"Sarah Langan is one of the bright new hopes of horror— an intelligent, literary, ambitious author capable of scaring the ever-loving crap out of her readers."— Tim Pratt, Locus Magazine, September, 2009
Everybody!
Great New. Tales from Beyond the Pale is now a ten-episode box set in time for Halloween. It’s gotten love this week from Slate, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR. You can get the collection from Amazon and your local indie, download it for itunes, or get individual episodes directly from the Tales website. My segment is called “Is This Seat Taken?” Happy Halloween!
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Langan
I’ve got a few September stories out:
1) “The Man inside Black Betty” in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/October 2011 issue. Bettyis more speculative fiction/ allegory than the horror most readers are accustomed to, but it carries my usual lefty pinko sensibility. If you’re squeamish, this one is for you. Buy it via subscription here, preview it here, or pick it up at your local bookstore/library.
2) The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2011 (ed. Paula Guran, Prime Books, September 2011), is now out. Included is my story, “Are You Trying to Tell Me This is Heaven?” This one’s a well-written zombie story, about a dad in the post apocalypse, searching for his missing daughter in the Baton Rouge county lock-up. Buy it here. Or at your local bookstore or favorite online dealer.
3) Halloween (ed. Paula Guran, Prime Books, September, 2011). It’s got my story, “The Great Pumpkin Arrives at Last”– a dark, fast paced chill that takes place on Halloween night. Click here to get it from the publisher, or hit up your usual suspects (B&N, Amazon, Indies).
4) “The Changeling” has been collected in Creatures: Thirty Years of Monster Stories (ed. Paul Tremblay and John Langan, Prime Books, September, 2011). It delves into the changeling myth, only with oodles more baby stealing. Get it here!
That’s it for this month. More to come. Until then, don’t get none on you.
-sl
Everybody!
Some news–
In late 2011, I’ve got stories coming out in “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” (September/October, 2011 issue), and the collected anthologies Halloween (September, 2011, Prime Books), The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2011 (August, Prime Books), Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters (September, 2011, Prime Books), Lightspeed: Year One (November, 2011, Prime Books), and All American Horror of the 21st Century: The First Decade (October, Wicker Park Press). Abroad for 2011, I’ve got stories coming out in the UK from PS Publishing in the Western Anthology Gunshot (late 2011); in Italy from Delos Books, “The Lost” will be translated in “H– the Horror Magazine’s Almanac” (July, 2011); and in Poland the story “Independence Day” will be translated in the magazine “Nowa Fantastyka” (late 2011). I think that’s everything!
Also, I’m on the board of the Shirley Jackson Award, and was delighted to attend Readercon, where this year’s winners were announced. In addition, I’m reading for the Stoker short fiction jury, the Edgar MMPB, and teaching creative writing at Gotham.
Everybody!
It’s that time again. The time when nonprofits ask you for money. I’m on the board of this organization, and think it’s worthwhile. The budget is tiny, but necessary for things like web hosting and physical awards. We don’t use if to pay for our time, or the books we often buy, or even travel expenses.
In its short history, the SJA has gained the respect of the literary community. It works with an esteemed rotating jury and board of advisers to select the most outstanding dark fiction of the year. The donation site is secure, and we’d love your support. People are donating from as little as a buck to as much as fifty. Anything works for us.
Donate or just learn more here!
Thanks for reading. Hope you’re all well.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Langan
Everybody!
A few things:
I’m reading at KGB June 15th, 7pm with Glen Hirshberg at the Fantastic Fiction Series, curated by Ellen Datlow and Matt Kressel. Info on the series and directions here.
I’ll be reading a short story, and some of my books will be available for sale. This reading will be my last for a few years, unless you’re attending one of the summer conventions. With my second child due in October, I’ll be taking some time away from public events, though of course I’ll continue to write. Empty Houses is about finished.
Other events:
June 16-19th, Stoker Weekend. I’ll be at the Horror Writer’s Association’s annual convention on Long Island, doing a signing and panel. Details here.
July 14-17th, Readercon Weekend in Boston. The Shirley Jackson Award will be given out, and I’ll be there to cheer. Good luck to all.
July 21-24, NeCon Convention in Rhode Island. I’ll be the guest of honor, which means I get to play lots of pranks on strangers. Watch out! Click here for details on attending.
That’s it! Until my next book comes out, I’ll be on the lowdown, and occasionally teaching fiction at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop.
I’ve got about ten short stories coming out from various places. When they’re out, I’ll drop a line. In the mean time, you can still find my fiction in:
That’s all, folks!
The Altantic included a Stephen King short story in its April issue in response to his accusation in Year’s Best that they’ve given up on fiction. Great story, but I doubt they’d have published it if King’s name hadn’t been attached. For one, it’s about poor Americans, which for some reason nobody wants to hear about. Poor foreigners, rich immigrants, boring academics– sure! But not anybody we might feel responsible for. Which means King gets extra cheers, for double mountain moving.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/05/herman-wouk-is-still-alive/8451/
I’ll be talking about the representation of women as monsters in horror movies through the decades at Fearmongers: Fireside Chats About Horror Films. There will be fun film clips. The Brood! Aliens! Rosemary’s Baby! Splice! The location is a very cool bar, with a lecture hall in the back. Other guests include Larry Fessenden, John Amplas, and Sam Zimmerman. Come on down!
Info:
Fear-Mongers at Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (btn Rivington and Delancey)
NYC
Tickets: $5
For reservations, call: (212) 219-0736
To purchase online: https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/8666535
For more info about Fear Mongers, visit us at:
http://www.dixonplace.org/html/fearmongers.html
Before the insect apocalypse, I met Laird Barron in Cancun. He’d been hired as chief scientist studying the eusocial characteristics of white ants, which had been plaguing the tourists of a prestigious resort. Several guests had been consumed, head to toe, leaving only their bones. Apparently, the ants had gone carnivorous. They were the first of several species to do so.
Happily, my husband was one of the partially-missing guests. We’d made one last effort to reconcile, only to wind-up arguing so forcefully that he’d slept his last, fateful night in the bathtub.
“How is it you didn’t hear him scream?” Barron asked. He just come back from a fifty-mile hike through the area, and though his interns were resting back at the hotel, he seemed sprightly. The dogs by his side, a pair of Huskies, panted.
“Must have been the quaaludes,” I told him.
Barron was on to me, but he let it go. After all, he was a scientist, not a cop. “Did you know that ants make up 25% of the animal kingdom’s biomass?” he asked. “It seems we’ve contained the problem—it affected several colonies reacting to the same biochemical signals. Cancun should be safe again,” he assured. “Until, of course, the insects attack again.”
Though I was unfamiliar with most things insect, this seemed like good news. There were some things, however, with which I was very familiar: concentrated sulfuric acid eats flesh, leaving only bone. Quaaludes work on grown men. Rogue, man-eating insects that rebel against mankind are very convenient, especially on the night you murder your husband.
“When will they attack again?” I asked.
“Well,” Barron explained, “I’m bringing a colony back with me to Alaska and training them, so probably pretty soon. The west coast, then across the continent. Their neurochemical signals are very strong—you’d be surprised. Ants make hosts of lots of animals, even humans. But don’t worry, they work fast. When your time comes, you won’t feel a thing.
I decided he was joking. So I tried to change the subject. “How come you’re wearing an eye patch?” I asked. “You weren’t wearing it this morning, were you?”
“I poked it out with my own thumb,” he explained, “Because of nosy people. Also, the ants need a place to live.” This seemed like a joke. Apparently, I was wrong.
Interviewed by Lee Thomas at SF Signal: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/03/post-2/
Nice Mention from Maura McHugh about women in horror: http://www.badreputation.org.uk/2011/03/01/women-in-horror-five-recommended-writers/
Over Thanksgiving weekend, I saw the documentary “Inside Job” (2010, dir. Charles Ferguson, narrated by Matt Damon) about the stock market collapse of 2008. It’s a movie with a liberal agenda and zero pretense toward neutrality. At times, I was frustrated by the cuts the editor made, because it seemed unlikely that the subjects interviewed (lobbyists for investment banks, professors at Harvard who advocated for less banking regulations, and also happened to command six and seven figure consulting fees from large banks, politicians) could be both so corrupt and so stupid. So I’ll give those subjects the benefit of the doubt.
Regardless, director Ferguson makes a good argument for banking regulation. Since deregulation began in the 1980s, the rich have gotten richer, and the American middle class has shrunk. For the first time in America’s history, this generation will be less educated and earn less money than its parents (says the movie). Basically, the bankers get disproportionately high salaries, even during times of loss. These salaries are funded not just by tax payer funded bailouts, but by the lost income and investments of the middle class. We let them merge after nullifying Glass-Steagall, then called them too big to fail. Someone ought to have noted that they were too corrupt to succeed.
How did they all have AAA ratings when their actual liquidity was only about 3%, with 97% debt? They bet against their own investments, and created a demand for crap mortgages, which no one inside these banks believed had value. Essentially, traders knew their investments might harm the economy, and their own companies, but they were in it for the very quick profit. And they got it. Thanks, guys! Hope that house in the Hamptons is awesome! Can I come over and use your pool?
The New Yorker this week has a good companion piece on the subject:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/29/101129fa_fact_cassidy
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It doesn’t make sense that we keep backing the very institutions that destroy us. Banks are necessary. They are good. They grease the economy. Already, they’re paying the government back. But they need regulation. Laws that prevent them from committing harm. So do insurance companies, hospitals, armies, and governments. People are good, and can often be depended on to make good decisions. Corporations, where no one individual is responsible, and everybody works for a paycheck, are not people. They’re a unique and cold-hearted beast. Everybody knows that. Liberals and conservatives surely must agree on that point, at least. So why has this banking system been so difficult to correct? I think I know.
We have a God in this country, and we worship him before all others. That God is money. We assume that people who have it are somehow better than us. They’re smarter, craftier, more savvy. The Kennedy money came from bootlegging, and probably a few dead bodies in some rivers here and there, but who cares? They’re so good looking! They have a family compound! It’s got a rose garden and guest houses! What they have defines them more than their actions.
We’re all guilty of it. I treat people in suits differently than those who wear jeans. I assume they know more about social rules, have more self-respect, are smarter. I forget that maybe they just work for their dads; maybe they’re just like everybody else, only luckier.
I grew up on Long Island, in a town where half the dads were investment bankers, and half the kids were complete assholes. This is not random coincidence. It’s not just the rich who believe their own hype—sure bankers totally deserve 100 times more annual salary than engineers, who actually went to school to learn math! They’re REALLY good at their jobs! It’s the poor who believe it, too. And the middle class. We all buy into the God of money. So when it comes time to slap their wrists for doing wrong, we just can’t bring ourselves to do it. After all, how can we punish the very people we wish to become?
Doomsday predictions belong to the Atlantic Monthly, and I’ve never liked them. But this banking crisis seems symptomatic to me. It’s not just the banks, it’s the fuel companies, and the lobbies, and the institutional corruption of corporations that no longer follow free market rules, or even rules of common sense. They don’t have to: they’ve bought everybody who might stop them, and are free to act irrationally. Small publishers can’t acquire small, good books, because they’re owned by monoliths, and now there’s just one party line. Who wants small profit when you can mass produce a blockbuster? Or a flop, and lose everything? Doctors can’t treat patients unless they sign on the dotted line, in triplicate. Or maybe the corrupt ones can just testify against sick people, or double bill Medicare. Monsanto owns the patent on soy beans. Food is patented! We don’t produce anything in this country. We consume. And have somehow misapprehended this as a virtue. So has the rest of the world, because they, too, worship money. It is the only reason for our continued cultural dominance. But what happens when we go broke?
The Great Recession was the warning. Like the 1890s blip in the Gilded Age before it, the Great Recession of 2008 indicated a need for market correction. Regulation. Prosecution of individuals who took bribes, or knowingly committed harm, not just in banking, but in all industries. Otherwise, we really are headed for a Great Depression.