Welcome back to SCARY OUT THERE, the Horror Writers Association’s new blog on scary fiction for teens.

My guest this week is Tonya Hurley the New York Times and international bestselling author of the GHOSTGIRL young adult series and author of THE BLESSED.  Tonya has also created video games, two television series, written for film and is a contributor to The Huffington Post.  She lives in New York with her husband and daughter.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Let’s jump right in and talk about. With Scary Out There we’ve been exploring that nature of fear and what makes each of us afraid. What scares you, Tonya?

TONYA HURLEY: I’ve always been terrified of death, since I was a little girl.

JONATHAN MABERRY: There are a lot of ways to die. Is there a particular kind of death that pushes your buttons?

TONYA HURLEY: Death from the inside, like an undetected aneurysm, a sudden heart attack, an incurable acute illness, or anything that occurs without warning.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Was there something that ignited that fear in you?

TONYA HURLEY:  Yes. I remember being a little girl in the shower and screaming for my mother that my eyes were falling out of their sockets.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Yikes.

TONYA HURLEY: I was a terribly morbid child.

JONATHAN MABERRY:  No kidding. Does anything else scare the bejeezus out of you?

TONYA HURLEY: Sure, possession.  The idea of losing control was a big one with me.

JONATHAN MABERRY:  In what way?

TONYA HURLEY: The “monsters” inside. This is probably the same reason I am drawn to writing young adult.  There is so much going on inside mentally, emotionally, hormonally when you’re a teen that you have absolutely no control over.  It’s the best of times and the worst of times.

JONATHAN MABERRY: That speaks to a recurring topic here on Scary Out There. Some critics have voiced concerns about scary stories for teens, suggesting that they’re bad for kids. Do you agree with that view?

TONYA HURLEY: No, I don’t agree with the concerns.

JONATHAN MABERRY:  Why not?

TONYA HURLEY: Scary stories can often be our best teachers, especially when we are young.  They help us to understand the actual horror in the world and how to process and deal with it. I think that is one of the reasons why the fairytales of childhood are so brutal.  They are all just cautionary tales to one degree or another. Not to mention they are incredibly entertaining and they get teens reading.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Yup. So, makes good horror fiction?

TONYA HURLEY: I define ‘horror fiction’ simply as a story that scares you.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Is that an across-the-board view?

TONYA HURLEY: In a way. Everyone has a different fear threshold, so I don’t think we can limit it to tales of ghosts, monsters, real or imagined, and the supernatural.  Growing up, some of the most frightening stories I ever heard, and horrific images I ever saw, were in church on Sunday. My favorite horror fiction books mix horror with heart and humor.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Where you influenced by teen horror fiction?

TONYA HURLEY: Absolutely.  CARRIE by Stephen King is why I do what I do.  I read it when I was young.

JONATHAN MABERRY: That’s young adult fiction?

TONYA HURLEY: I think it’s the first YA novel before they were classified as such. All the elements are there.  High school, teenagers, peer pressure, parental conflict, fitting in, bullying, buckets of blood, sex, mayhem, murder and of course the supernatural.  It has influenced my work greatly.

JONATHAN MABERRY: As you see it, is horror fiction different for adults and for teens?

TONYA HURLEY: I don’t think it needs to be although you do want to take into account how graphic you can be without turning a younger reader off completely.  Teen readers perhaps react and relate more to characters like themselves and prefer to see those characters in familiar situations, i.e., high school, summer camp, because their life experiences are necessarily more limited than an adult’s.  But I don’t think the essence of what frightens us – the unknown – ever really changes.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Apart from an influence of CARRIE, what drew you to write horror?

TONYA HURLEY: I never set out consciously to write YA horror. I set out to write a trilogy that reimagined the martyr stories through three modern, confused but ultimately empowered, female characters who were chock full of badassery.  What I didn’t fully appreciate was how frightening those legends could be once I’d dragged them out of the past and into the present.

JONATHAN MABERRY: What’s the basic story?

TONYA HURLEY: The Blessed is the story of three Brooklyn teens at the lowest point in their lives, who fall for a mysterious guy who believes they are the modern-day incarnation of ancient female martyrs Lucy, Cecilia and Agnes.  Those saints died horrific, brutal and bloody deaths at very young ages as punishment for their defiance, so to stay true to those legends I really had to go there with my story and these characters and make no apologies.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Pretty intense stuff.  Kind of suggests that we’ve had horrific stories for teens for a long time.

TONYA HURLEY: For me, these legends are probably the first YA stories we have, and definitely some of the first YA horror stories we have.  As I was writing it, I kept thinking: Girls meets the Exorcist with a Tarantino twist.

JONATHAN MABERRY: That’s one hell of a tagline. So, what’s next?

TONYA HURLEY: I’ve got two more books in Å trilogy.

JONATHAN MABERRY: When will we see them?

TONYA HURLEY: The first paperback ,PRECIOUS BLOOD, will be released June 25^th. The second book, PASSIONARIES, will be released early 2014.  Aside from that, I am working on a ghostgirl ‘Day Of the Dead’ novella.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Nice!  Okay, apart from CARRIE, hit me with a couple of other YA horror novels that you feel are must-reads.

TONYA HURLEY: I’m not sure if these qualify as ‘YA horror’ since they pre-date the genre, but they are nevertheless scary as hell and shaped me as a person while I was coming of age, and certainly as a writer.  Kickin’ it classic with The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. As frightening and memorable as the film was (and still is), you haven’t truly been scared out of your wits until you read it.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Why so?

TONYA HURLEY: Is there anything more horrifying than being taken over by an evil spirit? For many of us raised Catholic, this is not a fantasy but a distinct possibility and gives the story even greater power over the imagination. The slow roll out of the story requires patience but somehow makes the whole thing more unsettling.  I had to hide the book before I went to bed each night so I couldn’t see it!

JONATHAN MABERRY: And what else?

TONYA HURLEY: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.  It always comes back to this one somehow. We all know the big themes addressed and the cultural impact they’ve had over the years but at the core of its horrific plot is a mad scientist turned grave robber who lives to stitch together parts of corpses and reanimate them.  The stuff of nightmares.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Yes it is. Thanks for swinging by to open a vein for us, Tonya. Best of luck with THE BLESSED novels!

You can find Tonya at www.tonyahurley.com, Twitter @TonyaHurley, or www.facebook.com/Tonya.Hurley

And visit these sites for more on her writing: www.facebook.com/ghostgirl, www.facebook/TheBlessed, www.theblessed.com, and www.ghostgirl.com

Also, here’s a trailer for BLESSED trailer on EW / also on youtube if you prefer:

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2012/09/14/tonya-hurley-the-blessed-exclusive-book-trailer/

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NEXT TIME: Tune in next week when I sit down to talk with Darren Shan, internationally bestselling authors of thirty novels for teens (and adults), Cirque Du Freak, The Demonata, The City trilogy, and his new series Zom-B.  Until then, hurry home before it gets too dark!

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Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and freelancer for Marvel Comics. His novels include EXTINCTION MACHINE, FIRE & ASH, PATIENT ZERO and many others. His award-winning teen novel, ROT & RUIN, is now in development for film. He is the editor of V-WARS, an award-winning vampire anthology. Since 1978 he’s sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, and poetry. He is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse, and co-founder of The Liars Club. Jonathan lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, Sara Jo. www.jonathanmaberry.com   Find him on Twitters at @JonathanMaberry and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jonathanmaberry

Welcome back to SCARY OUT THERE, the Horror Writers Association’s new blog on scary fiction for teens.

My guest this week is Rick Yancey, an author who writes powerful novels across genre and age lines. He’s the author of several adult novels and the memoir, CONFESSIONS OF A TAX COLLECTOR. His first young-adult novel, THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ALFRED KROPP, was a finalist for the Carnegie Medal. In 2010, his novel, THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST, received a Michael L. Printz Honor, and the sequel, THE CURSE OF THE WENDIGO, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His latest series, THE 5^TH WAVE, will launch this spring.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Let’s talk fear. What’s the most frightened you’ve ever been?

RICK YANCEY: The most frightened I have ever felt – ever – is when, as an older teen, the idea that life is capricious and the world may not be – in fact, all evidence pointed to the fact that it wasn’t – ruled by a benign and generous intelligence.

JONATHAN MABERRY: What brought you to that point?

RICK YANCEY: I’m not sure when this happened, but it may have been around the time I read THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Why? What did that book do to you?

RICK YANCEY: It was a feeling of hopeless dread, the existential terror of a universe that is neither kind nor malignant, but indifferent.

JONATHAN MABERRY: This was when you were a teen?

RICK YANCEY: Yes, and this shook my worldview to the core. By that age, I’d come to terms with the inevitability of death – intellectually at least – but I hadn’t considered the possibility that my death might be utterly meaningless.

JONATHAN MABERRY: What does that mean to you?

RICK YANCEY: There is the childlike fear of the unknown – and then there is the more mature fear of the unknowable.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Beyond entertainment, what value is there in horror fiction?

RICK YANCEY: Scary stories are popular because they’re a safe way (physically, at least) to confront our deepest fears. I have an unprovable theory that the very first stories were horror stories, told as a way to impose structure on an environment in which we were not the top of the food chain.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Has horror been a part of your reading life?

RICK YANCEY: I haven’t read much horror since I was a teen. I’m very impressionable; horror sticks with me and disrupts my sleep.

JONATHAN MABERRY: And you write it.

RICK YANCEY: When I wrote THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST I didn’t consider it horror – I thought of it as an adventure/thriller, but I never worry too much about classifications and genre (maybe to the detriment of my career).

JONATHAN MABERRY: How do you define ‘horror fiction’?

RICK YANCEY: Oh, the same way most people do, I suppose. Death or some facet thereof confronted.

JONATHAN MABERRY: In what ways does adult horror differ from teen fiction?

RICK YANCEY: Adult horror has more explicit sex and language, superficially. I’m probably the wrong person to ask.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Why so?

RICK YANCEY: Lots of readers have commented that my monstrumologist books are not teen-friendly, based on the sophistication of language and the graphic descriptions of death and the attending mayhem. I think the bigger issue is one of experience. Horror can also described as fiction of loss – the ultimate loss being life itself. You could argue that adults have experienced loss, failure, betrayal, malaise…all the shit that life can ladle out and to a more profound degree, and so-called “adult horror” spends more time addressing this, while “teen horror” dwells on the more primordial stuff – like being eaten alive.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Where’d the Monstrumologist idea come from?

RICK YANCEY: The Monstrumologist series evolved as I wrote it. My original concept was to write a Jaws-like story set in the 19th century, told epistolarily through the journals of an old man. I loved stories from that era, loved the style, loved that time when “there were still dark places in the world and men who dared to delve into them.” The story of the monster-hunter and his apprentice grew in directions unforeseen, putting out roots and branching into places I hadn’t anticipated. This, by the way, is one of the great joys of writing, when your characters take your original idea and do something totally unexpected and wonderful with it. Midway through THE CURSE OF THE WENDIGO, the second book, I realized I was writing a love story disguised as a horror story. I remember writing in large letters at the top of the manuscript: LOVE IS THE MONSTER.

By the third book, THE ISLE OF BLOOD, I knew I had something special on my hands. This wasn’t just about hunting monsters or a unique relationship between a driven man and his impressionable apprentice – I had come close to the heart of all fear and horror – or at least felt I had; readers can judge for themselves.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Nice.  So…what’s next on the slab?

RICK YANCEY: The fourth and last book in the series, THE FINAL DESCENT, will be published this fall. It’s gonna be tough to say goodbye to these characters.

JONATHAN MABERRY: I hear you. Just went through that myself with a quadrology.  Okay, let’s wrap it with a key question. If you had to recommend just three YA horror novels –past or present—which books make your must-read list?

RICK YANCEY: Oh boy, that’s always a hard question. Poe blew me away as a kid. I like Daniel Kraus’s stuff. Early Stephen King is great for older teens.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Thanks, Rick. Great stuff.

Find Rick online at www.rickyancey.com or follow him on Facebook (facebook.com/authorrickyancey) and Twitter (@RickYancey).

NEXT TIME: Tune in next week when I sit down to talk with Tonya Hurley, New York Times and international bestselling author of young adult series GHOSTGIRL and THE BLESSED. Until then, don’t let the bedbugs bite!

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Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and freelancer for Marvel Comics. His novels include EXTINCTION MACHINE, FIRE & ASH, PATIENT ZERO and many others. His award-winning teen novel, ROT & RUIN, is now in development for film. He is the editor of V-WARS, an award-winning vampire anthology. Since 1978 he’s sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, and poetry. He is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse, and co-founder of The Liars Club. Jonathan lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, Sara Jo. www.jonathanmaberry.com

What scares you?

Is it the same thing that scares me?

Are the things that scare us now the same things that made us tremble as kids? Are they the same monsters? The same fears and doubts? The same shadows? The same threats, real and imagined, that troubled us on the way to school? Or in school? In the playground?

No.

Fear, like everything in life, changes. Just as we change.

And horror –that personal reaction to something that makes us afraid—is as changeable as it is individual. Horror is no more the same to you and me as it is you our adult selves and the kids we once were.

Beginning this week, the Horror Writers Association launches a new blog on horror as defined and published for the Young Adult audience. Each week I’ll interview another player in the booming market of YA horror fiction.

However some of those players will surprise you. Because, as we agreed, not everyone defines horror the same way. So one of my motivations for this blog is to explore the dimensions and nuances of what defines horror. Horror can, of course, be supernatural, but it doesn’t have to be. Horror can be psychological, it can be grounded in science fiction, it can be steeped in fantasy, or it can be the dread of peer pressure and social awkwardness. If you don’t immediately agree, think back to what genuinely made you afraid as a teen.

That diversity in subject matter is reflected in the HWA’s new Bram Stoker Awards category for Young Adult Horror. I was so very honored to tie for the win last year with my friend and colleague Nancy Holder. This year’s final ballot reflects another wide, wide range of books that are covered by the YA Horror umbrella.

Joining us for this exploration to the unknown limits of horror is a wide range of authors. Some are well-known to the ‘horror crowd’; others are more familiar in other aspects of YA fiction –including paranormal thrillers, paranormal romance, psychological drama, science fiction, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, and more. Some are publishing giants, others are talented newcomers. All of them write horror.

If you don’t yet see how, or if some of these authors and their books don’t yet fit into your definition of ‘horror’, then that’s why we’re doing this blog. Horror, as a genre, resists easy definition. Especially in teen fiction.

Over the weeks and months you’ll hear from R. L. Stine, Holly Black, Kelley Armstrong, Barry Lyga, Lish McBride, Marie Lu, Carrie Ryan, Charlie Higson, Dan Wells, Ellen Hopkins, Heather Brewer, Kim Harrison, and many, many others.

Our first installment will be going up soon.

And, I encourage you to check out the books on this years final ballot for the YA Bram Stoker Award. Read. Get scared. Have fun.

-Jonathan Maberry

FINAL BALLOT FOR YOUNG ADULT NOVEL BRAM STOKER AWARD

Bray, Libba – The Diviners (Little Brown)
Lyga, Barry – I Hunt Killers (Little Brown)
Maberry, Jonathan – Flesh & Bone (Simon & Schuster)
McCarty, Michael – I Kissed A Ghoul (Noble Romance Publishing)
Stiefvater, Maggie – The Raven Boys (Scholastic Press)
Strand, Jeff – A Bad Day for Voodoo (Sourcebooks)

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Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and freelancer for Marvel Comics. His novels include EXTINCTION MACHINE, FIRE & ASH, PATIENT ZERO and many others. His award-winning teen novel, ROT & RUIN, is now in development for film. He is the editor of V-WARS, an award-winning vampire anthology. Since 1978 he’s sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, and poetry. He is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse, and co-founder of The Liars Club. Jonathan lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, Sara Jo. www.jonathanmaberry.com

(This article previously appeared in the VOYA {Voice of Youth Advocates} Magazine as part of the HWA’s YA Literacy program.)

By JG Faherty

There is a revolution happening in reading.

No, I’m not talking about the e-book revolution, although it does play a part in this. The revolution I’m referring to is being led by our children, and it’s one we should all be getting behind.

For years, people – experts and laymen alike – have been bemoaning that today’s youth is reading fewer books than ever, and that the levels of literacy among our children and teens is in a dangerous decline. But over the past couple of years new studies have shown that this information is, in fact, decidedly wrong. Since 2009, young adult readership has actually been increasing in double digits every year.

And I am proud to say that horror and dark fiction have played a major role in that rise.

I am a member of the Horror Writers Association and serve as their current library liaison. One of the HWA’s goals is to promote reading in schools and libraries, and a key part of that is focusing on the YA readers. After all, the more young adults we get reading, the more adult readers we’ll have later on. And that benefits everyone.

It is no secret that young readers love horror, even if they don’t realize it. Young adult literature continues to be the fastest-growing genre, and horror/dark fiction is a key component of that. Of course, today there is a bias against cataloging books as ‘horror,’ so it ends up getting packaged within and under various sub-genres. A little detective work is all it takes, however, to find the dark lurking below the surface.

Novel Novice, a website dedicated to showcasing Young Adult literature, encouraging reading and promoting education, recently polled readers to find out their favorite genres. Here is what they came up with, in no particular order:

Apocalyptic/Post-apocalyptic. Some might call this sci-fi, but there is plenty of horror in this category. Zombies, vampires, demons, aliens – anything dealing with the apocalypse is going to have some horror element in it. A classic example is Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry, which deals with life following a zombie apocalypse.

Paranormal Romance: This is the dominant genre for today’s YA readers. Vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, witches, and pretty much any other supernatural being you can think of fall in love, get in trouble, and have to escape danger while interacting with humankind. Although it might not seem like it when you look at the shelves or go to the movies, there is more to paranormal romance than Twilight. Nancy Holder and John Passarella are two writers who have contributed several books and series in this category.

Gothic: Ghosts, haunted houses, curses, and mysteries. Gothic horror has been around since humans sat around in caves telling stories around a fire, and it continues to be a powerful sub-genre today. Some examples include the Darkest Powers books by Kelley Armstrong or my own Ghosts of Coronado Bay. This sub-genre frequently overlaps with the previous category.

Cyberpunk: Dystopian plots that often include murder, genetically-bred monsters, and bio-warfare – how could anyone say this doesn’t have terrifying aspects? Is the Hunger Games horror or science fiction or fantasy? In truth, it’s all three.

Graphic Novels/Manga/Anime: When we were kids, we called them comic books. Today they are so much more. Whether they are written in the U.S. or come from overseas, the comic novel has evolved into one of the most popular forms of media for teens. The stories range from cute supernatural to downright terrifying horror and cover sci-fi, fantasy, traditional horror, dystopian and apocalyptic alternate realities, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. The popularity of this medium has grown so much that even best-selling writers such as Stephen King, Jonathan Maberry, and David Morrell (First Blood) have gotten into the act.

In addition to the above, Action/Adventure, Urban Fantasy, Steampunk, and Sci-Fi/Fantasy all rated very high. Although these categories are usually separate from horror, there is a lot of overlap (Harry Potter, for example) and together with horror they can all be categorized as speculative fiction.

So where does the HWA fit in to all of this? Well, of course many of today’s popular YA writers are also HWA members; however, the organization is more than just individual writers. As a group, the HWA is actively involved in promoting YA literacy by working with the American Library Association and individual libraries to encourage new activities and programs geared towards YA readers. Authors are available to visit schools and libraries and not only read from their latest works but also discuss books, literature, and language arts. Halloween is a great time for this, because schools and libraries often put on special events and writers can come in and read classic ghost stories and discuss local history as it relates to hauntings and horror.

Each year, the HWA honors books in several categories, including YA Novel and Graphic Novel, with its iconic Bram Stoker Awards®, and provides libraries with catalogs of recommended reading lists and new releases. HWA members are also regular panelists at youth-focused events such as Comic Con and the World Horror Convention.

In a 2010 survey by Scholastic, 43% of children questioned stated that the most important part of reading fiction is to open up the imagination. 62% said they read books to be “inspired by storylines and characters.” I feel safe in saying that very few things open the imagination and provide memorable storylines and characters the way horror/dark fiction can. It can transport you to new worlds, open doors to places that could only exist in the imagination, and having you falling in love or wishing you were the hero who saves the world.

In summary, the best way to get young people to read is to give them books they want to read, and speculative fiction – horror, sci-fi, fantasy – writers are doing just that.

By JG Faherty (www.jgfaherty.com)