Unspeakable Horror!

Greg Herren is the editor of Haworth Positronic Press, a new imprint from Haworth that will publish Queer Horror titles.  You also know Greg Herren as the New Orleans mystery writer and the editor of Shadows of the Night: Queer Tales of the Uncanny and Unusual, in addition to many other publications.

I recently had the opportunity to correspond with Greg about this new imprint and get his perspective on Queer Horror.  Below is our email conversation.

Chad Helder:

Basically, I was hoping you could tell Unspeakable Horror's readers all about what is happening with the new Haworth imprint that specializes in queer horror -- what is on the horizon for this imprint? Also, I would love to hear what you think "queer horror" is -- especially after you had the interesting experience of editing the collection of queer uncanny tales.  What do you think the future of queer horror is going to look like in the publishing world?

Greg Herren:

The imprint isn't just for horror, it's for science fiction and fantasy as well; we are trying to cover all the bases of speculative fiction. But horror is more my love than the other two; from the time I read The Haunting of Hill House as a child I've been a huge fan of horror novels. Stephen King is of course my patron saint; along with Ramsey Campbell, Harlan Ellison, Poppy Z. Brite, and any number of others. One of the reasons we've decided to go with this imprint is because there are some really fine writers out there who can't find a publisher because of their queer themes or characters. The standard industry maxim seems to be 'if its queer and not about vampires, we don't want it.'   I am interested in all forms of horror--but I want well written, literate books with strong plots, well developed believable characters, and interesting originality. If you want to do a vampire novel, don't give me warmed over Anne Rice. Give it a new twist, make it fresh and original again. I'd love to see stuff about the occult, witchcraft, curses, etc.

We tested the waters with my own anthology Shadows of the Night, which received a lot of critical acclaim and award nominations. But Shadows was also an experiment, in that I asked queer writers who had never done horror to write short stories in that vein, and I was enormously pleased with the results. I got everything from fun/silly to spooky to downright creepy. I really enjoyed putting that book together, and I consider it one of my finer achievements as an editor.

Our first horror novel under the new imprint is a wonderful novel called Vintage: A Ghost Story, by the noted short story writer Steve Berman. Steve is a huge talent, and I can't tell you how pleased I am to be publishing his first novel. We're currently hoping to sign him to a multi-book contract. Steve has an incredibly bright future and he is one of the most talented writers I've come across in a while. We also have another novel (after my trashing vampires earlier--hoisted on my own petard, as it were) about vampires by M. Christian called The Very Bloody Marys--but it's an interesting and fresh approach to the genre that I think will do quite well for us. And under our other imprint, the Harrington Park Press, we are releasing a wonderful gothic romance called The Master of Seacliff, the debut novel by Max Pierce. Think Jane Eyre with a gay twist. It's a great book.

For me, queer horror is basically horror with queer characters and themes--just as queer lit is simply literature about queers. It's that simple for me. As for the future of queer horror, I hope that we at the Haworth Positronic Press are going to set a high standard that other publishers will follow, and will recognize what I believe to be true: that horror fans don't care about the sexuality of the characters in what they read; they are just looking for good books. Maybe I'm naive, but I feel confident this is true...and we are going to lead the way in opening a whole new audience for queer writers.
 

Update on Monday, May 26, 2008 at 10:29AM by Chad Helder

Sadly, Positronic Press is no more.  When Haworth was acquired by another company, they dropped all the gay and lesbian fiction.  Fuckers!