jackson. Maybe Daphne du
Maurier or Anne Rice. But as Lisa Kroger and Melanie R. Anderson
point out in their new book, <em>Monster, She Wrote: The
Women Who Pioneered Horror & Speculative Fiction</em>, if
that’s where our knowledge begins and ends, we’re missing out on a
lot. Eli Colter, who wrote, amongst other things, weird westerns.
C.L. Moore who helped introduce swashbuckling rebels into the
sci-fi canon. Angela Carter’s re-imagining of folk tales. There are
also works of literary fiction we might not put in the horror
genre, like Toni Morrison’s
<em>Beloved</em>.
Kroger and Anderson
give readers a primer on women writers whose work you may have
missed, and puts it in a historical context. You can learn about
the origins of the gothic story, the influence of spiritualism in
writing and pop culture, how writers supported their families with
their short works, a bit about pulp magazines like <em>Weird
Tales</em>, and even how one writer put together a group of
mystics (or mystic-adjacents) to help guard the coast of England
during World War II. But beware – <em>Monster, She
Wrote</em> is likely to add considerable height to your
reading pile.
A note about the
sound quality – we tried to do this interview with Skype, but it
kept cutting out. So we had to do it the old fashioned way, the way
I started recording interviews in the last century, on speaker
phone with a recorder. I’ve sweetened it up a bit through some
plug-in magic, but you’ll notice the switch a few minutes
in.
<em>Monster,
She Wrote</em> is out now from Quirk Books and you can find
out more about it at <a href="https://www.quirkbooks.com/"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">www.quirkbooks.com </a> or
wherever you get wonderful books. You can also keep track of Lisa
Kroger’s work at <a href="http://www.lisakroger.com/"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">www.lisakroger.com</a> and
Melanie R. Anderson at <a href="https://melanieranderson.com/"
rel="noopener"
target="_blank">www.melanieranderson.com</a>. The Know
Fear Podcast is at <a href="http://www.knowfearcast.com/"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">www.knowfearcast.com</a>,
and <a href="https://twitter.com/knowfearcast" rel="noopener"
target="_blank">on Twitter under
@knowfearcast</a>.
This week’s featured
track from the new <a
href="https://music.apple.com/us/album/best-of-boston-stand-up-vol-1/1476273387"
rel="noopener" target="_blank"><em>Best of Boston
Stand-Up, Volume 1</em></a>. Boston has a long and fine
tradition of stand-up comedy, and this album is a good introduction
to some of the funniest comedians you can see regularly around
town. Veterans like Steve Sweeney, Don Gavin, Tony V., Kenny
Rogerson, and Jimmy Dunn; more recent headliners like Kelly
MacFarland, Will Noonan, Dan Crohn, Christine Hurley, and Corey
Rodrigues, who you are about to hear.
This is a bit about
Rodrigues going out for a day at the beach, and the reaction he got
when he tried to put on sunscreen. I won’t give away too much, but
Rodrigues is black, and the audience at this taping was mostly
white. That allowed Rodrigues to have a little fun with their
expectations partway through the story. Look for <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=corey+rodrigues+dry+bar+comedy"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">more of Rodrigues’s stuff on the
Dry Bar Comedy YouTube channel</a>, and find his album,
<em>My Turn</em>, on <a
href="https://music.apple.com/album/1169101578?app=itunes&ls=1"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">Apple Music</a> and <a
href="https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Corey_Rodrigues_My_Turn?id=Bdoyzdtfs366etgubs6x2snsphy&hl=en"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">Google Play</a>. His Web
site is <a href="https://coreyrodrigues.com/" rel="noopener"
target="_blank">www.coreyrodrigues.com</a>.