Winter Chills: Arnzen Interview with Non-Horror Reader Survey

Like reading, but don’t really like horror fiction? WD Prescott, is running an interesting website bluntly called The Non-Horror Reader Survey that is studying what today’s readers think about the modern horror genre. It features interviews with various readers, writers, and scholars, along with a research questionnaire you can fill out, if you want to participate. It’s an interesting idea and you should chime in and get the discussion going.

Prescott interviewed me this week. See “Winter Chills with Mike Arnzen”. I talk about The Popular Uncanny, teaching horror in college, horror’s relationship with humor and poetry, and all sorts of scholarly things you wouldn’t expect the creator of “Dear Santa” to talk about. And I make confessions like this:

I simply like to get a reaction out of readers, and myself, whenever I write. And as a horror fan, I simply enjoy laughing, gagging, and chortling with wicked glee. It’s all clownery, even if the facepaint is black. You should see me in a movie theater. I’m usually the only one cackling from somewhere in the back row, while everyone else is cowering and biting their nails.

Read the rest at Non-Horror Reader Survey.