Women who write horror

[Stella_Omega]

I hate finding out about these things right after they were over, but February was Women in horror month-- And next February will be as well. So put it on your calender!

ETA: Of course some men will feel compelled to respond with their big important opinions.

But this is FYI for women.

 

[cloudy]

Horror is my favorite genre to write. There's something about that evil laugh I have while I prepare to scare my readers shitless.

 

[CharleyH]

Horror is my favorite genre to write. There's something about that evil laugh I have while I prepare to scare my readers shitless.

You don't scare me one little bit, old softie.

 

[cloudy]

You don't scare me one little bit, old softie.

I love you more than my feathers.

 

[CharleyH]

I hate finding out about these things right after they were over, but February was Women in horror month-- And next February will be as well. So put it on your calender!

Thinking ... who was the first female horror writer, anyhow. Mary Shelley?

 

[CharleyH]

I love you more than my feathers.

That's a lot! I love you more than my ... hm ... my snake skin heels! (they were very expensive)

 

[Taharial]

That's a lot! I love you more than my ... hm ... my snake skin heels! (they were very expensive)

edit.

 

[oggbashan]

Thinking ... who was the first female horror writer, anyhow. Mary Shelley?

Of course. Although she considered it as "Gothic".

Og

 

[PoppingTom]

Horror is my favorite genre to write. There's something about that evil laugh I have while I prepare to scare my readers shitless.

Well...I can understand that it is fun to write horror....but it's hard for me to understand, who read or watch it. I mean, what's so enjoyable of becoming a scary screaming bitch ? I know, there are a lot of people enjoying horror, I know that Robert Smith of The Cure watched 700 horror vids before doing "Japanese Whispers", but what's so appealing to it ? I really want to know, I don't wanna diss horror, I only couldn't understand it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Uh, when are the gals gonna get around to writing anything scary? Nuthin comes to mind.

 

[LaRocha]

Uh, when are the gals gonna get around to writing anything scary? Nuthin comes to mind.

Frankenstein is the best 'horror' story ever written. After that there's not really anything as interesting, written by male or female. There are stories that are suspenseful like Dracula and a few Stephen King, stories that are weird like Lovecraft, intelligent stories like Turn of the Screw, but there aren't stories that are genuinely terrifying to anyone that's ever seen a motion picture horror movie. When you're a kid the folktale horror stories are scary, urban legends and all that. It would be novel if there were horror novels that were as scary as a Hammer movie, which isn't scary by today's standards.

 

[TE999]

If you want to read something that's genuinely scary, get ahold of some EC horror comics from the 50's...'Tales from the Crypt', 'The Vault of Horror' and 'The Haunt of Fear'...great stories and great cartoonists like Will Elder, Frank Frazetta, Al Feldstein (who also wrote the stories), Wally Wood, Jack Davis and Reed Crandall to name a few.

They were gruesome and got a lot of flak from the 'I'm your mommy' crowd and the do-gooders...but the kids loved them...I certainly did.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

FRANKENSTEIN is lame.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Uh, when are the gals gonna get around to writing anything scary? Nuthin comes to mind.

Shelley's Frankenstein.

Shirley Jackson.

Poppy Z. Brite was creative for the first few. Can't argue with Anne Rice's impact, although I'll forever hate her for morphing the horror genre into the vampire romance genre.

Anyone got any more recent examples? Horror pretty much dried up in British book stores apart from the big names.

I must admit to being a little averse to female horror writers. I think I got a little unlucky at picking out new writers to try out and ended up reading annoying books with obvious Mary Sue/Author Insert main characters, unrealistic cardboard cutout hunks and tiresome vamp-werewolf love triangles.

It's what's put me off trying out writers like Richelle Mead even though I love the succubus motif.

 

[sr71plt]

Shirley Jackson.

Oh, "The Lottery." Right. One of the scariest things I ever read.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Real Life frightens me badly enough. I really don't need to deliberately seek out terror. But carry on, all you who love it. I'm going back to read more Pogo Possum.

 

[michchick98]

I hate finding out about these things right after they were over, but February was Women in horror month-- And next February will be as well. So put it on your calender!

ETA: Of course some men will feel compelled to respond with their big important opinions.

But this is FYI for women.

I wish I'd have known that, too. Although I read primarily romance and suspense, I do like a good horror story every now and then.

I've written one that's been published, but it never really got favorable responses, even when it was posted here.

There's one "horror" story on my story page now that kinda fizzles out because I think we (I co-wrote it with someone) lost focus. She recently expanded on it and posted it on her MySpace blog. It came out much better than the original version.

 

[stephen55]

Is Frankenstein's monster a monster, or just another misunderstood guy........

Wasn't the novel Frankenstein written by a woman and a very young woman at that?

http://therelativeabsolute.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/frankenstein_monster_boris_karloff.jpg

If Dr. Frankenstein's monster, okay...creation....actually had that large bolt through his neck, it could make for an interesting place to apply restraints...not that I would know about such things.

 

[Verdad]

There are plenty of fine female writers in the sci-fi world. Some of the stories have horrorish elements. I've never followed the horror genre, though, so I've no idea if there are any big contemporary names there.

The Lottery is a good example, though—we usually don't think of it as horror in the genre sense (I'd probably not remember to put it in that context) but it's a great and very creepy story.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Shirley Jackson is typical of the unknown body of women who write horror. "The Haunting of Hill House" was as scary as The Lottery. And so was "We have always lived in the castle." For that matter, her two semi-fictional books about her family life had some spooky moments; "Raising Demons" and "Life Among The savages."

Some resources;
http://www.pretty-scary.net/
http://zombiegrrlz.com/

Via email today, (because I asked) I got this listing of some of the women who write horror (Not urban fantasy, not Vampire romance but horror)
Tanith Lee, Sarah Pinborough, Alexandra Sokoloff, Lynda E Rucker, Caitlin R Kiernan, Allyson Bird, Gemma Files, Sarah Langan, Lisa Morton, Elizabeth Hand, Helen Oyeyemi, M. Rickert, Margo Lanagan, Sarah Pinborough, Tananarive Due, Sara Gran, Cherie Priest, Rhodi Hawk, Fran Friel, Lisa Tuttle, Melanie Tem, Chelsea Qunn Yarbro, Mary SanGiovanni, Nancy Kilpatrick, Kathe Koja, Susan Hill, Pat Cadigan, Sarah Monette. Barbara Roden, Kaaran Warren, Joyce Carol Oats, Mo Hayder, Ekaterina Sedia, Elizabeth Massie and Debbie Gallagher.

Some Horror Screenwriters and directors who are also women;
Catherine Hardwicke, Nora Zuckerman, Mary Harron, Sue Montford, Amanda Gusack, Karen Walton, Mary Lambert, Marti Noxon, Katt Shea, Karyn Kusama, Rachel Talalay, Heidi Martinuzzi, Tanya Huff, Devi Snively, Gloria Katz, Jackie Kong, Kerry Anne Mullaney, Anya Camilleri, Lola Wallace, Jane Espenson, Barbara Peters, Stephanie Rothman, Roberta Findlay, Diablo Cody, Marian Dora, Marina de Van, Jennifer Lynch, Claire Denis and Julie Siege.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Writing has a fairly good representation. Women in horror film... not so healthy.

As director throws up this list:
http://www.thehorrorpost.com/Womenhorrordirectors/Video.php

Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark is the only one that jumps to mind as a recognisable cult classic.

"Jennifer's Body" had a female director-writer team if I remember correctly. Diablo Cody botched the script pretty badly on that one though. "Ginger Snaps" did a better job of covering the same ground.

Definite under-representation for film, but it's Hollywood so it's probably not surprising

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Via email today, (because I asked) I got this listing of some of the women who write horror (Not urban fantasy, not Vampire romance but horror)
Tanith Lee, Sarah Pinborough, Alexandra Sokoloff, Lynda E Rucker, Caitlin R Kiernan, Allyson Bird, Gemma Files, Sarah Langan, Lisa Morton, Elizabeth Hand, Helen Oyeyemi, M. Rickert, Margo Lanagan, Sarah Pinborough, Tananarive Due, Sara Gran, Cherie Priest, Rhodi Hawk, Fran Friel, Lisa Tuttle, Melanie Tem, Chelsea Qunn Yarbro, Mary SanGiovanni, Nancy Kilpatrick, Kathe Koja, Susan Hill, Pat Cadigan, Sarah Monette. Barbara Roden, Kaaran Warren, Joyce Carol Oats, Mo Hayder, Ekaterina Sedia, Elizabeth Massie and Debbie Gallagher.

Thanks. I recognise some of those names from various Horror Anthologies. I'll check out some of the others.

One missing is Nancy Holder. She picked up a Stoker a while back for "Dead in the Water", which I enjoyed reading.

 

[Stella_Omega]

"Jennifer's Body" had a female director-writer team if I remember correctly. Diablo Cody botched the script pretty badly on that one though. "Ginger Snaps" did a better job of covering the same ground.

So there's only one woman-produced horror film allowed per theme, huh?

I had no idea!

Oh, wait, actually, that's been pretty obvious for a long time. Wish it worked that way for men, too.

Someone made a claim of over 500 women in horror films-- not counting actresses. Can't find it right now...

 

[manyeyedhydra]

So there's only one woman-produced horror film allowed per theme, huh?

I had no idea!

Oh, wait, actually, that's been pretty obvious for a long time. Wish it worked that way for men, too.

Someone made a claim of over 500 women in horror films-- not counting actresses. Can't find it right now...

Lol, way too defensive and not at all what I said.

You can have many women-(or men)-produced films for a theme. Some are going to work, some aren't. "Jennifer's body" didn't because the scriptwriter screwed up and didn't know whether they were trying to write a comedy-horror or horror. The fact she's a woman has nothing to do with it. Most horror scripts get horribly screwed up because it's easy to do something mediocre, but horribly difficult to do something exceptional.

Personally I'd rather there was a lot more women in horror films. The current ratio compared to say writing makes me suspect there's a lot of natural raw talent not getting a chance to see the light of day.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Actually, my daughter gave Jennifer's body four out of five. She also really liked it for a non-horror reason-- that the girls are the active elements every step of the way. Which is refreshing, yanno. At least, to girls.

didn't know whether they were trying to write a comedy-horror or horror.

I don't understand this remark, can you explain?

Personally I'd rather there was a lot more women in horror films. The current ratio compared to say writing makes me suspect there's a lot of natural raw talent not getting a chance to see the light of day.

Funny you should say that! i just found out where my list came from;
http://splinister.com/blog/?postid=586

Fuckin' pokes me in my activism bone, heh. Well, February is coming up!