Guest Author - Justin Daniel Davis
There is a great deal happening in the world of horror today! Not only do we have to keep track of the plethora of new authors and horror stories continually coming out, we also have to take the occasional moment and pay homage to those greats who got us here in the first place, authors like H.P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelly, Richard Matheson and Stephen King.
The concept of horror literature is a relatively new one, although horror as a written form dates arguably back to ancient times when tales of gods and magic, for evil or good, were first recorded from the oral traditions of old. These written stories eventually became popular and well-known, bleeding into the ritualistic practices of ancient Egypt as well as into the theatrical/religious arts popularized by Ancient Greece. Throughout history, the horror arts have often been banned as “taboo,” yet the fascination of the macabre continued to hold sway over the human imagination in many forms and cultures and enjoyed a resurgence in popular literary culture in the 1700s. Modern day horror is considered a direct descendant of the gothic tales of distressed heroines, crafty villains, and large castles that assaulted the literary scene in the late eighteenth century.
Today, there are organizations dedicated exclusively to the art of horror, an ever-growing academic population honoring horror as a legitimate literary movement, and entire television channels devoted to horror films, television shows, and discourse on...you guessed it! Horror. It is an exciting time for the horror fan.
I might seem familiar to you; I loosely ran the site for about a year and had to take a hiatus for my own personal and professional growth. In that time, horror author Chris Willis took the site and offered some wonderfully insightful perspectives on horror literature. I followed his work and was saddened when he needed to let the horror literature site go; seeing the position open for a while, I determined to fill the editorial shoes once again and recommitted myself to the site more than I ever had before. I now have a few more writing publications under my belt and an evolving love for horror that I wish to share with you.
The horror literature newsletter is a great way to stay connected to what we are doing with the site, where we are planning to go with it, and what projects or authors we are planning to address. I want to stress the importance of your feedback in instigating this process; if you know of an upcoming horror author and would like to share your information/suggestions with us, you are more than welcome to drop me an e-mail and give me a heads up! I am always on the lookout for cutting edge horror literature and horror news; together, we will be able to best determine what it is we want to see on our site. Please sign up for the newsletter if you have not already done so! I look forward to haunting your inbox soon.
