Go back and read their first novel Silk and you will find a story about the boundaries of madness, identity, sexuality, fantasy, and self-delusion that deploys horror tropes to represent the emotional landscape of fragmenting, marginalised selves. Kiernan is an author that found their voice remarkably quickly. Unlike Margaret Atwood, who famously denied that The Handmaid’s Tale was science-fiction on the grounds that it didn’t contain any space squid, Kiernan’s objection to the ‘horror’ label seems rooted less in economic self-interest and literary snobbery than in the nature of their relationship to the tropes that horror writers tend to deploy.Ĭaitlín R. You might not only write horror but you’re writing horror. Joshi then I don’t think you get to be sniffy about whether or not you write horror. I mean… between you and me… if your work is getting re-printed in Lovecraft-themed anthologies edited by S.T. They don’t just deny that they write horror… they angrily deny it and then decide to accept horror-themed literary awards and allow their work to be published in magazines and anthologies with impeccable horror credentials. Kiernan is a horror writer who denies that they write horror.
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