Shirley Jackson. There you go.

Caitlin Kiernan's debut, Silk, looks really good, Jilli. I may have to get my hands on that.

I guess I'm wondering if there will be any other really mainstream successful horror writers of either gender at this point. Stephen King certainly isn't writing strictly *horror* at this point, but he's earned his audience over the years. Same with Straub. Horror simply isn't as big as it was in its heyday, although I wish it were. I wish there was more *good* horror, like The Haunting of Hill House or Floating Dragon or The Exorcist. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, though. I've been wanting to read The Ruins, which is supposed to be fantastic.

Silk is fantastic, Amy. Actually, I think all of Caitlin's work is good; she's one of the few writers who can creep me out. I can't read her books after dark anymore.

I recently read The Ruins and was disappointed. It seemed long and drawn out and nothing really original. Maybe for those familiar with horror stories/movies it's been done.

It used to be there were no female science-fiction authors or female fantasy authors. Now I would say that women are prevalent in fantasy and well-represented in sci-fi...maybe the same will happen in horror.

I wish horror would have a renaissance too. Maybe we need a less horrifying real world for that to happen.

I'm sure there are theses that link the sociopolitical climate of the time to whether or not horror is entertainment, and if so what kind.

I mean that is why people do film degrees, right?

Horror *film* has made a comeback, though. Even television is embracing the paranormal again (and I don't just mean Supernatural). Romance is publishing paranormals like crazy again, when as little as eight or nine years ago they wouldn't touch them.

It's straight-up horror fiction that hasn't really made a comeback, as far as I can tell, although I think there are hopes for it based on the success of The Ruins. Sucks to hear that was disappointing, Todd.

In films, do you mean horror as in classic horror or the torture-type things that seem to be coming out in bunches?

And, in re The Ruins I read it because a friend - who doesn't really like horror - told me she really enjoyed it. So ... YRuinsMV.

I don't think everything coming out is torture. A few of the films in that AfterDark Horrorfest last year (now showing on SciFi and available on NetFlix, I believe) were traditional ghost and horror stories.

I don't like them, but I don't think you discount the torture films as a legitimate extension of the horror genre, either.

There was a rash of PG-13 horror flicks based on Japanese films.

I'm sure there are theses that link the sociopolitical climate of the time to whether or not horror is entertainment, and if so what kind.

The theory is that horror movies are popular when things are going badly. People are anxious; they want catharsis. So, Japan's economic downturn in the 1990s led to the horror boom over there.

With print... I think horror is better suited to short forms, and the market for short stories and novellas has withered away. Although, it seems to me that the number of horror comics is increasing, so maybe that's where the short-story writers are going.