Monster, She Wrote

Monster, She Wrote
Author: Lisa Kröger
Publisher: Quirk Books
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2019-09-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1683691393

Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature’s strangest tales, from Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House and beyond. Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband’s heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard of Margaret “Mad Madge” Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work of Shirley Jackson, whose novel The Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You’ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today’s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales. Part biography, part reader’s guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.

Mary's Monster

Mary's Monster
Author: Lita Judge
Publisher:
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2018-01-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1626725004

A free verse biography of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, featuring over 300 pages of black-and-white watercolor illustrations.

The Dead Hours of Night (Monster, She Wrote)

The Dead Hours of Night (Monster, She Wrote)
Author: Lisa Tuttle
Publisher:
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2021-02-02
Genre:
ISBN: 9781948405836

In a career spanning almost 50 years, Lisa Tuttle has proven herself a master of the weird tale, and now this new collection of twelve unsettling stories - some never previously collected - offers readers a chance to discover some of her finest work. In 'Replacements', a woman adopts a monstrous pet, with unforeseen consequences. In 'Born Dead', a stillborn child mysteriously continues to grow just like a living one. 'My Pathology' (whose ending Thomas Tessier has cited as one of the best in the history of horror) explores the sinister results of a couple's alchemical experiments. And a book lover in 'The Book That Finds You' has her life changed in strange ways by the discovery of a rare horror book at a second-hand bookshop. In these weird and chilling tales, Tuttle is at her diabolical best. This edition features an introduction by Lisa Kröger, and each story is specially introduced by the author.

The Monster Doctor

The Monster Doctor
Author: John Kelly
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2020-10-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1529021367

Are you . . . A dragon with indigestion? A blob with a cold? A yeti with a sore foot? Then book an appointment with the MONSTER DOCTOR. No THING too small, no creature too big! Ozzy is just an ordinary human boy – until he gets a job at the monster doctor's surgery! He's now spending his summer helping the doctor cure her strange and wonderful monster-patients, and he has to find a way to help her save the surgery . . . The first in a howlingly hilarious series of monster adventures written and illustrated by John Kelly that will have you laughing your head off . . . literally. Don't miss Ozzy's next adventure in The Monster Doctor: Revolting Rescue!

She Made a Monster: How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein

She Made a Monster: How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein
Author: Lynn Fulton
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2018-09-18
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0525579621

A 2018 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children's Books On the bicentennial of Frankenstein, join Mary Shelley on the night she created the most frightening monster the world has ever seen. On a stormy night two hundred years ago, a young woman sat in a dark house and dreamed of her life as a writer. She longed to follow the path her own mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, had started down, but young Mary Shelley had yet to be inspired. As the night wore on, Mary grew more anxious. The next day was the deadline that her friend, the poet Lord Byron, had set for writing the best ghost story. After much talk of science and the secrets of life, Mary had gone to bed exhausted and frustrated that nothing she could think of was scary enough. But as she drifted off to sleep, she dreamed of a man that was not a man. He was a monster. This fascinating story gives readers insight into the tale behind one of the world's most celebrated novels and the creation of an indelible figure that is recognizable to readers of all ages. "Eye-catching artwork and engaging storytelling give this biography of a fascinating woman even more appeal."--Booklist

The Women of Weird Tales

The Women of Weird Tales
Author: Greye La Spina
Publisher:
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2020-11-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781948405768

Launched in 1923, the pulp magazine Weird Tales quickly became one of the most important outlets for horror and fantasy fiction and is often associated with writers like H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert Bloch, all of whose work appeared in its pages. But often overlooked is the fact that much of Weird Tales' content was by women writers, some of whom numbered among the magazine's most popular contributors. This volume includes thirteen fantastic tales originally published between 1925 and 1949, written by four of Weird Tales' most prolific female contributors: Greye La Spina, Everil Worrell, Mary Elizabeth Counselman and Eli Colter. Ranging from science fiction to fantasy to horror, these classic tales of mad scientists, deadly curses, ghosts, vampires, and the risen dead remain as thrilling and sensational as when first published.

Healer of the Water Monster

Healer of the Water Monster
Author: Brian Young
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 006299042X

American Indian Youth Literature Award Winner: Best Middle Grade Book!Brian Young’s powerful debut novel tells of a seemingly ordinary Navajo boy who must save the life of a Water Monster—and comes to realize he’s a hero at heart. When Nathan goes to visit his grandma, Nali, at her mobile summer home on the Navajo reservation, he knows he’s in for a pretty uneventful summer, with no electricity or cell service. Still, he loves spending time with Nali and with his uncle Jet, though it’s clear when Jet arrives that he brings his problems with him. One night, while lost in the nearby desert, Nathan finds someone extraordinary: a Holy Being from the Navajo Creation Story—a Water Monster—in need of help. Now Nathan must summon all his courage to save his new friend. With the help of other Navajo Holy Beings, Nathan is determined to save the Water Monster, and to support Uncle Jet in healing from his own pain. The Heartdrum imprint centers a wide range of intertribal voices, visions, and stories while welcoming all young readers, with an emphasis on the present and future of Indian Country and on the strength of young Native heroes. In partnership with We Need Diverse Books.

Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein

Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein
Author: Linda Bailey
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-08-28
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1770495592

The inspiring story of the girl behind one of the greatest novels -- and monsters -- ever, perfectly timed for the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein. For fans for picture book biographies such as I Dissent or She Persisted. How does a story begin? Sometimes it begins with a dream, and a dreamer. Mary is one such dreamer, a little girl who learns to read by tracing the letters on the tombstone of her famous feminist mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, and whose only escape from her strict father and overbearing stepmother is through the stories she reads and imagines. Unhappy at home, she seeks independence, and at the age of sixteen runs away with poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, another dreamer. Two years later, they travel to Switzerland where they meet a famous poet, Lord Byron. On a stormy summer evening, with five young people gathered around a fire, Byron suggests a contest to see who can create the best ghost story. Mary has a waking dream about a monster come to life. A year and a half later, Mary Shelley's terrifying tale, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, is published -- a novel that goes on to become the most enduring monster story ever and one of the most popular legends of all time. A riveting and atmospheric picture book about the young woman who wrote one of the greatest horror novels ever written and one of the first works of science fiction, Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein is an exploration of the process of artistic inspiration that will galvanize readers and writers of all ages.

In Search of Mary Shelley

In Search of Mary Shelley
Author: Fiona Sampson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2018-06-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1681778211

We know the facts of Mary Shelley’s life in some detail—the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, within days of her birth; the upbringing in the house of her father, William Godwin, in a house full of radical thinkers, poets, philosophers, and writers; her elopement, at the age of seventeen, with Percy Shelley; the years of peripatetic travel across Europe that followed. But there has been no literary biography written this century, and previous books have ignored the real person—what she actually thought and felt and why she did what she did—despite the fact that Mary and her group of second-generation Romantics were extremely interested in the psychological aspect of life.In this probing narrative, Fiona Sampson pursues Mary Shelley through her turbulent life, much as Victor Frankenstein tracked his monster across the arctic wastes. Sampson has written a book that finally answers the question of how it was that a nineteen-year-old came to write a novel so dark, mysterious, anguished, and psychologically astute that it continues to resonate two centuries later. No previous biographer has ever truly considered this question, let alone answered it.

Animal Wife

Animal Wife
Author: Lara Ehrlich
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2020-09-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1597098833

In this award-winning debut collection, fifteen magical realism stories portray girls and women searching for an escape from their everyday lives. “In villages where women bore most of the weight of a constricted life, witches flew by night on broomsticks,” said Italo Calvino of the way imagination bridges the gap between everyday existence and an idealized alternative . . . The fifteen stories of Animal Wife are unified by girls and women who cross this threshold seeking liberation from family responsibilities, from societal expectations, from their own minds. A girl born with feathers undertakes a quest for the mother who abandoned her. An indecisive woman drinks Foresight, only to become stymied by the futures branching before her. A proofreader cultivates a cage-fighting alter ego. A woman becomes psychologically trapped in her car. A girl acts on her desire for a childhood friend as a monster draws closer to the shore. A widow invites a bear to hibernate in her den . . . Animal Wife was selected as the winner of the Red Hen Fiction Award by New York Times– bestselling author Ann Hood, who says, “From the first sentence Animal Wife grabbed me and never let go. Sensual and intelligent, with gorgeous prose, it made me dizzy with its exploration and illumination of the inner and outer lives of girls and women.” Praise for Animal Wife “Whimsy and fantasy meet the way things really turn out in stories from a strong new voice.” —Kirkus Reviews “Strange, funny, fearsome, Animal Wife is a gorgeous book, weird in its very bones.” —Elizabeth McCracken, author of Bowlaway: A Novel “Lara Ehrlich has written a collection of stories that allow for escapism.” —F(r)iction “I was particularly intrigued by the way Lara beautifully portrays the inner struggle between wildness and domesticity, the surreal elements of each story lending a mythical complexity to these conflicts. Really lovely and thought-provoking. Perfect for fans of Aimee Bender, Karen Russell, and Angela Carter.” —Joy Baglio, founder of Pioneer Valley Writer’s Workshop