A Far Out Fantastic Site

Photo Credit: The Horror Zine To close Women in Horror Month, I’ve asked editor and author Jeani Rector to be my guest blogger for this post. Jeani is the founding editor of the online literary journal, The Horror Zine . Her latest novel is Grave Events  which released last September. She was elected Best Magazine/e-zine Editor by Preditors & Editors three times: once in 2012, again in 2013 and then in 2014. I’m proud to say she is a fellow Sacramentan and so resides in the Sacramento area. Jeani presents us here with a very intriguing article that breaks the stereotype of horror as a man’s genre. And now heeeere’s Jeani . . . ! ------------- WOMEN IN HORROR by Jeani Rector, Editor The Horror Zine http://www.thehorrorzine.com “What’s a nice girl like you doing editing and writing horror?” This is the reaction from some when I explain what I do. “Women in horror” is a difficult concept for some. We are perceived as more submissive than men, an...

February is Women In Horror month and that includes female authors of fear. Most of what I’ve been reading in celebration of this month has been short stories that fall into the science fiction category but they also overlap with the horror one. Many of them contain mutant monsters and psychotic killers. These five stories come from either of two anthologies that I checked out at the library several weeks ago (and renewed recently). And so here is . . . A List of Female Authors’ Fear Stories One of the stories is by Octavia Butler and comes from a book entitled Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse , edited by John Joseph Adams. The term “zombie” has almost become the equivalent of “apocalypse” in a lot today’s sci fi and horror. However, I’m not sure if there are any zombie stories in this book since I’ve only read two contributions so far. But, sorry zombie fans, the Butler story is not a zombie one but is still a good one.  Butler’s story is called “Speech Sounds” and i...

I apologize for not posting for the past two weeks. My schedule has been filled up with more client projects than before and I’m just learning the details of a new platform I’m doing freelance blogging for (not my own blogging, but clients’). I’m trying to get things settled with these projects so I can go back to posting here once a week again. The first month of a new year has just flown by! Can you believe it? I said in my last blog post that I would have a list of my New Year’s resolutions for writing and so you’ll find it below. But I think I would like to look back on key points from last year before looking ahead, which is partly what New Year’s is about: looking back so you can look ahead to see what you can do better. And so it goes along with the Roman myth of Janus, the god with two faces: one face looks forward while the other looks back. Looking Back At 2014 2014 was a great year. Besides selling several copies of The Fool’s Illusion , I sold my first one ...