“The Horror! The Horror!” panel at the 2023 Unbound Book Festival gave horror fans the chance to hear the ways in which horror exposes the truth about our real world.
Sometimes the scariest stories are the ones that occur in our everyday lives. Serial killers, deadly viruses, murder hornets … Did you know that there’s a rare brain-eating amoeba in some southern United States lakes? Scary.
Despite these everyday horrors, some readers prefer to dive deeper into fictional horror stories as a way to confront their fears. As for what inspires pieces of horror literature, the 2023 Unbound Book Festival offered readers the chance to learn from authors familiar with the art of horror writing.
Among the wide variety of workshops, panels and poetry readings at the festival was “The Horror! The Horror!” author panel. A small group of fiction writers were brought together to discuss the ways in which horror stories are reflected in our society.
Readers of the horror genre welcome Ann Davila Cardinal to the 2023 Unbound Book Festival at the Broadway Hotel in Columbia, MO on April 22, 2023. The conversation discussed how horror literature compares and contrasts with society.
Although two of the three panelists were unable to attend the event, author Ann Dávila Cardinal gave the audience various insights into the vast horror genre. Kicking off the event by reading excerpts from two of her books, “The Storyteller’s Death” and “Breakup From Hell,” Cardinal and panel moderator Sheri-Marie Harrison, an associate professor of English at MU, had a lively discussion about Cardinal’s cultural background and what drew her to the horror genre.
“No matter how bad things got, I’d read these horror novels and comics and I’d think, ‘well, okay my life sucks but at least there’s no zombies,’” Cardinal said. “It made me feel like I could handle anything.”
Cardinal’s Puerto Rican heritage greatly influenced her writing, coming from a culture ripe with legends of El Cuco and chupacabras. Cardinal said growing up and hearing these stories gave her the background necessary to know how to create her own. As she did, she began seeing the world a little differently.
“We’re all afraid. [Writing] is a way of facing [issues] and dealing with them,” Cardinal said. “Horror is just a way of looking at that from the outside, from a sociological perspective.”
Vermont-based storyteller Ann Davila Cardinal explores the horror genre in literature during the 2023 Unbound Book Festival at the Broadway Hotel in Columbia, MO on April 22, 2023. “Breakup From Hell” is her most recent young adult horror novel and was published on January 3, 2023.
When it comes to horror stories, sometimes the ones that scare us the most are the ones that are almost too similar to our own reality. During the discussion, Cardinal expressed the importance of having the horror genre act as a “mirror” that allows us to interpret our lives in a new light.
“When [a work] takes society and shows it back to you in a horrible way, it’s so fascinating. There’s something oddly comforting about it,” Cardinal said. “When things are bad, horror shows people overcoming much worse odds than you and ends up bringing about important discussions.”
The panel finished with an audience Q&A, and many attendees shared their own thoughts about the horror genre and how it affects their lives. A common experience felt throughout the audience was horror’s ability to help us learn more about ourselves, especially our coping skills and emotional responses to much darker situations.
While there’s almost no chance of a zombie apocalypse occurring anytime soon, and you rarely hear stories about a possessed doll in the news, people consume horror stories to give them a new outlook on the reality we live in. After all, if you can read about toxic fungi taking over the world, then your upcoming finals might not seem so daunting. These stories just give us perspective on the catastrophes that have not happened … yet.
Edited by Savvy Sleevar | ssleevar@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Sam Barrett and Lauren Courtney