{"id":994,"date":"2012-02-05T17:14:22","date_gmt":"2012-02-05T17:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/?p=994"},"modified":"2023-07-07T22:44:24","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T02:44:24","slug":"beyond-the-walls-of-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/2012\/02\/05\/beyond-the-walls-of-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Walls of Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Horror isn\u2019t a genre. It\u2019s an ingredient. A seasoning. Such things have been pointed out before, most notably by Douglas Winter in Revelations<\/a><\/em> (1997), but a quick look at this year\u2019s Bram Stoker Award\u2122 Preliminary Ballot <\/a>shows that it bears repeating.<\/p>\n

This year the short-fiction jury has selected three strong works from mainstream publications, Ramona Ausubel\u2019s \u201cAtria\u201d (New Yorker, April 4<\/a>), George Saunders\u2019s \u201cHome\u201d (New Yorker, June 13<\/a>) and Stephen King\u2019s \u201cHerman Wouk Is Still Alive\u201d (The Atlantic, May<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The past year also saw Zoetrope All-Story Magazine <\/a>and Granta <\/a>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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Beyond these examples, I\u2019m 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\u2019s chilling memoir A Wolf at the Table<\/em> <\/a>and Cormac McCarthy\u2019s Blood Meridian<\/em> <\/a>(both books from past years that I have only recently gotten around to reading).<\/p>\n

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

Do you agree? Got a work you’d like to recommend?<\/p>\n

As always, the comment box is open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Horror isn\u2019t a genre. It\u2019s an ingredient. A seasoning. Such things have been pointed out before, most notably by Douglas Winter in Revelations (1997), but a quick look at this year\u2019s Bram Stoker Award\u2122 Preliminary Ballot shows that it bears repeating. This year the short-fiction jury has selected three strong works from mainstream publications, Ramona […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-cat-21st-centuryscop","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[199,190,198,201,200,188,192,197,194,8,57,48,191,189,11,193,52,50,195,196],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-centuryscop","tag-a-wolf-at-the-table","tag-atria","tag-augusten-burroughs","tag-blood-meridian","tag-cormac-mccarthy","tag-douglass-winter","tag-george-saunders","tag-granta","tag-herman-wouk-is-still-alive","tag-horror","tag-horror-writers-association","tag-hwa","tag-new-yorker","tag-ramona-ausubel","tag-short-stories","tag-stephen-king","tag-stories","tag-storytelling","tag-the-atlantic","tag-zoetrope-all-story-magazine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23544,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions\/23544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}