It’s about community, not competition.

A number of people have submitted emails in response to the news post I put up yesterday, and some have asked about the meaning of the Dante quote:

e più d’onore ancora assai mi fenno,
ch’e’ sì mi fecer de la loro schiera . . .

The lines are from The Inferno, Canto 4, a scene in which Dante leaves the dark wood to find himself in a pastoral region that sits apart from the errors of the world and the terrors of Hell. Here, in a place beyond time, he joins with five masters of his craft . . . .

[Read more at 21st-Century Scop.]

It’s about community, not competition.

A number of people have submitted emails in response to the news post I put up yesterday, and some have asked about the meaning of the Dante quote:

e più d’onore ancora assai mi fenno,
ch’e’ sì mi fecer de la loro schiera . . .

The lines are from The Inferno, Canto 4, a scene in which Dante leaves the dark wood to find himself in a pastoral region that sits apart from the errors of the world and the terrors of Hell. Here, in a place beyond time, he joins with five masters of his craft:  Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, and Virgil. These are the writers he has long admired, and he sums up his feelings about finding himself among them with the aforementioned lines, which can be translated thus:

And more honor still, much more, they did me
In that they made me one of their own band . . .

It occurs to me now, particularly after seeing the cover of Voices displayed alongside five other Stoker Nominees at SF Signal, that I might have included one more line in yesterday’s quote.

Here are the full three lines of Dante’s tercet:

e più d’onore ancora assai mi fenno,
ch’e’ sì mi fecer de la loro schiera,
sì ch’io fui sesto tra cotanto senno.

 And in English:

And more honor still, much more, they did me
In that they made me one of their own band,
So that I was the sixth, amid so much wisdom.

I think that’s fitting. It’s not about the competition, about winning or losing against the other works in the collection category. It’s enough to be allowed to stand alongside five of my favorite writers, counted as a member of their band. It’s community, not competition.

Do you agree?

. . . e più d’onore ancora assai mi fenno,
ch’e’ sì mi fecer de la loro schiera. 
                                                  

For immediate release        February 18, 2012        

Contact Lisa Morton, HWA Bram Stoker Awards Event Organizer
lisa@lisamorton.com

Horror Writers Association announces
2011 Bram Stoker Award™ Nominees

Each year, the Horror Writers Association presents the Bram Stoker
Awards™ for Superior Achievement in the field of horror writing, named in
honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror work Dracula. Since
1987, the approximately 700 members of the HWA have recommended, nominated
and voted on the greatest works of horror and dark fantasy of the previous
calendar year, making the Bram Stoker Awards the most prestigious award in
the field of horror literature. For the first time in 2011, half the
nominees were chosen by juries.

The awards are presented in eleven categories: Novel, First Novel, Young
Adult Novel, Graphic Novel, Long Fiction, Short Fiction, Screenplay,
Fiction Collection, Anthology, Non-fiction, and Poetry Collection. The
organization’s Active and Lifetime members will select the winners from
this list of nominees; and the Awards will be presented at a gala banquet
on Saturday evening, March 31, at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake
City, Utah.
  
This year’s nominees in each category are:

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL

A Matrix Of Angels by Christopher Conlon (Creative Guy Publishing)
Cosmic Forces by Greg Lamberson (Medallion Press)
Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi (Medallion Press / Thunderstorm Books)
Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle Books)
Not Fade Away by Gene O’Neill (Bad Moon Books)
The German by Lee Thomas (Lethe Press)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A FIRST NOVEL

Isis Unbound by Allyson Bird (Dark Regions Press)
Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs (Night Shade Books)
The Lamplighters by Frazer Lee (Samhain Horror)
The Panama Laugh by Thomas Roche (Night Shade Books)
That Which Should Not Be by Brett J. Talley (JournalStone)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

Ghosts of Coronado Bay, A Maya Blair Mystery by J. G. Faherty
(JournalStone)
The Screaming Season by Nancy Holder (Razorbill)
Rotters by Daniel Kraus (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
Dust and Decay by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster Books for Young
Readers)
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (Candlewick / Walker)
This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor
Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel (Simon & Schuster / David Fickling Books)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A GRAPHIC NOVEL

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol (First Second)
Locke & Key Volume 4 by Joe Hill (IDW Publishing)
Green River Killer by Jeff Jensen (Dark Horse)
Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine by Jonathan Maberry (Marvel)
Baltimore Volume I: The Plague Ships by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden
(Dark Horse)
Neonomicon by Alan Moore (Avatar Press)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN LONG FICTION

7 Brains by Michael Louis Calvillo (Burning Effigy Press)
“Roots and All” by Brian Hodge (A Book of Horrors)
“The Colliers’ Venus (1893)” by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Naked City: New
Tales of Urban Fantasy)
Ursa Major by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books)
Rusting Chickens by Gene O’Neill (Dark Regions Press)
“The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine” by Peter Straub (Conjunctions: 56)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN SHORT FICTION

“Her Husband’s Hands” by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine,
October 2011)
“Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” by Stephen King (The Atlantic Magazine,
May
2011)
“Graffiti Sonata” by Gene O’Neill (Dark Discoveries #18)
“X is for Xyx” by John Palisano (M is for Monster)
“Home” by George Saunders (The New Yorker Magazine, June 13, 2011)
“All You Can Do Is Breathe” by Kaaron Warren (Blood and Other Cravings)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A SCREENPLAY

True Blood, episode #44: “Spellbound” by Alan Ball (HBO)
The Walking Dead, episode #13: “Pretty Much Dead Already” by Scott M.
Gimple (AMC)
The Walking Dead, episode #9: “Save the Last One” by Scott M. Gimple
(AMC)
Priest by Cory Goodman (Screen Gems)
The Adjustment Bureau by George Nolfi (Universal Pictures)
American Horror Story, episode #12: “Afterbirth” by Jessica Sharzer
(20th Century Fox Television)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A FICTION COLLECTION

Voices: Tales of Horror by Lawrence C. Connolly (Fantasist Enterprises)
Red Gloves by Christopher Fowler (PS Publishing)
Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume One) by
Caitlin R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
Monsters of L.A. by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books)
The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious
Press)
Multiplex Fandango by Weston Ochse (Dark Regions Press)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN AN ANTHOLOGY (EDITING)

NEHW Presents: Epitaphs edited by Tracy L. Carbone (NEHW)
Ghosts By Gaslight edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers (Harper Voyager)
Blood And Other Cravings edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor Books)
Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse)
Tattered Souls 2 edited by Frank J. Hutton (Cutting Block Press)
Demons: Encounters with the Devil and his Minions, Fallen
Angels and the Possessed edited by John Skipp (Black Dog and Leventhal)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN NON-FICTION

Halloween Nation: Behind the Scenes of America’s
Fright Night by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne (Pelican Publishing)
Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu edited by Gary
William Crawford, Jim Rockhill and Brian J. Showers (Hippocampus Press)
Starve Better by Nick Mamatas (Apex Publications)
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies by Matt Mogk (Gallery
Books)
The Gothic Imagination by John C. Tibbetts (Palgrave Macmillan)
Stephen King: A Literary Companion by Rocky Wood (McFarland & Company,
Inc., Publishers)

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A POETRY COLLECTION

How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend by Linda Addison (Necon
Ebooks)
At Louche Ends: Poetry for the Decadent, the Damned & the
Absinthe-Minded by Maria Alexander (Burning Effigy Press)
Surrealities by Bruce Boston (Dark Regions Press)
Shroud of Night by G. O. Clark (Dark Regions Press)
The Mad Hattery by Marge Simon (Elektrik Milk Bath Press)
Unearthly Delights by Marge Simon (Sam’s Dot)

###

More information on the Horror Writers Association is at www.horror.org.
More information on the 25th Anniversary presentation of the Bram Stoker
Awards is at http://www.stokers2012.org.

I was six when I first heard it, sitting on the floor of my Levittown living room, watching a staticy cathode-ray television. It was sometimes hard to see the picture on that set, but the audio generally came through OK, making for an experience that was more like listening to radio than watching TV. No matter. Godzilla, King of the Monsters was one of those movies that sounded better than it looked.

[Hit the play button below to hear that sound . . . and read more at 21st Century Scop.]

I was six when I first heard it, sitting on the floor of my Levittown living room, watching a staticy cathode-ray television. It was sometimes hard to see the picture on that set, but the audio generally came through OK, making for an experience that was more like listening to radio than watching TV. No matter. Godzilla, King of the Monsters was one of those movies that sounded better than it looked.

The Americanized version of Toho’s Gojira featured an atomic age drama in which both the monster (Haruo Nakajima in a rubber suit) and leading man (Raymond Burr in a suit and tie) were spliced into the film. The monster scenes were scratched and degraded even then, and Burr’s scenes didn’t always match the compositions of the original. But the sound? Man, that got inside me.

Last night, I had the chance to see and hear both the original Japanese film and the American mash-up in a single sitting, courtesy of a newly restored Blu-Ray release from Criterion. The 1080p presentation with lossless audio was a long way from the fuzzy broadcast I viewed as a kid, but my intention here isn’t to review the restoration. Instead, I’d like to take a moment to consider the dark and brooding score by Akira Ifukube. It’s music designed to evoke a sense of power and dread, and as such it is (like everything else about the original film) a long way from the increasingly whimsical sequels that came later. For me, that 1950′s soundtrack is the sound of horror. 

Tonight I’ve got plenty of work to keep me busy. My desk is covered. Deadlines loom. Nevertheless, I’m thinking seriously about going downstairs and giving that Criterion disk another spin. And you know what? Maybe this time I’ll patch that high-end Blu-Ray player through an old converter box, squeeze the hi-def signal down into a coaxial cable, and hook the whole shebang up to an old cathode ray set that I have sitting in the garage.

Could work.

Who says you can’t relive the past?

Sound Notes:

Here’s the monster’s roar as it sounded in 1954. The sound was achieved by rubbing a leather glove over the tuned-down strings of a contrabass. Echo was added and the recording slowed down, resulting in a wonderfully organic monster sound.  

Here’s an excerpt of the slow, ominous march that plays as Gojira’s leaves Tokyo, heading back to the sea.

Finally, here’s an up-tempo selection that plays during the monster’s rampage. It features a three syllable riff that seems to be chanting the monster’s name: “Go-ji-ra! Go-ji-ra!” (The Americanized pronunciation “Godzilla” also works.) The riff seems to have inspired Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmire” — a song that was heavily sampled for Puff Daddy’s “Come with Me.” That tune can be heard on the soundtrack of Roland Emmerich’s 1998 attempted reboot of the Godzilla franchise.

This year the short-fiction jury has selected three strong works from mainstream publications, Ramona Ausubel’s “Atria” (New Yorker, April 4), George Saunders’s “Home” (New Yorker, June 13) and Stephen King’s “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic, May).

The past year also saw Zoetrope All-Story Magazine and Granta putting out special Horror Issues . . . .

[Read more at 21st Century Scop.]

This year the short-fiction jury has selected three strong works from mainstream publications, Ramona Ausubel’s “Atria” (New Yorker, April 4), George Saunders’s “Home” (New Yorker, June 13) and Stephen King’s “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic, May).

The past year also saw Zoetrope All-Story Magazine and Granta putting out special Horror Issues, featuring writers not generally associated with the genre, but most turning in work that puts the ingredients to good use.

Beyond these examples, I’m often struck by passages of genuine horror that I frequently encounter in works that have never been marketed or labeled as such. Most notably Augusten Burroughs’s chilling memoir A Wolf at the Table and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (both books from past years that I have only recently gotten around to reading).

The take-away, of course, is that some of the best opportunities for readers and writers of horror lie well beyond the genre walls.

Do you agree? Got a work you’d like to recommend?

As always, the comment box is open.

NOVEL:

JURY:
◦Conlon, Christopher — A Matrix Of Angels
◦Dunbar, Robert — Willy
◦McKinney, Joe — Flesh Eaters
◦Oliver, Reggie — Dracula Papers, Book 1: The Scholar’s Tale
◦Thomas, Lee — The German 

FIRST NOVEL:
RECS:
◦Bird, Allyson — Isis Unbound
◦Lee, Frazer — The Lamplighters
◦Reynolds, Graeme — High Moor
◦Talley, Brett J. — That Which Should Not Be
◦Wagner, Jeremy — The Armageddon Chord

JURY:
No ballot required, the following works will proceed directly to the Final Ballot. Please note these works may not be described as Nominees until the Final Ballot is formally announced.
◦Jacobs, John, Horner — Southern Gods
◦Roche, Thomas — The Panama Laugh 

YA NOVEL:
RECS:
◦Faherty, J. G. — Ghosts of Coronado Bay, A Maya Blair Mystery
◦Holder, Nancy — The Screaming Season
◦Maberry, Jonathan — Dust & Decay
◦Matthews, Araminta Star — Blind Hunger

JURY:
◦Blake, Kendare — Anna Dressed in Blood
◦Kraus, Daniel — Rotters
◦Ness, Patrick — A Monster Calls
◦Oppel, Kenneth — This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein
◦Roth, Veronica — Divergent

GRAPHIC NOVEL:
RECS:
◦Hill, Joe — Locke & Key, Volume 4
◦Maberry, Jonathan — Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher
◦Maberry, Jonathan — Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine
◦Mignola, Mike and Golden, Christopher — The Plague Ships
◦O’Reilly, Sean; Nassise, Joe; Weick, Halston — Candice Crow

JURY:
◦Brosgol, Vera — Anya’s Ghost
◦Fialkov, Joshua Hale — Echoes
◦Jensen, Jeff — Green River Killer
◦Moore, Alan — Neonomicon
◦Smith, John — Cradlegrave 

LONG FICTION:
RECS:
◦Breaux, Kevin James — Dark Water: Beaming Smile
◦Calvillo, Michael Louis — 7Brains
◦Little, John R. — Ursa Major
◦O’Neill, Gene — Rusting Chickens
◦Schwamberger, Ty — The Fields

JURY:
◦Hodge, Brian — Roots and All
◦Kiernan, Caitlin — The Colliers’ Venus (1893)
◦Lindqvist, John Ajvide — The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer
◦Shearman, Robert — Alice Through A Plastic Sheet
◦Straub, Peter — The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine

SHORT FICTION:
RECS:
◦Bailey, Michael — “It Tears Away” (The Shadow of the Unknown)
◦Lillie-Paetz, Ken — “Hypergraphia” (The Uninvited, Issue 1)
◦O’Neill, Gene — “Graffiti Sonata” (Dark Discoveries)
◦Palisano, John — “X is for Xyx” (M is for Monster)
◦Warren, Kaaron — “All You Can Do Is Breathe” (Blood and Other Cravings)

JURY:
◦Ausubel, Ramona — “Atria” (The New Yorker Magazine, April 4, 2011)
◦Ballingrud, Nathan — “Sunbleached” (Teeth: Vampire Tales)
◦Castro, Adam Troy — “Her Husband’s Hands” (Lightspeed Magazine)
◦King, Stephen — “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic Magazine, May 2011)
◦Saunders, George — “Home” (The New Yorker Magazine, June 13, 2011)

SCREENPLAY:
RECS:
No ballot required, the following works will proceed directly to the Final Ballot. Please note these works may not be described as Nominees until the Final Ballot is formally announced.
◦Ball, Alan — True Blood: Spellbound (Episode #44)
◦Goodman, Cory — Priest
◦Nolfi, George — The Adjustment Bureau

JURY:
◦Gimple, Scott M. — The Walking Dead, episode 13: “Pretty Much Dead Already”
◦Gimple, Scott M. — The Walking Dead, episode 9: “Save the Last One”
◦Noxon, Marti — Fright Night
◦Ovrehahl, Andre and Havard S. Johansen — Troll Hunter
◦Sharzer, Jessica — American Horror Story, episode 12: “Afterbirth” 

ANTHOLOGY:
RECS:
No ballot required, the following works will proceed directly to the Final Ballot. Please note these works may not be described as Nominees until the Final Ballot is formally announced.
◦Carbone, Tracy L. — NEHW Presents: Epitaphs
◦Hutton, Frank J. — Tattered Souls 2
◦Skipp, John — Demons: Encounters with the Devil and His Minions, Fallen Angels, and the Possessed
JURY:
◦Dann, Jack and Nick Gevers — Ghosts By Gaslight
◦Datlow, Ellen — Blood And Other Cravings
◦Datlow, Ellen — Supernatural Noir
◦Datlow, Ellen and Terri Windling — Teeth
◦VanderMeer, Jeff and Ann — The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities 

COLLECTION:
RECS:
◦Burke, Chesya — Let’s Play White
◦Connolly, Lawrence C. — Voices: Tales of Horror
◦Gresh, Lois — Eldritch Evolutions
◦Haines, Paul — The Last Days of Kali Yuga
◦Morton, Lisa — Monsters of L.A.
◦Ochse, Weston — Multiplex Fandango

JURY:
◦Fowler, Christopher — Red Gloves: The London Horrors
◦Kiernan, Caitlin R. — Two Worlds and In-Between
◦Llewellyn, Livia — Engines of Desire
◦Oliver, Reggie — Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories

 NON-FICTION:
RECS:
No ballot required, the following works will proceed directly to the Final Ballot. Please note these works may not be described as Nominees until the Final Ballot is formally announced.
◦Bannatyne, Lesley Pratt — Halloween Nation: Behind the Scenes of America’s Fright Night
◦Mamatas, Nick — Starve Better
◦Mogk, Matt — Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies

JURY:
◦Crawford, Gary William, Jim Rockhill, and Brian J. Showers, Eds. — Reflections in a Glass Darkly
◦Rupe, Shade — Dark Stars Rising
◦Shultz, David E. and S.T. Joshi, Ed. — Letters to James F. Morton
◦Tibbetts, John C. — The Gothic Imagination
◦Wood, Rocky — Stephen King: A Literary Companion

POETRY:
RECS:
◦Alexander, Maria — At Louche Ends: Poetry for the Decadent,the Damned & the Absinthe-Minded
◦Clarke, G.O — Shroud of Night
◦Borski, Robert — Blood Wallah and Other Poems
◦Simon, Marge — The Mad Hattery
◦Ward, Kyla Lee — The Land of Bad Dreams

JURY:
◦Addison, Linda — How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend
◦Boston, Bruce — Surrealities
◦Marshall, Helen — Skeleton Leaves
◦Schwader, Ann K. — Twisted in Dream
◦Simon, Marge — Unearthly Delights

In my previous post I promised to spend time responding to questions submitted during my most recent presentation on “The Art of Revision” at Seton Hill University. If you want to know more about the backstory, please take a look at that previous post, otherwise . . . read on!

The next question in my stack is one that we did not get to during the residency:

How do you go about writing a story in which the main character is unaware of a major plot point that the reader needs to know about?

This need to knowissue can be tricky . . . [Read More at 21st Century Scop.]

In my previous post I promised to spend time responding to questions submitted during my most recent presentation on “The Art of Revision” at Seton Hill University. If you want to know more about the backstory, please take a look at that previous post, otherwise . . . read on!

The next question in my stack is one that we did not get to during the residency:

How do you go about writing a story in which the main character is unaware of a major plot point that the reader needs to know about?

This need to know issue can be tricky, for although writers should fully understand the forces at work on their characters and the worlds they inhabit, the best stories are often those that dramatize compelling action without explaining why they happen.

By dramatizing, the writer is better able to more accurately evoke the mysteries and ambiguities of life.  Think about it? Aren’t the most interesting experiences the ones we figure out for ourselves, where we learn about people by observing their behavior, where we develop a sense of a place by moving through it – exploring and interacting? We should expect no less from our fiction.

Hemingway said it best in his essay “The Art of the Short Story”:

“If you leave out important things or events that you know about, the story is strengthened. If you leave or skip something because you do not know it, the story will be worthless.”

Of course, Hemingway didn’t write science fiction. He didn’t build worlds, but he nevertheless had a knack for making the landscapes of Europe and Africa accessible to American readers who had never been. He did so by dramatizing the interactions of interesting characters within those landscapes, conveying a sense of how things work by showing them at work. Science fiction writers do this all the time, using a technique called in-clueing (which I believe was coined by Jo Walton).

The trick, then, is not to explain . . . but to not explain.

Work out the backstory thoroughly for yourself, then dramatize it . . . and trust the reader to get it.

Do you agree? Have anything to add? What to ask a follow-up question?

The comment box is open.