Our featured image, which includes Grady Hendrix and Will Errickson’s popular Paperbacks from Hell series, evidences horror literature’s resurgence in recent years. There has been not only a reclaiming and reissuing of critically dismissed titles of the past but also a proliferation of new and diverse horror fictions. Whether disdained as pulpy trash or ignored for appealing to youth demographics, a large swathe of pre-2000s horror literature has frequently been deemed unworthy of critical analysis. But with developments that include Paperbacks from Hell, Valancourt Books’ new translations of horror novels, increasing numbers of film adaptations of horror youth literature, and decreasing rigidity between what constitutes high and low culture, titles that have long skirted the horror literature canon are increasingly being taken seriously as cultural documents speaking to societal norms and taboos as well as significant artistic works in their own right.
For this special issue on horror fiction, we invite submissions that critically reassess historically disregarded horror literature titles or that take up the works of new horror writers. We want to distinguish horror fiction from its more highbrow cousin, the gothic – and we are interested in horror. We do welcome, though, essays that self-consciously take up the critical difference between horror and the gothic.
Emerging and advanced scholars, popular writers, and fans are invited to submit abstracts on any aspect of the sub-genre. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Reclamation efforts and broadening the horror lit canon
- Paperbacks from Hell
- Impact of Valancourt Books reissue efforts, including their extensive list of horror translations
- Mainstream vs independent horror fiction publishing
- YA horror literature
- Horror fiction as the site for performance and identity
- Tension between horror literature that is intentionally ‘low-brow’ vs. ‘prestige’ horror
- Horror fiction by historically underrepresented groups – and the emergence of, for instance, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and LGBTQ horror fiction
- Influence of social media and booktube in recovering forgotten titles
- Sub-genre crossovers
- Fiction that engages with slasher film conventions
- Horror fiction as a reflection of changing societal taboos
- Studies of important horror writers – past and present
- Adaptations of horror fiction for film and television
Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words along with a brief bio to Elizabeth Erwin (ele210@lehigh.edu) and Dawn Keetley (dek7@lehigh.edu) by January 16, 2023. We will select essays to include in the special issue within three weeks and notify everyone who submitted an abstract. Completed essays, which will be limited to 2,500 words, will be due by April 15, 2023, and should be written for a general audience. We welcome all questions and inquiries!
Bibliography
Balanzategui, Jessica. “Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Children’s Horror Anthology Series in the 1990s.” Children, Youth, and American Television. Routledge, 2018. 201-222.
Corstorphine, Kevin, and Laura R. Kremmel, eds. The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Green, Raveen. The Black Female Gaze of Horror Literature. Diss. 2022.
Hantke, Steffen. “The Decline of the Literary Horror Market in the 1990s and Dell’s Abyss Series.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 41, no. 1, 2008, pp. 56-70.
Harrison, Sheri-Marie. “Marlon James and the Metafiction of the New Black Gothic.” Journal of West Indian Literature, vol. 26, no. 2, 2018, pp.1-17.
Hood, K. Shryock. Once Upon a Time in a Dark and Scary Book: The Messages of Horror Literature for Children. McFarland, 2018.
Hunchman, Kallie Nicole. “Stolen Spirits: The Appropriation of the Windigo Spirit in Horror Literature.” Digital Literature Review, vol. 7, 2020.
Latham, Camrie Ann. We’ll Eat You Up, We Love You So: On the Changes of the Children’s Horror Genre from the 17-th Century Onward. Diss. The University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2022.
McCort, Jessica R., ed. Reading in the Dark: Horror in Children’s Literature and Culture. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2016.
Nevins, Jess. Horror Fiction in the 20th Century: Exploring Literature’s Most Chilling Genre. Abc-Clio, 2020.
Ralickas, Vivian. “Art, Cosmic Horror, and the Fetishizing Gaze in the Fiction of HP Lovecraft.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 19, No. 3, 2008, pp. 297-316.
