ARRT Speculative Genre Study: Horror Boot Camp and the Coming Doorways Revolution!

At 2pm today, ARRT is having the 4th of our 12 planned Speculative Fiction Genre Study meetings -- Horror Boot Camp-- being led by yours truly.

The notes will be available to everyone and anyone in a few weeks, but for now, here is access to the slides I have made for the meeting.

Please note, the slides follow the assignment which was:

Featured resource: Horror.org (Horror Writers Association website)Assignment:Read Stephen King’s The ShiningRead your choice of any fiction by Joe Hill or Jonathan Maberry (EXCEPT for Maberry’s Joe Ledger thrillers)

Please note, this is not my final word on horror in libraries. But, it is a very good starting point, hence the term "Boot Camp."

Click here for the ARRT Horror Boot Camp Slides.

Today is also the final "boot camp" meeting.  After this we move to focusing on "doorways." We will be tackling the reasons why readers enjoy the books they do regardless of what genre box that book fits into. So we will look at the doorways of setting, character, story, language, and tone with a list of authors that represent science fiction, fantasy and horror (gasp) all together.

For example, in October, at our next meeting, we have the following assignment:

Doorway: SettingOct. 6, 2016Lisle District Library 

Featured resource: Tor.com 

Assignment:1) Read a book from two different authors from the list below (two books total). Preferably, both authors will be new to you. 

Frank HerbertHarry TurtledoveNeal StephensonKim Stanley RobinsonCherie PriestBrandon SandersonRobert McCammonN.K. JemisinJustin Cronin

2) As you read, think about the genre/subgenre of the book, and write down three additional appeal factors for the book besides setting/world-building. 

3) Come ready to talk about other world-building books you may enjoy and why.

I cannot stress enough how excited I am to do this. Talk about RA Rethink. We are completely reorganizing the standard genre study model in a way that makes us all better at helping actual readers. Our revolutionary idea is to start with how readers read instead of beginning with the books themselves. I am not exaggerating by calling this a revolution. It could fail, but I am betting that it works spectacularly and that our model could help all of you be better at serving patrons. Stay tuned.

So as excited as I am to share my horror knowledge with all of you today, I am eagerly anticipating when we can talk about all the speculative fiction genres together based on how patrons actually enjoy them.