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

My guest this week is Holly Black, author of bestselling contemporary fantasy books for kids and teens. Some of her titles include The Spiderwick Chronicles (with Tony DiTerlizzi), The Modern Faerie Tale series, The Good Neighbors graphic novel trilogy (with Ted Naifeh), the Curse Workers series, Doll Bones, and her new dark fantasy novel, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. She has been a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award, a finalist for an Eisner Award, and the recipient of the Andre Norton Award. She currently lives in New England with her husband, Theo, in a house that (I’m reliably told) has a secret door.

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JONATHAN MABERRY: Holly, thanks so much for swooping by to chat with me. With the blog we’ve been exploring the nature of fear, so let’s jump right in. What scares Holly Black?

HOLLY BLACK: Everything scares me.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Nice. Anything in particular?

HOLLY BLACK: Zombies, especially, but I am very easily frightened.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Do you know why?

HOLLY BLACK: I grew up in a creepy hundred-year-old Victorian house, like the house in the Spiderwick Chronicles, which my mother believed was haunted.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Was it?

HOLLY BLACK: My great grandmother had lived in the house for most of her life and my mom told stories about how she used to play with a ghostly boy in the attic. Whenever she lost something she’d yell for the ghost to bring that thing back. One time, I swear I sat on a sofa for an hour, not moving, because I thought there was a ghost in the other room.

JONATHAN MABERRY: What happened?

HOLLY BLACK: It turned out to be the way a sunbeam lit one of the curtains.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Kind of points to the emergence of a powerful imagination. Apart from the house, what else triggered your childhood fears?

HOLLY BLACK: When I was really little, Mom told me that DRACULA was the most frightening book she’d ever read. She described the way the vampire had crawled down the wall, head first and it creeped me out so much that I turned a bunch of my Barbie and Ken dolls into “good vampires” so they could protect me from the bad ones that I believed were out there.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Smart. I did that with my GI Joes.

HOLLY BLACK: Also, I believed that the trees were going to snatch me up in their long branches like the trees in the Green Knowe books. Remember those?

JONATHAN MABERRY: Oh, yeah. Lucy Boston wrote them and her son, Peter, illustrated them. Very creepy. THE CHIMNEYS OF GREEN KNOWE came out in 1958, the year I was born. My grandmother bought a copy and put it away to give me when I was old enough to read. Scared the hell out of me. So, yes, I remember those.

HOLLY BLACK: Then you remember that rhyme you’re never supposed to say? Green Knowe / Demon tree/ Evil fingers / Can’t catch me.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Um, you aren’t supposed to say that. You just gave me chills.

HOLLY BLACK: Yeah, that scared me too. In fact, I didn’t even have to look that poem up; it is lodged in my brain forever. So yeah, that’s me: easily scared.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Do you think we need to protect our kids from books that are too frightening?

HOLLY BLACK: I don’t think books harm readers.

JONATHAN MABERRY: What’s your take on it?

HOLLY BLACK: I have read some awful books — and sometimes I put them down and sometimes I read them all the way through– but no matter how much they upset me while I was reading them or how much they should have upset me, I was never harmed by the experience. I believe books give us the opportunity to try on someone else’s life, to be someone else, and, ideally, to learn how to empathize with different people in different circumstances than our own.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Is there value, then, in reading horror?

HOLLY BLACK: There are many useful things to take away from horror. We have an intense experience with no risk to ourselves at all. We experience catharsis. We are scared, but we survive being scared. I think those things are good for all of us, but I think they have a special appeal for teenagers.

JONATHAN MABERRY: What is ‘horror’, as you see it?

HOLLY BLACK: I think horror is an exploration of the shadows. And I believe that it creates a visceral feeling, a shivering up the spine, hair standing up along the arms. It gets to the gut as well as the head.

JONATHAN MABERRY: I’ve heard a similar definition used for dark fantasy.

HOLLY BLACK: I’ve heard that the difference between horror and dark fantasy is the difference between fear and awe, but I believe there’s room for both in horror fiction.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Rumor has it you have two teen horror books scheduled for this year. What’s up first?

HOLLY BLACK: The first one is a middle grade, called DOLL BONES about three kids — Jack, Poppy and Alice — who go on a road trip to bury a doll that may or may not be haunted, but definitely needs to be put to rest. It’s half ghost story and half about the time in one’s life when everything and everyone is forcing you to grow up, but you’re not ready to leave everything you loved and everything you were behind. That comes out May 7th.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Creepy. Dolls in general are creepy, and creepy doll stories doubly so. What’s after that?

HOLLY BLACK: The second one is a teen novel. THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN is set in a world where monsters, mostly locked away in walled Coldtowns, have become famous via video feeds. One day, Tana Bach wakes up the morning after a party, having passed out in a bathtub while avoiding her charming ex-boyfriend, to find almost all the other partygoers dead, their throats ripped out by monsters. She could be infected herself. She has to go on a road trip through the night with her aforementioned ex, who is raging with infection and thirsty for blood, and one other person — the first monster she’s ever met who hasn’t been on the other side of a TV or computer screen. Tana has had the world presented to her one way, but being among the monsters, is very, very different.

JONATHAN MABERRY: That’s sounds intense.

HOLLY BLACK: THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN is full of stuff I love – messy, messed up stuff. But it’s mostly about a girl, who, as the media lays her out before others like a feast of disaster, is discovering her inner monstrousness and learning to appreciate it.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Anything else scheduled after that?

HOLLY BLACK: For me? I’m not sure. I am working on a faerie book called THE DARKEST PART OF THE FOREST and I am really excited about it.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Is it horror?

HOLLY BLACK: It definitely has horrific elements, but I am still trying to work out more details. And I am co-writing a middle grade with Cassandra Clare. The first book is going to be called THE IRON TRIAL and it’s a magic school book with an extra heaping of darkness. I’m interested in joining horror elements with fantasy ones and I am hoping to push myself to explore all the things that scare me, of which, as we’ve established, there’s a lot.

JONATHAN MABERRY: If you had to recommend just three YA horror novels –past or present—which books make your must-read list?

HOLLY BLACK: My first pick would be Neil Gaiman’s THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, which is brilliant and beautifully written and opens from the point of view of a knife. That’s right, a knife! Which is being used to kill people! It’s awesome. I’m a long time fan of Gaiman’s and this might be my favorite of his books.

JONATHAN MABERRY: I talked with Neil about that at the Baker Street Irregulars dinner a year or so ago. He said he wrote that book for his adult readers and was surprised to learn that he’d written a Middle Grade book. What’s your second pick?

HOLLY BLACK: The second would be I HUNT KILLERS by Barry Lyga, in which the teenage son of a serial killer and explores his own inner darkness and uses what his father taught him about “prospecting” to find other killers. Lyga exploits all the holes and contradictions in the research on serial killers to create finely drawn characters that feel shudderingly real.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Agreed. I interviewed Barry a few weeks ago. Heckuva writer, heckuva good guy.  And your other pick?

HOLLY BLACK: And the third would be Robin Wasserman’s forthcoming THE WAKING DARK, which is a bad town novel, a la Stephen King, but also lyrical, adrenaline-soaked and amazing. Wasserman weaves together multiple storylines expertly to create a terrifying portrait of a community falling apart.

JONATHAN MABERRY: I’ll make sure I grab a copy. And thanks for stopping by, Holly. Best of luck with the new books!

Find Holy online at her website at blackholly.com and her tumblr at hollyblack.tumblr.com.

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Tune in next week when my guest will be Charlie Higson, one of the top teen horror writers in the UK. Author of the Young James Bond books as well as the deeply creepy THE ENEMY and its sequels. Until then, don’t forget to say the monster words before you turn off the light. Otherwise they’ll get you while you sleep!

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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 and a fierce little dog named Rosie. 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 Darren Shan has published over 30 books for YA and adults, including Cirque Du Freak, The Demonata, The City trilogy, and his new series Zom-B. His books have sold over 20 million copies worldwide. He lives in Ireland. Website: www.darrenshan.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/darrenshan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darrenshanofficial

JONATHAN MABERRY: You write some creep stuff, but how well do you take it? Do you scare easily?

 DARREN SHAN: I actually scare a lot easier now than I did when I was younger.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Why’s that?

DARREN SHAN: Maybe it’s because I’m more aware of death, and accepting of the fact that it’s on the cards. Of course I knew as a teenager that I was one day going to die, but I still kind of didn’t truly believe it.

JONATHAN MABERRY: So, fear changes?

DARREN SHAN: I think as you grow older, you start to accept that this is the ride you are on, and that there’s a price to be paid for enjoying all the cool stuff that life has to offer.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Do spooky stories still give you the same jolt as they did when you were a kid?

DARREN SHAN: I still enjoy a good horror tale, but I don’t relish them quite as much as I once did, as they make me wince too much. Most of us get a bit more squeamish as we age – it’s reality biting. Some days that depresses me a bit, and I long for the nothing-can-touch-me attitude of my youth. But most days I’m fine with it – just part and parcel of growing up and growing old. As long as I don’t grow old too gracefully, I’m happy enough…

JONATHAN MABERRY: Horror fiction has been around for a long time. What’s the key to its longevity?

DARREN SHAN: I think horror stories probably played a key role in our evolution towards the thinking, imaginative, creative beings that we are today.

JONATHAN MABERRY: How so?

DARREN SHAN: My guess is that mankind’s first literary stirrings came on long, dark, cold nights, when humans who knew little of the world sheltered from the dangerous darkness and started wondering about the source of all the noises they could hear.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Riffing off of that, do you think horror gets the respect it deserves?

DARREN SHAN: Horror gets short shrift in most critical circles, but at the risk of drawing their ire down upon me, I think that critics are to stories as bottom-feeders are to creatures with bottoms.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Yeah, I’m with you on that.

DARREN SHAN: Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but if you’re not in the game, you opinion is of no more value than anyone else’s. Like any writer with a conscience, I self-censor.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Do you worry about your horror going too far?

DARREN SHAN: I think long and hard about my young audience, and what might and might not be appropriate for them. If I feel I’m going too far with a story, I’ll rein myself in. If I write something that I would feel uncomfortable reading out live to a group of teens, I go back and re-write.

JONATHAN MABERRY: There are some non-writers there who seem to think that it’s their responsibility to tell writers how much is too much.

DARREN SHAN: When it comes to a mass audience, I believe that writers know best, and that their view should be respected. When it comes to individuals, each child is different, and I fully respect the rights of every parent, teacher and librarian to decide what their own child should be exposed to – in terms of that one child, they know best. But I don’t think any individual has the right to lay down the law for the great reading public.

JONATHAN MABERRY: I’m one of those people who learned to read because of horror and fantasy fiction. I’ve met a lot of folks like that.

DARREN SHAN: Horror is a great way to get children interested in reading, and to point their minds in interesting, questioning directions – for instance, in Zom-B I write very gorily about a zombie invasion, but the books also hopefully encourage readers to think about racism, the abuse of power, the manipulation of the media. If certain individuals dispute that, I’m perfectly happy for them to keep my books out of the hands of their wards. But I don’t think that other readers are their business. For me it’s a broad mandate.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Nice. And, I think your message comes across quite clearly, and with zero trace of peachiness. The message is in the story. Loved it.

DARREN SHAN: I love horror.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Why is horror so important?

DARREN SHAN: I feel that any story that explores the darkness of the human condition can be classed as a horror story. But I don’t think it should be limited to “scary stories.” Sure, some of my favorite horror novels are all about the scares and the gore, but others simply terrify me because they force me to look into the dark reflection of the human soul. We’re creatures of great promise and love, but also great threat and violence, and the best horror stories are those that reflect and help us think about this. So I would include the likes of Macbeth and Lord of the Flies and The Chocolate War in the horror pantheon.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Zom-B isn’t a standalone, right? So…what’s next.

DARREN SHAN: Zom-B Underground is the second of a 12 book series about zombies, but it’s a very different type of zombie story – you won’t find a lot of the standard humans vs. living dead storylines in here. The books are short, almost every one ends on a cliffhanger, and they come out at a rate of one every three months. Next up in April is Zom-B City.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Any plans for teen horror beyond that?

DARREN SHAN: At the moment I’m just looking to get to the end of Zom-B. With 10 more books to go, that’s far enough ahead to be planning!

JONATHAN MABERRY: Like some of the other authors I’ve interviewed, you tend to look beyond the boundaries of what’s popularly defined as ‘teen fiction’. That said, what books do you think teens should read?

DARREN SHAN: Any collection of Edgar Allen Poe’s finest stories. 1984 by George Orwell. The Stand by Stephen King.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Thanks, Darren. Congrats on the success of Zom-B, and best of luck with what I have no doubt will be a groundbreaking and enormously popular series. Great to have to stop by for a chat.

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You can find Darren everywhere online, including his website: www.darrenshan.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/darrenshan, and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darrenshanofficial

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NEXT TIME: Tune in next week when I sit down to talk with mega-bestseller Holly Black, author of bestselling contemporary fantasy books for kids and teens. Some of her titles include The Spiderwick Chronicles (with Tony DiTerlizzi), The Modern Faerie Tale series, The Good Neighbors graphic novel trilogy (with Ted Naifeh), the Curse Workers series, Doll Bones, and her new dark fantasy novel, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.

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 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

By: Jonathan Maberry

Welcome back to the Horror Writers Association’s new blog on scary fiction for teens. This week we chat with dynamic newcomer Victoria Schwab, who has been turning out an impressive number of works in a short time –and gathering critical and commercial acclaim with every step.

Victoria is the author of THE NEAR WITCH–which Kirkus Book Review praised for its “shivery horror tang”–as well as THE ARCHIVED, and several upcoming novels. Victoria suffers from a wicked case of wanderlust, but when she’s not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she can usually be found tucked in the corner of a coffee shop in Nashville, sipping tea and dreaming up monsters.

Jonathan Maberry: Let’s talk about being scared.  Are you scared of the same things now as you were as a kid?

Victoria Schwab: Not…as a teen I was scared of monsters. As an adult, I’m far more scared of humans.

Jonathan Maberry: Does that mean you’ve completely left the childhood fears behind?

Victoria Schwab: No, it’s not because I’ve stopped believing in beasts and things that go bump.

Jonathan Maberry: Really?

Victoria Schwab:  I guess my default is to believe in something until it’s proven to be fake.

Jonathan Maberry: But as an adult the focus of your fear has changed?

Victoria Schwab:  Sure. I find people, and what they’re capable of, to be more terrifying. I’ll always be a sucker for ghosts and urban myths.

Jonathan Maberry: Such as…?

Victoria Schwab: You won’t catch me saying “bloody mary” in the mirror at midnight.

Jonathan Maberry: Me, neither. Hard to admit that outside of the horror crowd without people looking at you strangely.  Getting back to humans, though…

Victoria Schwab: Serial killers and crimes–especially senseless or random ones–top my scare list these days.

Jonathan Maberry: Some people have raised arguments against horror, saying that dark content creates a negative influence on kids and that such books should be restricted.

Victoria Schwab: I’m pretty anti-censorship in all forms.

Jonathan Maberry: Does that mean no restrictions?

Victoria Schwab: I think now and then we need to do a better job of letting readers know what a book is and isn’t, but that graying exists more in other genres than in horror, probably due to the more targeted cover designs in this area. It will probably sound trite but the world is filled with horrors, fictional and real, and I don’t see the point in putting blinders on anyone.

Jonathan Maberry: Horror seems to be blossoming in teen fiction, but the definition is becoming fuzzy. How do you define ‘horror fiction’?

Victoria Schwab: Personally I see horror as anything that follows me to bed at night. When I first turn out the lights after reading or watching something scary, I feel that simple, bone-deep fear of what might be out there in the dark. And I don’t think a book has to be overtly or thoroughly grounded in the more classically defined horror genre to have horror elements.

Jonathan Maberry: Is horror, as a concept or a literary theme, different for teens and adults?

Victoria Schwab: I don’t think it is. I think there are different kinds of horror to suit every taste, but I’ve never really delineated them by age. Though teen boys do seem to enjoy gore more than anyone else I know.

Jonathan Maberry: Where do your books fall within that broad definition?

Victoria Schwab: I’d say I fall into that category of books that are not homerun horrors, but have spine-shivery elements. My first novel, THE NEAR WITCH, was primarily a mystery, but it also played heavily on the childlike fear of things that go bump or lurk beyond the window or whisper in the dark. My new book, THE ARCHVED, deals with a library of the dead, and the fear factor comes in in a place called the Narrows, a set of dark corridors where the dead who’ve woken—all restless, some violent—must be hunted down.

Jonathan Maberry: Nice! So…what’s next for you in YA horror?

Victoria Schwab: I’ll be continuing the story of THE ARCHIVED for at least another book, and fear takes a different face in the sequel, where nightmares begin to bleed into reality for my main character. It’s a more psychological horror, and I’m excited to play with that.

Jonathan Maberry: Sounds great. Now, if you had to recommend just three YA horror novels –past or present—which books make your must-read list?

Victoria Schwab: ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake, THE SUMMONING by Kelly Armstrong, THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan.

Jonathan Maberry: Great choices, Victoria.  Thanks for taking time to talk teen horror with us.

Find Victoria online at http://veschwab.wordpress.com or on Twitter at @veschwab.

********

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

2011 Bram Stoker Nominee

Kenneth Oppel

Author bio:
Kenneth Oppel is the author of numerous books for young readers. His award-winning Silverwing trilogy has sold over a million copies worldwide, and been adapted as an animated TV series and stage play. Airborn was winner of a Michael L Printz Honor Book Award, and the Canadian Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature; its sequel, Skybreaker, was a New York Times bestseller and was named Children’s Novel of the Year by the London Times. His most recent books are THIS DARK ENDEAVOR and SUCH WICKED INTENT, prequels to the gothic classic Frankenstein. Born on Vancouver Island, he has lived in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, England, Ireland, and now lives in Toronto with his wife and children.

Book synopsis:
Victor Frankenstein leads a charmed life. He and his twin brother Konrad and their beautiful cousin Elizabeth take lessons at home and spend their spare time fencing and horseback riding. Along with their friend, Henry, they have explored all the hidden passageways and secret rooms of the palatial Frankenstein chateau. Except one.

The Dark Library contains ancient tomes written in strange languages, and filled with forbidden knowledge. Their father makes them promise never to visit the library again, but when Konrad becomes deathly ill, Victor knows he must find the book that contains the recipe for the legendary Elixir of Life.

The elixir needs only three ingredients. But impossible odds, dangerous alchemy, and a bitter love triangle threaten their quest at every turn.

Victor knows he must not fail. But his success depends on how far he is willing to push the boundaries of nature, science, and love – and how much he is willing to sacrifice.

Buy This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein on Amazon

This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein, was published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

For more information, please visit:
http://www.kennethoppel.ca/

Or email Kenneth Oppel at Kenneth.Oppel@sympatico.ca

Bram Stoker 2011 Nominee

Patrick Ness

Author bio:
Patrick Ness is the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy. The Knife of Never Letting Go, book one of the trilogy, won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize. The Ask and The Answer, the second book in the trilogy won the Costa Children’s Book Award 2009. The third book, Monsters of Men, was released in September 2010.

He has also written a novel (The Crash of Hennington) and a short story collection (Topics About Which I Know Nothing) for adults, has taught Creative Writing at Oxford University, and is a literary critic for the Guardian. Born in Virginia, he lives in London.

Book synopsis:
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting– he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd– whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself.

Buy A Monster calls on Amazon

A Monster Calls, a Bram Stoker Nominee, was published by Candlewick

For more information, please visit: http://www.patrickness.com

Or contact Patrick Ness at: publicity@candlewick.com

Bram Stoker 2011 Nominee

Daniel Kraus

Author bio:
Daniel Kraus is a Chicago-based writer and filmmaker. His novel THE MONSTER VARIATIONS (Random House, 2009) was selected to New York Public Library’s “100 Best Stuff for Teens.” Fangoria called his acclaimed, Odyssey Award-winning, Bram Stoker-nominated second novel, ROTTERS (Random House, 2011), “a new horror classic.”

Upcoming novels include SCOWLER (Random House, 2013) and TROLLHUNTERS (Hyperion, 2013), co-written with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. Kraus has written regularly for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Playboy, Maxim, and Salon.com. Visit him at www.danielkraus.com.

Book synopsis:
Grave robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It’s true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey’s life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.

Everything changes when Joey’s mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey’s father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey’s life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.

Buy Rotter on Amazon

Rotter, a Bram Stoker nominee, was published by Random House

For more information, please visit: http://danielkraus.com/

Or contact Daniel Kraus at: mail@danielkraus.com

Recently I sat down and had a chat with famed cartoonist Ray Billingsley, creator of the CURTIS comic strip. Some of you might be wondering what a comic about two sassy kids and their long-suffering parents has to do with horror, but Ray has a secret: he’s a huge horror fan! And on top of that, he’s also dedicated to advancing youth literacy and has recently partnered with the HWA to promote reading among the young adult crowd – where horror and dark fiction happen to be the most popular genres.

JGF: Ray, let me just say it’s an honor to have you here. Like the thirty-five million other people who read Curtis each day, I’m a big fan. I especially enjoy when Curtis drags his terrified little brother Barry to see double features with fantastic titles like “The Brain that Ate the City” or “Bug-Eyed Alien Squids from Mars.” How old were you when you first discovered you had a love of things creepy and scary?

RB: First of all, let me say what an honor and a pleasure it is to be here speaking to you all! Thank you so very much for the compliments about my strip CURTIS. I’m happy that so many readers like it! Your question is quite interesting. I can clearly remember my very first horror movie, which my mother, of all people introduced me to. It was VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, you know, the story with the cute li’l kids-who were all born at the same time, and could control the adults with their eyes, yadda yadda yadda. Yes, my mother took me there to see it. Not Bambi. Not Peter Pan or what have you. I remember that it caught my attention right away and held it until the last frame. I was cheering for the kids! I was less than ten years old, maybe six to eight years old. We had one TV in the house, which my older brother usually had control of; he basically made me watch THE TWILIGHT ZONE and ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. On late Saturday nights, he liked ‘CHILLER’ and things like that. So I was introduced to the genre at an early age.

JGF: Chiller! I remember that program. Great classic horror movies. Speaking of movies, rumor has it you have a pretty big movie collection. How many movies do you have, and what are some of your favorites?

RB: Hmm, I don’t have an actual count, but there are several hundred DVDs. Oh my goodness, I have so many favorites! THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, THE EXORCIST, THE FLY, SLEEPY HOLLOW, THE THING (John Carpenter’s version!), THE SKELETON KEY, any movie with Vincent Price, SALEM’S LOT, there are so many! On visitor, who was going through my DVD collection, happened to mention that it consisted mainly of horror films. I also enjoy Japanese horror, like Ju-Ch’s THE GRUDGE, also ONE MISSED CALL.

JGF: What type of horror do you enjoy the most? For example, psychological, suspense, supernatural creatures, classic monsters, gore-fests, etc.

RB: Most genres I like, with the exception of extreme gore. The films with characters like Michael Myers were creepy the first time, but with so many sequels they sort of lose their punch for me. Classic creatures are really campy fun, especially when you think of the poor actor who was trapped inside some badly designed rubber costume. Films that use special effects really effectively like, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. Most types of horror I truly enjoy, with the exception of the mousse-hair characters who now today inhabit most of the vampire genre. Also, I think the ‘zombie’ genre is losing its punch because of overcrowding. THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was great by itself. The flood of predictable zombie films these past few recent years, not so much. Suspense is great when it only gives you a little and lets you use your own imagination, like Hill House. You walk those corridors along with Eleanor.

JGF: What do you think about the different trends we’ve been seeing in horror lately, such as movies that seem to focus on gore and violence or books or movies that have somber, emotional vampires and shape shifters?

RB: I’m not much of a fan of those, but they must have an audience because they keep on crankin’ ‘em out. I’ll never get used to the kid-like vampires and werewolves who pine for each other, emotionally and/or sexually. Aren’t they supposed to be the living undead?! Movies made just for ‘gore-appeal’, exceedingly bloody, are not my cup of tea either. I don’t really need to see someone’s head fly off to know he’s been decapitated. I like to have my imagination and mind’s-eye to paint the scene for my own entertainment.

JGF: CURTIS is a comic strip about two brothers growing up in a poor neighborhood. You have a brother, and you grew up in Harlem. How much of what we see in CURTIS is taken from your experiences growing up? And which brother are you more like, Curtis or Barry?

RB: CURTIS is very much the way my life was growing up in Harlem. I have an older brother, Richard, who was a lot like Curtis. He had a lot of schemes to get the things he wanted, or to get out of things he didn’t want to do. I, like Barry, would tag along and just watch his plans blow up in his face. Of course, some of my own mischief creeps into the character of Curtis. As a youth, I had a crush on a girl much like Michelle, and she couldn’t stand me. There was also a girl like Chutney, who liked me, whom I didn’t like much. Gunther, the barber, is modeled right after my own barber from years ago. The family situation with Curtis’ mom and dad is almost autobiographical. Mom is no-nonsense; the true backbone of the family and dad was a real workaholic.

JGF: You were something of a prodigy, getting your first paid job as a cartoonist at the age of twelve, and your first syndicated comic strip when you were only a couple of years out of college. In the horror biz, that’s like getting your first novel published while your friends are still watching cartoons and then going on to be a best seller while those same friends are trying to get their first jobs. How did early success affect your life?

RB: Since I did start so very young, it sort of separated me from others my age in my neighborhood. I wasn’t into the things that they were. They did drugs and drank and many things that would eventually either kill them, put them in jail, or just hold them back in life, and I didn’t have time for that. I was pretty much an outcast. But it gave me more time to work. I was pretty used to being a loner anyway. My family was very close-knit, so they were my company. When most kids were outside playing after school, I was working on cartooning for magazines and other professional jobs. It was kind of a tradeoff.

JGF: Writing – any artistic endeavor, really – can be a lonely business. We don’t go to an office, we only see associates at conferences, and we struggle to stay objective about our work. For authors, one thing that’s important is having beta readers to look over our work before we send it in to a publisher for consideration. Who do cartoonists use when they need an extra set of eyes or someone to bounce ideas off?

RB: I can’t say about the other ‘toonists because they really haven’t told me, but for myself, I work alone! No other voices to bounce ideas off of, no extra eyes. From the very beginning, I’ve worked alone, and that’s the way I really like it. I’ve been in this industry over forty years now (!) and I’ve done it by myself. In that way I am sort of bohemian. I have no set rules for creating, nor a set time. At times it just hits, ideas coming faster than I can write them down, other times I sit and really think about a certain storyline to make it the best I feel it can be. I do tend to immerse myself in music when I’m creating.

JGF: How far in advance do you plot out your story arcs?

RB: Syndicated cartoonists are to stay at least six weeks ahead of ‘print-date’. That is, whatever you read in today’s newspaper was written and drawn at least six weeks ago. It’s kind of strange when I’m working on some topic that concerns any holiday. I’ll draw a storyline or strips, say about Christmas, six weeks before time. Then in six weeks the holiday really arrives and it feels like I’ve already lived it once. Newspaper déjà-vu, I call it.

JGF: When you’re writing a multi-week story arc, do you outline the entire thing or work from a rough outline and flesh things out as you go along?

RB: I try to work out the entire storyline, but when it lasts for several days or weeks, I do make changes as it goes along. I’m my own editor and can be pretty tough on myself. The outline comes to me early and many times it’s almost completely written out, but it’s always rough. Some days I write all I can, then get up and go do something else. I come back later to the ideas and find they need a lot of shaping. I think that’s why I don’t work with an assistant. I guess I’m sort of eccentric in that way.

JGF: What would you say is the most frightening book you’ve read? How about the most frightening movie you’ve seen?

RB: This will sound silly, but when I was much younger I read A Christmas Carol, and I thought it was the scariest thing I’ve ever read! The thought of three spirits coming to visit scared me to death. As I’ve grown, there are too many to count. I’m an avid reader and I get something from every book I’ve read. The Exorcist, The Haunting of Hill House, and THE SKELETON KEY are some of my scary favorites I can name right now. THE THING remake was scary! I liked some of the Freddy movies-not all, but a couple of them. For me the idea that something could come after you as you slept was horror! You have to sleep! How can you avoid this terror?!

JGF: In the past, CURTIS has had a few story arcs that dealt with serious political or social issues, and then that seemed to stop. But this year you did a hysterical arc where Curtis and Barry save an old woman (and are frightened to death because they think they’re trapped in an apartment with a dead lady!) and then both Obama and Romney show up to use his heroism for their own political agendas and they end up brawling until Curtis’s mother grabs a broom and shoos them out the door. Do you see the strip taking on more issues in the future, or will they remain only occasional story lines?

RB: They will remain only occasional. You see, CURTIS is a type of strip that I can approach ANY idea I like. Sometimes I get the political feel but only when it’s a good storyline. I’m surprised that it’s so accepted by my readers. Usually gag strips are only gag strips, political strips are only political, I’m able to do any idea I feel.

JGF: And there have been some horror-sci/fi ones as well.

RB: Yes, I’ve even done some “horror” in the strip, like the time where Curtis and his best friend Gunk (a character from a place called Flyspeck Island) had to fight off genetically-mutated plants!

JGF: : One of the programs the HWA has is a mentoring program, where established writers provide one-on-one help for those who are just starting out. Your online bio mentions that you have a couple of dozen art students you regularly advise. Does this desire to give back to the industry stem in part from the mentoring you received from well-known cartoonists and artists when you were in school? And, as a corollary to that, have you ever considered teaching an art course at a local school?

RB: I did receive some mentoring from the older well-known cartoonists who took me under their wings. But they also teased me a lot! They called me The Kid because I was so young when we met. But they also challenged me and pushed me to do better, more than I thought I could. I think, on my part, that I do enjoy giving advice to younger hopefuls. Maybe I can help them avoid some of the things I had to find out by practicing. I worked all the time and lost a lot of my childhood because of it. I missed out on doing a lot of things for my art. My hopes are to help young hopefuls achieve their goals a little faster and maybe, just maybe, in less time. I don’t think I could teach a course, where I have to actually show up at some building of learning. I am so unstructured and bohemian. I just know I wouldn’t fit into any set curriculum.

JGF: If you could go back in time, what horror writer or moviemaker would you most like to spend a day with?

RB: Ooh tough question!! I’m sure I’d like to meet Washington Irving, Shirley Jackson; of course H.P. Lovecraft, even Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock! Richard Matheson would be on my list as well as Poe, Robert Bloch, William Blatty, Barker, and King! Like I’ve said, there would be so many. I like to be around writers. They are so very different!

JGF: Who’s your favorite monster?

RB: I think in John Carpenter’s remake of THE THING, that he really came up with a thing!! There was no telling what its definite shape ever was! I like creatures where there is no explanation of where it came from, or if there are any more of them. It was suspenseful and scary!!

JGF: Now that Curtis is reading horror books besides seeing scary movies, do you see more horror story lines in his future? And will this give him even more of an opportunity to scare the pants off his little brother?

RB: Yes, Curtis will be reading more horror stories! And he’ll still visit the movie theatres to see them on the screen. Sometimes you have to feel for little Barry. He’s never ready for the films Curtis likes to see!

JGF: In addition to literacy, you’re very involved in anti-smoking campaigns. Where does that stem from?

RB: Here’s the story-it all came to me at the first STAR WARS film back in the ‘70’s. A friend of mine and I went to a favorite theatre and got pretty good seats-right towards the middle. Of course this during the time before they made it illegal to smoke in public areas. As the film progressed, a cloud of smoke-cigarette and otherwise-began filling the area. At one point, we were straining to see the movie through a heavy cloud of smoke. I began thinking of how much I wanted to kick those cigarettes out of their hands! Mind you, I don’t care what you do to your own body. I just don’t like it when I am forced to breathe in what you’re doing. It was a perfect vehicle for Curtis. When CURTIS made its debut, there were quite a few strips that featured major characters smoking. I sort of broke the mold with Curtis’ thinking towards his father’s smoking.

JGF: Was designing the logo for the HWA’s YA Horror Page the most exciting thing ever (other than the numerous awards and recognition throughout your career!)?

RB: Yes, I just loved it! This was one of those times when the design, with the colors and everything, just sprang into my mind. I knew exactly what it would look like from its inception. That happens rarely but in this case, it just felt right!

JGF: What is your idea of the perfect Saturday night?

RB: Wow! Actually?? Well, hmm, I’m a little boring. Just a single night with nothing at all to do. Just sit back, chill out, play with my Basset hound, watch a film (of course), a little quiet reading, music from my iPod, staring from the window at my studio. I don’t have many nights where I just do nothing! I’m not around so many people, but I do enjoy the movies, theatre, and dining at this great little greasy-spoon I know of. Bad décor, really good food, man!

JGF: Ray, thank you for taking the time out of your hectic schedule to talk to us, and also for working with the HWA to show kids how much fun reading can be.

RB: And let me thank YOU, Greg, for giving me this time to share with you all. I’m glad to have this opportunity to open up and I hope I’ve answered these questions well for you. I really look forward to working along with the HWA. It’s one of the greatest groups in the world, filled with the most creative minds I’ve ever known. Thanks to you all!

Ray Billingsley draws the nationally syndicated comic strip CURTIS, which runs in more than 250 newspapers. He graduated from the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. After completing an internship at Walt Disney Studios, he pursued a career in art that included freelancing for magazines, newspapers, advertising companies, and greeting card companies before he created CURTIS in 1988. You can find out more about Ray at his website, www.billingsleyart.com and follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ray.billingsley.

By JG Faherty
www.jgfaherty.com
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(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)