If you love horror, if you’ve ever thought about writing a horror novel or a short story (or if you’re writing one right now), or even if you’re writing something else entirely but maybe you want to inject some darkness into your craft, you’ll want to dive into this crash course on the fundamentals of the genre. We’ll talk about the differences between horror and terror and about the various modes available to you---everything from the Gothic to body horror to the supernatural, and from the inherent benefits of psychological tension to the ways in which horror plays well with every other narrative form out there, with examples drawn from Stephen King's latest story collection. You’ll come out with a list of ideas to write a whole new scary thing, or to make the thing you’re working on even scarier.
All participants will receive a paperback copy of the short story collection You Like it Darker, by Stephen King.
Juan Martinez is the author of the novel Extended Stay (Camino del Sol/University of Arizona Press, 2023) and the story collection Best Worst American (Small Beer Press, 2017). He lives near Chicago and is an associate professor at Northwestern University. His work has appeared most recently in EPOCH, Ploughshares, The Believer, The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Sunday Morning Transport, Huizache, Ecotone, NIGHTMARE, McSweeney’s, NPR's Selected Shorts, Small Odysseys, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Sudden Fiction Latino, Flash Fiction America, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in the Latinx horror anthology Ghosts Of Where We Are From.
