It’s the Last Midnight

Help support a multi-genre own voices fiction anthology with disabled main characters, writers, and publishers, featuring a supernatural short by yours truly.

Salt & Iron

Hey, all. For those of you who aren’t already aware from the constant reblogged author interviews, I have a short story in an upcoming own voices disability themed anthology called Nothing Without Us. What does own voices mean, you ask? In this case it means that all the stories in the anthology feature disabled, deaf, neurodiverse, mentally ill, and/or chronically ill main characters written by actual disabled, deaf, neurodiverse, mentally ill, and/or chronically ill authors! And this anthology is extra special in that it also has disabled publishers, so everyone involved in this project from beginning to end has the lived experience these stories are trying to accurately represent and explore. And not a bit of inspiration porn in sight!

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National Tell a Fairytale Day

Apparently, it’s National Tell a Fairytale Day. I don’t know who decides these things, but Beneath Blair Mountain volunteers as tribute. While set in 1910s America, this book was inspired by Irish tales of the Sidhe and Icelandic tales of the elves/Huldufolk. At their roots, both of these traditions, like the fairytales canonized by the infamous Brothers Grimm, lean more horror than fantasy. Expect no Disney fare here.

Beneath Blair Mountain (Coming Soon!)

My first book is coming out soon! It’s not banned (not yet, anyway), but it features many of the things you know and love from the many banned books I’ve reviewed over the years (female protagonists, ghosts, pagan mythologies, historical events, social commentary, death, etc).

Salt & Iron

Cover art by Mariya Suzuki

So, as you may know from my last post, my novella, Beneath Blair Mountain, is being published as part of the Summer Writing Project 2015 Collection. The Summer Writing Project is an annual joint venture between 1888 and JukePop, which you can read more about in the link above (or here and here). And isn’t that a damn fine cover? Mariya Suzuki did a fantastic job on all three books in the collection, but I do admit to being slightly biased. Just look at those mountains! If those can’t spirit you away into the pages, the fey folk might as well pack up and go home. 

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BANNED BOOKS WEEK: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Today marks the first day of Banned Books Week, an annual event meant to draw attention to book challenges/removals/bans and other censorship or intellectual freedom issues. This year the event, which runs from September 21-27, will focus specifically on comic books/graphic novels. I’ve already written extensively about the unique history and issues involved in comic book censorship on this blog, so I thought I’d offer a round-up of the highlights, as well as Banned Books Week resources and ideas on how you can get involved. It’s also frequently challenged horror author Stephen King’s birthday today, so let’s hear it for banned horror, banned comics, and the twice-damned banned horror comics! Long may ye remain in our libraries.

Another Year of Banned Books

Merry met, my dear readers. It seems my blog has been around for another year. And it has been quite the year here at the Bound and Gagged Banned Books Blog. One of my posts was Freshly Pressed, another was quoted in The Huffington Post, and we went from about 50 followers to over 2,000. So whether you’re new to the blog or have stuck by us since the beginning, thank you. Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting, and taking the time to come to our little corner of the internet.

This year we also gained two excellent writers. Hannah and Victoria Lepore were both kind enough to grace the blog with their thoughts, rants, and insights, joining me and Elliot Oberholtzer on our banned book crusade. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all three of them for contributing to the blog, for taking the time to write such thoughtful reviews, and for being generally awesome human beings.

I hope you’ll all stick with us for yet another year of banned book reviews, censorship news, and the occasional nerdrage. Banned Books Week is fast approaching, so check back for more Bound and Gagged goodness (not nearly as kinky as it sounds). In the meantime, enjoy this look back at the last year of banned book reviews.

The Vampires that Started It All

The Defendant: Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

The Case:

Nowadays, one cannot go to a bookstore (or Amazon or the Kindle store or wherever you happen to buy books now) without seeing a book written in the perspective of a vampire or another supernatural creature, especially in the young adult sections. But in 1976, Interview with the Vampire, when it was released, was the first of its kind. It was one of the first books written from the vampire’s point of view rather than the victim’s, which was far more commonplace. This perspective forces the reader to see the “monster” as an individual rather than the “Other”.

Reader Beware, You’re in For a Scare

Greetings, readers new and old. As my readership seems to have doubled overnight, I want to take the time to thank you for reading, commenting, and following, whether you’ve been with me since the first banned book review over a year ago or just stumbled across me this week. If you haven’t already figured it out, this blog is dedicated to banned books, censorship/intellectual freedom issues, and other assorted geekery and media. Feel free to browse the archives and get to know me, my other talented writers, and the blog a little better.

Queen of the Banned

Happy All Hallow’s Eve, folks. To some this is a night to wander the neighborhood with a candy-filled swagbag and scare the crap out of your friends, to others it’s a chance to find the sexual potential in even the most mundane professions and objects, and to others still it is a night when the spirits walk among us as the veil between our world and the world beyond blurs. Whatever it is to you, monsters in the closet, creatures that go bump in the night, and primal fears that still make your hair stand up on the back of your neck likely play some kind of factor (be it in earnest, nostalgia, or mere party theme).

Chronicle of Days of High School Past

Happy Halloween, friends. Please enjoy this review of the original Carrie film adaptation. You can read the review of the book here and I’ll have the remake review up just as soon as I’m not a poor college grad who can’t afford to see movies in the theatre.

REPEAT OFFENDER: Carrie (1976)

THE REVIEW: There is a reason this movie has been referenced time and time again. The film remains relevant today, in part because it was well done and in part because its themes have become only more pressing. As its own creature, it’s a solid movie. However, how it differs from the book has more to say about us than the book or movie themselves.

Which is Sweeter? Blood or Chocolate?

THE DEFENDANT: Blood and Chocolate, Annette Curtis Klause

THE VERDICT: While technically not widely banned, Blood and Chocolate was on the Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2001 of 448 challenges reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom for being sexually explicit and unsuited to intended age group of readers. Regardless of the charges, the book won the 1998 YALSA Award for Best Books for Young Adults. Klause has not made an appearance before on the banned books list.