31 Days of Stories 2022, Day 13: “Dread” by Clive Barker
Barker’s psychologically tense story examines the price we pay for confronting our darkest fears.
Alfred A. Knopf announces two new novels from Cormac McCarthy, the first in eighteen years
The novels will be published individually in October and November, followed by a box set in December.
“We are in the epicentre of hell”: Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine spurs condemnation from writers and publishers in Europe and abroad
Groups of writers and publishers from Europe and elsewhere gather together in support of Ukraine following the Russian invasion of February 24.
Vampires, mad scientists, and American psychos: David J. Skal examines some cultural underpinnings of the horror genre
In its examination of the roots of American horror cinema, this single-volume survey is valuable, though it lacks follow-through in its second half.
Nic Brewer’s debut novel uses body horror as a means of interrogating the artistic process
The book uses Grand Guignol techniques to literalize the process of tearing oneself open in the act of artistic creation.
Why so serious? Punch, Pennywise, and the evolution of the bad clown in popular culture
“It’s difficult to assign a specific cultural meaning to the bad clown, because it is such a malleable archetype,” Radford writes.
All horror is body horror: An introduction to a month of fear
The genre “specifically devoted to the arousal of bodily sensation” traffics in transgression and finds pleasure in the disreputable.
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 30: “Gazebo” by Raymond Carver
A powerful monument to what the short form is capable of from “the most influential writer of American short stories in the second half of the 20th century.”
31 Days of Stories 2021, Day 9: “The Cloak” by Robert Bloch
Not a retread or homage, Bloch’s vampire story displays a momentum and technique typical of the author’s best work.
Good faces off against evil in James Herbert’s The Dark
Herbert’s novel combines elements of a haunted house story, a zombie tale, and a meditation on the nature of evil.