IWD 2018

I was very kindly invited to speak at an International Women's Day event at Douglas Library this week, along with several other waaaay more qualified people. I figured I'd use the opportunity to blather about the history of horror and the women who've helped build it.

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I was attracted to writing horror because I always loved the visceral, visual nature of it. The best horror has a kind of exuberance. And people love to be scared in a safe, controlled way. It’s reassuring that you can hide the book in the freezer if it all gets too much.

I also love how horror shines a light on human nature. It exposes our fears, our neuroses, the rotten interiors we'd rather people didn't see. It does this sometimes to highlight how awful the world is and why we should be scared or angry, but at other times it shows how these things can be confronted and overcome. Books show us the inevitable terror of the world, then invite us to believe that hope, bravery, and humanity can help us fight these things (even if we won’t always win).

Like the phrase goes, fairy stories are important not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.

Fairy stories are perhaps the original horror stories. How many people get eaten, beaten, mutilated, kidnapped or cursed in our favourite children's stories? The original tellings were terrifying. They used horrifying aspects to grab the attention, but also to reinforce the lessons they preached - bad things happen to bad people. Evil actions can be defeated by good deeds.

Back in the day, these stories were passed generation to generation by word of mouth, mothers telling children. So in a sense, the very roots of horror came from women telling stories. And it's interesting to see how that continued through the centuries. Early gothic horror, originating in the 18th Century, by pioneers like Ann Radcliffe and Clara Reeve, was written for a mostly female audience. It was considered frivolous; not proper literature. Jane Austen herself referenced this fact in Northanger Abbey - her main character is a young woman who’s filled her head with gothic fiction and subsequently developed an overactive imagination. She says:

“Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss — ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda” […] Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, […] how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name.”

Into the 19th Century we got Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, one of the cornerstones of our genre. However, it's worth noting that, even then people argued that women's writing shouldn't be taken seriously. Frankenstein was published anonymously for many years. And the theory persists that Mary Shelley didn't actually write the story - it was all the work of her husband, Percy. As recently as three days ago there was an article in the Guardian that suggested Mary Shelley couldn't possibly have come up with such a story, despite, y’know, having a fascination with science in general and galvanism in particular.

So the 20th Century brought a new wave of female horror writers. The perspective they brought, of domestic, psychological horror, resonated in particular with readers at this time: the sense of something terrifying at the heart of the ordinary and everyday. Authors like Shirley Jackson and Susan Hill set the bar here. Angela Carter used the oldest fairytales weaved with social and feminist issues, to teach us that external monsters are rarely scarier than what lurks in people’s souls. The worst wolves are indeed hairy on the inside.

So, for a time, horror was a more-or-less equal opportunities genre, written and consumed by both genders.

Something appears to have shifted in the latter half of the twentieth century. The idea’s come about that horror is something of a boys’ club, and the best writers are male. The other day, an acquaintance remarked - not to me, but to someone else in this room - that women cannot write horror unless it's about sparkly vampires. Obviously I beg to differ. So how have we come to this?

Personally, I blame the 80s. The market for horror movies exploded in the late 70s into 80s. A new kind of visceral horror, slasher movies, video nasties, the infamous banned list. Certain misogynistic tropes became standard - not in all movies, obviously (hastag not all movies), but enough to call a broad trend. If I say slasher movie, we all picture the same sort of trope. Now, there's a fair overlap between those of us who love horror movies and those who read horror novels. People who watched the gore-busters of the 80s looked for literature in the same vein, and found pulp horror.

The authors writing for the pulp market were predominately male. We'll name drop Guy N Smith, Shaun Hutson, James Herbert et al. And Stephen King, of course, but you can't really include Stephen King in any statistics, because he's such an outlier he drags all your arguments askew, like a super-dark star. Neil Gaiman's the same. Anyway, around about this time, male authors have adopted the frivolous gothic novel and turned it around so now people suggest women don't have the heart or stomach for such things.

I have to say at this point, I've never found the horror community to be anything other than delightful and welcoming. No one there has ever told me I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be writing this stuff, or should be writing something more suitable to girls. The only people who’ve ever suggested that were those who dismiss the horror genre in general – I was once accused of bringing down the institution of family and marriage by writing about such grisly subjects.

But when I was growing up, about 99 percent of the authors I read were male. It made me assume horror was a boy’s game. Which suited me fine, I was a tomboy, but it was only as I grew up and learned to read more widely that I realised how skewed my worldview was. I worry at how other young women would fare if they wanted to follow the same path. Wouldn’t it just be easier to write about sparkly vampires?

As to the present day, in my opinion some of the best horror writing out there is currently happening in Young Adult. Those authors have the visceral exuberance that made me fall in love with the genre in the first place. Blending genres is very en vogue at the moment, with horror seguing into sci-fi or thriller or dystopia, as in Naomi Alderman’s recent feminist novel The Power.

People do sometimes wrinkle their nose at horror – it’s viewed as commercial, unsophisticated; entertainment not art. You’ll rarely see a horror novel shortlisted for a major prize. The same critics often wrinkle noses at YA as well – it’s for kids, it has nothing to say, it’s not proper literature. Even fans will sometimes say, oh, it’s my guilty pleasure.

Let me stop the bus there for a moment. People feel guilty way too often about stuff they love. Oh, I love Eurovision, it’s my guilty pleasure. I love the Twilight books, it’s my guilty pleasure. Like you should feel bad for the things that bring you joy. You should only consume them under a blanket, in the dark, when no one’s watching. That’s what we’re taught. We feel like people will judge us.

If we can do one thing for each other and for the upcoming generation, it’s to learn to embrace the things we love. Never feel guilty about something that genuinely makes you happy. And never make others feel bad for the things they care about. We need to support and validate other people and their (questionable) tastes in literature.

I love reading horror books, and I love writing horror books. And I’m exceptionally proud of the women who’ve paved the way for me to do this thing I love.

Thank you, please buy my book.

being bold for change

A few weeks ago I was kindly invited by Stacy Astill to speak at Henry Bloom Noble Library for International Women's Day, along with a fabulous collection of local authors, poets, and musicians that highlighted the huge variety of talent we've got on this island.

This year's International Women's Day was about being bold for change. So I said a few things on the subject of change, and I talked about it in terms of writing, because really I don't know much about anything else. But when I say 'writing', feel free to substitute any activity you care passionately about.

So, in terms of writing, a lot of stuff has changed over the years. The way we write, the physical process of it, has changed from pen and ink to keyboards, to mobile phones and writing software. It's never been easier, technologically speaking, for us to physically put words onto the screen.

How we're published has changed. There are more ways than ever before to get your work out there. Publishing is no longer a closed industry reliant on paper copies of books - now everyone has the option to publish their work in hardcopy, or print on demand, or ebook. You can post serialised novels on blogs. You can write interactive stories via Twitter polls. You can send your work around the world in an instant. You can ask for and receive immediate feedback from people throughout the globe. Never before have we had the chance to be read so widely.

What we write has changed. With the ability of everyone to self-publish, many old barriers have been taken down. You can write whatever you want and put it out there in the world. If you want to write a period romance with added dinosaurs - no one can tell you not to.

Who we write about is changing. Old stereotypes are being ditched (and some new ones are being created). With the upsurge in self-publishing, we've never had a better chance to create diverse characters - in terms of race, background, goals, motivations, lives, ability, everything. The world is changing and I want to believe literature is changing to reflect that.

How we read is changing. The electronic age has given us quick, immediate access to almost every book under the sun. You can buy and read the latest novels without having to leave your bed.

How we share our love of books has changed. Online sites like Amazon and Goodreads let us review our favourite books with a few simple clicks. Social media lets us connect with people who love the same novels as us - and gives us access to communicate directly with the authors we love.

But none of these are entirely positive things. There is greater diversity in books, yes, but we still have a long way to go. Look at your bookshelf and make a mental note how many main characters are non-white, or female, or differently able. Even if you believe you read diversely, you're likely to be surprised.

We may have immediate access to books via internet, but this is causing problems with piracy and the decline of the high-street bookshop. We are able to voice our opinions, but so can the vocal minority who will shout us down and tell us we're wrong to love the books we love, to defend the authors we care about, to want to see greater diversity and equality and change in what we read.

And while it might be easier to put words onto screen, the process of writing is as difficult as it's ever been. We are, and always will be, plagued with self-doubt and negativity. We question why we write, what we should write, whether we're any good, whether what we're doing will change anything. The obstacles are still the same - we all have other commitments, jobs and kids and families, and we never have enough time for the things we love doing. Some attitudes have changed, but some sadly have not, and there will always be those who'll ask, why are you writing? What's the point?

Here's what I think:

We write because we have a passion. Because we must. Because we persist.

We write to change things.

Maybe not to change the world, or opinions, or attitudes, or to make grand sweeping gestures that will benefit mankind, but because the smallest change is still a change. We can read and share diverse books. We can post reviews online. We can support our libraries and independent bookshops. Every time you buy a book, you're voting. You're telling the industry, this is what we want to read and how we want to buy. This is what we want more of. Every time you use your library card, you're telling the government, we need this resource.

Best and most of all, we can change ourselves through the positive act of creating something, or sharing something we love, or telling people about the things we care about. We can change our own opinions - the internal critic that says, how can I write when the world's such a mess? How can I write when no one will care what I say? How will this make a difference?

Change is difficult, we all know that. We're only one person. But everyone is just one person. Everyone can be bold and change something.

That's it, lecture over, please buy my books. :)