John Jasper of Publishers Weekly’s “Genreville” blog teed off on the British Fantasy Society when he learned that their new collection of 16 interviews with horror writers didn’t include a single one with a woman.
I’ve only heard of four of the 16 people interviewed for In Conversation: A Writer’s Perspective. Volume One: Horror. In comparison, Maura McHugh at Splinster.com, listed 13 women writers she feels should have been considered for this collection — and I’ve only heard of three. These statistics prove? That I should never hold myself out as any kind of expert on the horror field, I guess. Just the same, I can’t imagine how BFS can justify the book’s all-male lineup.
Coincidentally, the BFS’ FantasyCon 2009 is running this weekend. One of their three guests of honor is a woman. There are two other women among the many authors doing book signings. Maybe the BFS’ left hand and right hand will get together and learn what the other is doing?
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I’ve heard of 4 of the women and only 2 of the men. What does that prove? Probably nothing, except that we’d both be good contestants for the title of “SF fan who knows the least about the contemporary horror field.”
Sf and horror as genres are only neighbors in the same sense that genre romance and the others are, or mysteries are. All these genre categories have writers that write in two or three — or possibly all four! — categories, but the genres only overlap somewhat.