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How the HWA Helped My Career: Jonathan Maberry

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how_helped214x164My name is Jonathan and I write horror.

I know, it sounds like the kind of thing you’d admit to at a meeting. Or maybe after taking an oath in court. Or, maybe something you’d tell a priest as part of your dying confession.

I write horror.

I read horror.

I like horror. Or, maybe it’s that I love it.

Viewed from a distance, considered without more information, it’s easy to judge and to reach the wrong conclusion. Happens all the time. I’ve encountered it more times than I can count. People meet me and discover that I write horror and there is this small withdraw, as if I might bite. As if I might want to bite.

Actually…I don’t. Never have.

It’s the same when people ask me why I write about monsters. I don’t. I write about people who fight monsters. Big difference.

So why do I write horror? And, moreover, why do I associate with other people who write horror?

Complex answers to questions that aren’t all that simple. The short answers are that I write horror because I love the genre. I write horror because few other genres allow as much creative freedom as horror. I write horror because I’d rather let the darkness out than keep it in. I write horror because some of the very best of our global literature has elements of horror in it –from the ghost of Hamlet’s father to the people with the rocks in The Lottery, from fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers to the bloody count from Transylvania.

Horror is a grand old tradition in literature. There were monsters in the Epic of Gilgamesh. There were demons and ghosts in the Bible. There were living dead in the tales of Scheherazade, and there as stark terror on a Halloween night as Scout was chased through the dark in a small Southern town. Horror has no limits. It shows up everywhere. Even when the word ‘horror’ isn’t used as the label.

And that brings me to the community of horror writers. Yes, there is an actual community. It’s global and it’s growing. The Horror Writers Association.

We members of this community do not, as a rule, gather in darkened groves to invoke the elder gods. We don’t dress up in costumes made from human skin and go hunting in white vans. And we don’t eat children.

Most of us, anyway. I won’t speak for all of my colleagues.

The HWA is a community of people who read horror, watch horror, discuss horror, and write horror.

I joined the group about a dozen years ago. It was after I’d written my first nonfiction book on the folklore of vampires (the dreadfully-titled Vampire Slayers’ Field Guide to the Undead, written under the pen name of Shane MacDougall). And this was years before I wrote my first novel, Ghost Road Blues. I joined the group with very few publishing credits that could even loosely be called ‘horror’. One small-press nonfic book. That was it.

You might expect that the group would marginalize a newbie like that. After all, who was I? A few of the other writers organizations I’d joined—and no, I won’t name names—seemed to regard newbies as nuisances. Necessary, when it came to collecting the dues that ran the machine; but not really important. I kind of expected that, and maybe even thought it was my due as someone who hadn’t yet ‘made it’.

But…

That wasn’t what happened.

The members of the HWA welcomed me from the outset. On the HWA forums, in email exchanges, and at events where I got to meet my fellow horror writers. I expected snobbery and instead experienced acceptance. I expected to see bitchiness and infighting, and instead found a group that seemed interested in networking.

Kind of spooky, really. I thought I was in one of those movies where everyone acts nice but they have holes in the back of their necks and a spacecraft buried out in the cow pasture.

But, no.

Now, roll back the tape a minute and let me explain that I had actually met a few professional authors of horror, science fiction and fantasy many years before. Back when I was twelve. My middle school librarian introduced me to Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Avram Davidson, Robert Bloch, and Robert Sheckley. So, I knew that there were some cool cats in the biz. But I met those guys decades before I started writing this kind of thing. And I met them in party situations where they were being genial to a kid who said he wanted to write. Different circumstances.

Or so I thought.

What I found was that the people who write the darker stuff tended to be lighter of spirit. Bradbury, Matheson, and Bloch were sweethearts. Great guys.

But, I discovered, so were the folks in the HWA. When I asked questions, I got answers. When I wanted to network, I was met with enthusiasm. All the time? No. But far more often than not. And none of the turndowns were mean or bitchy. If people didn’t have the time, they said so.

I loved the general air of kindness (I almost wrote ‘good-guyness’ but I doubt I can get away with making up words. I’m not Bill Shakespeare.) What I learned was that everyone was trying to get ahead, get better at his or her craft, and get some career traction. That was as true of the guys trying to leverage a short story sale into their first book deal as it was with a line of books on the shelves. They were writers. They—we—shared many of the same aspirations, same dreams, same problems, same doubts, same challenges.

The thing that, in my experience, set the HWA apart from so many other writing organizations was the willingness to pull together as if we were wrestling oars on the same boat. Not on different boats. Not on competing boats. The same boat.

This was all a dozen or so years ago. Now I write horror for a living. I’ve sold five more of those nonfiction books—under my own name this time; and I made the switch from nonfiction to novels. At this writing I’m days away from finishing my twenty-third novel, Ghostwalkers. I’m a New York Times bestseller, my books are sold in dozens of countries, I write comics, I have movie and TV deals. Sure, yeah, I’ve had some great breaks.

But…I can say without reservation or fear of contradiction that my career would never have hit this level had it not been for the HWA—for the people who make up that organization. For their friendship, their support, their encouragement, their advice, their cautions. For all of that. And…for their examples of how to be good at this. Not only in terms of craft, but how to be a good guy in a tough biz. How not to let success turn me into a jerk. How to remember your friends, no matter which one of you is in the fast lane. How to be grateful. How to celebrate when anyone sells a book, closes a deal, wins an award, or hits any career milestone.

How not to let fear and jealousy become defining characteristics in your personal or professional life.

Yeah. All of that. No joke, no exaggeration.

Horror writers.

The Horror Writers Association.

When people ask me if it’s worth joining—and I get asked all the time—I put on my cheerleading costume and give the HWA the full rah-rah treatment. And, yeah, I know that the image of a six-foot four hairy guy who’s roughly the size of Sasquatch dancing in a cheerleader’s miniskirt is scary…remember…I write horror.

Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, four-time Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. His novels include Predator One, Code Zero, Rot & Ruin, Fall of Night, Ghost Road Blues, Patient Zero, and many others. Several of Jonathan’s novels are in development for movies or TV including V-Wars, Extinction Machine, and Rot & Ruin. He’s the editor/co‐author of V‐Wars, a vampire‐themed anthology; and is editor for a series of all original X-Files anthologies, and the dark fantasy anthology Out of Tune. He lives in Del Mar, California with his wife, Sara Jo and their dog, Rosie. www.jonathanmaberry.com.

The HWA would like to hear how being a member of this great organization has helped your career in some way. Success stories could focus on (but not be limited to) experiences with the mentorship program, networking, education, legal, contract disputes, etc.—from big things to small things. Keep in mind, this is not an opportunity for blatant self-promotion. However, we will include the web URL you would like for us to post along with a 50-word bio.

Send your testimonial to Michael Knost at michaelknost@me.com.

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