Good morning and thanks for reading the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter.
I’m Jim Ruland, a novelist and punk historian, and today we’re going to explore the dark side of the bookshelf. If you felt a chill in the air this week, a sense that all is not as it appears to be, it might be because 700 horror writers and their fans from all over the world have descended on Southern California. They’re here for StokerCon.
Named in honor of the Irish author of “Dracula,” StokerCon is the annual convention held by the Horror Writers Assn . This year’s gathering is in San Diego from May 30- June 2, and offers a long weekend of panels, workshops and signings, and culminates in the presentation of tonight’s Bram Stoker Awards in 13 categories for superior achievement in horror writing. For die-hard fans, StokerCon is more than a place to talk shop and chat about their favorite writers — it’s home.
“It’s probably the least stuffy and pretentious community within the larger literary world,” said California writer Jonathan Maberry, a New York Times bestseller and one of StokerCon’s guests of honor this year. “And that’s a high bar, because there are a lot of good people in the other groups. But there’s something about the horror writers that smashes expectations.
” Stephen Graham Jones, who has won the Bram Stoker Award four times and is up for another one this year, echoes this sentiment. “Most of our lives, horror fans, we’re the odd one out. We’re lau.
