The Cerebral  Writer
  • About
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Links

Guest Author Sumiko Saulson on Wicked Women Writers in History

9/23/2013

0 Comments

 
Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Wicked Woman Writer Sumiko Saulson, who has agreed to share her thoughts on Wicked Women Writers in History--most notably, Mary Shelley.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Sumiko: One of the great things about participating in the Wicked Women Writers contest (hosted by HorrorAddicts.net) is being surrounded by other women writers in the genre. This year, there are thirteen women involved in the contest. Thirteen is a number that is strongly associated with horror due to the superstitious belief that it is an unlucky number. That belief was so strong at one time that some buildings older skipped the thirteenth floor (in fact simply calling it the fourteenth floor). Some people fear the number thirteenth, a condition called triskaidekaphobia. For a horror contest, however, it is very simpatico that there should be thirteen contestants in the year 2013.

Picture
Although women have played an important role in both modern and historical horror writing, it is a role that is not consistently acknowledged. A search on the “top 10” or “top 20” or “top 100” horror writers of all times will bring up a variety of lists,  many of which are exclusively male, or male dominated. Some (like this one) use genre labeling to purposely exclude female writers from the lists by categorizing as dark fantasy or romance. The few lists that do include women writers often have only a few, whose names we see repeatedly, such as Poppy Z. Brite and Anne Rice. The appearances of other names are few and far between, and early women genre pioneers are notably absent.

This bit about genre placement is interesting. The Gothic era of writing is widely considered to be the beginning of modern horror fiction, as epitomized by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe.  However, many female horror writers from the 1800s who were long considered horror writers have been erased from that history in popular (if not academic) culture by simply assigning them to a different genre.

The literary tendency to categorize women writers in any genre but horror is perhaps most conspicuous in the case of Mary Shelley, who was not only one of the most influential women in the history of horror writing, but is considered by many to be the author of the first novel in the modern genre science-fiction with her “Frankenstein,” published in 1818. Jane C. Loudon, author of “The Mummy,” published in 1827, was also later assigned to the science-fiction genre. Mary Shelley’s 1826 work “The Last Man” is also considered science fiction, and apocalyptic fiction.

In fact, these women are considered pioneers of the genre, having written in it before such a genre existed under that name. However, something interesting happened to them that did not happen to male horror writers whose works could also be considered part of another genre: in an act of revisionist history, they were gradually removed from the horror genre.
This seems particularly bizarre when watching horror films: if cinematic interpretations of “The Mummy” and “Frankenstein” are almost universally considered horror, then why wouldn’t the sci-fi classics remain in the horror wheelhouse in literature? If Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend” and Stephen King’s “The Stand” are both able to occupy a spot in the horror genre while also standing in their primary (and obvious) genre slot as apocalyptic fiction, who can’t Mary Shelley’s “The Last Man” perform the same trick?

A lot of this has to do with the sometimes random or unclear nature of genre labeling, and the often political nature of genre label selection. Once a horror label has become attached to a writer (like Stephen King) then his writings, even if they are another genre (like apocalyptic fiction) take on the horror label associated with their author. The same is true in reverse: if an author is known as a science fiction writer, like Octavia Butler, if she writes a work such as “Fledgling” which could also be considered as a work in the gothic horror or gothic romance tradition, it will still be most likely shelved under the science-fiction genre associated with its author.  There are plenty of talented female horror writers, but they are often found under different genre label identities within the speculative fiction wheelhouse of science-fiction, horror, and fantasy.

Picture
About the author:

Sumiko Saulson’s blog “Things That Go Bump In My Head” (www.SumikoSaulson.com) focuses on horror fiction writing and features author interviews, writing advice, short stories and editorial pieces. She is the author of three novels in the science fiction, horror and dark fantasy genres, “Solitude,” “Warmth”, and “The Moon Cried Blood”. She is also the author of a short story anthology by the same name as her blog. A published poet and writer of short stories and editorials, she was once profiled in a San Francisco Chronicle article about up-and-coming poets in the beatnik tradition. The child of African American and Russian-Jewish American parents, she is a native Californian, and was born and spent her early childhood in Los Angeles, moving to Hawaii, where she spent her teen years, at the age of 12. She has spent most of her adult life living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    Privacy Policy:

    No names or e-mail addresses listed in blog post replies will result in mailing list additions or sharing/sales to other sites via the Cerebral Writer.

    All email addresses, unless added intentionally to the body text of a post or response, will remain hidden from public view.

    Check out the Wiki.Evid's Top 10 Paranormal Mysteries.

    Archives

    November 2018
    October 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009
    June 2009
    May 2009
    April 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009
    December 2008
    November 2008
    October 2008
    September 2008
    August 2008
    July 2008
    June 2008
    May 2008
    April 2008
    March 2008


    Categories

    All
    Aftermath
    Animals
    Anthologies
    Awards
    Bestseller List
    Bizarro
    Blogging
    Classics
    Contests
    Critical Analysis
    Dystopia
    Edgar Allan Poe
    Editors
    Excerpts
    Film
    Finding Poe
    Flash Fiction
    God
    Grammar
    Guest Blogs
    Horror
    Humanitarians
    Interviews
    Jane The Hippie Vampire
    Language
    Leigh M. Lane
    Literary Fiction
    Lupus
    Marketing
    Movies
    Muses
    Musicians
    My Books
    Myths Of Gods
    My Writing
    My Writing
    Nook
    Novellas
    On Writing
    On Writing
    Opinion
    Other Great Authors
    Paying It Forward
    Pirates
    Poetry
    Racism
    Redrafting
    Revelations
    Reviews
    Rod Serling
    Screenplays
    Self Publishing
    Short Stories
    Speculative Fiction
    Television
    The Hidden Valley
    The Private Sector
    The Twilight Zone
    This Site
    Trailers
    Urban Fantasy
    Vampires
    Weird Western
    Words
    World Mart
    Zombies

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.