Author Archives: William the Bloody

About William the Bloody

Cat lover. 18C scholar on the dialogue and novel. Co-convenor OGOM Project

Stacey Abbott on iZombie

Posted on 31st May 2016 by William the Bloody

The rise of the sympathetic monster has been a unifying theme of OGOM’s research. Of all the monsters to feature in paranormal romance and similar narratives that humanise the undead and the monstrous, the zombie is surely one of the … Continue reading →

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Shapeshifters and Werecats

Posted on 27th May 2016 by William the Bloody

I’m still compiling my own top-ten shapeshifters in response to Sam’s and Kaja’s lists, but I came across this paranormal romance about a werecat, and I am very tempted: https://www.amazon.com/Cats-Tale-Melissa-Snark-ebook/dp/B00IVPYACA?ie=UTF8&redirect=true&tag=indautlan-20

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Beauty and the Beast: A modernist transformation by Clarice Lispector

Posted on 16th May 2016 by William the Bloody

‘Beauty and the Beast’ seems to me to be a rather important fairy tale. It’s the architext of paranormal romance, the story whose narrative form and themes lies at the heart of all those romantic encounters between human and other, … Continue reading →

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Dracula; the first edition

Posted on 16th May 2016 by William the Bloody

On this day (16 May), 1897, that seminal text of open graves and the Undead, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published. The British Library’s website (an excellent resource) has a valuable little piece on that first edition here.

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Maria Tatar

Posted on 14th May 2016 by William the Bloody

Maria Tatar is John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literature at Harvard University and an expert on children’s literature, German literature, and folklore. She is editor of the Norton Classic Fairy Tales. She coedited (with Erika Eichenseer) the … Continue reading →

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YA Fiction and Style

Posted on 14th May 2016 by William the Bloody

Too many YA novels, more so, I suspect, in the very commercial realm of paranormal romance, are let down by their style–even among the most interesting and complex ones. Too often, these fictions are narrated in the first person and … Continue reading →

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Review: Katherine Langrish, Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

Posted on 14th May 2016 by William the Bloody

Nicholas Lezard in The Guardian reviews here a collection of essays on the fairy tale, Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, by the folklorist Katherine Langrish. It sounds a fascinating book, covering tales from the English ‘Mr Fox’, Irish tales (her title … Continue reading →

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Gargoyle Romance and Capture Fantasy

Posted on 13th May 2016 by William the Bloody

The world of paranormal romance is wide and strange and generically multifarious. Human beings engage erotically with almost every monster the psyche has conjured up, even those where consummation seems somewhat impractical–ghosts, mermen, and zombies, for example. Some of the … Continue reading →

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Terry Pratchett Symposium, Dublin City University, 28 May 2016

Posted on 13th May 2016 by William the Bloody

The CFP for this symposium on Terry Pratchett has closed now–I’m not sure whether we saw it and posted it. But it still looks to be a brilliant event and well worth attending.

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Contemporary Gothic Study Day, Lancaster University, 20 May 2016

Posted on 11th May 2016 by William the Bloody

This looks like a brilliant day on contemporary Gothic at Lancaster University, organised by Catherine Spooner’s Gothic scholars and featuring Emma McEvoy (University of Westminster) and the award-winning novelist Andrew Michael Hurley. In addition, there are papers on a wide … Continue reading →

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