Last night I braved the cold and the rain and made it to the town hall to attend a talk on Gothic publishing put on by the Society for Young Publishers (SYP). It was cold and it was dark and that made the beautiful but deserted old building seem just that bit spookier...but then there were friendly faces offering sweets so everything was fine.
We heard from four speakers: Prof William Hughes, Dr Marie Mulvery-Roberts, Anthony Mandel and Dr Sam George. All of these guys are literary academics obsessed with all things Gothic. From Dracula to Twilight they covered the history of the gothic genre and how it has faced tough prejudices from the press.
Right from the start Gothic was seen as sensationalist and despite being a bestselling genre it was never really taken seriously. And this can still be seen now when you look at things like Twilight and the new emergence of American vampire dramas on TV. They're popular but very few people take them seriously.
So it was interesting to hear from people who do take Gothic seriously, or at least seriously enough to teach it, publish books on it or start journals about it.
But I think what I took away from the evening was a realisation of just how big a deal the Twilight books are. They paved the way for a new found interest in vampires and all things Gothic with the classics enjoying a revival thanks to recovering in the Twilight style. It also encouraged fan fiction style titles to appear such as the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies style titles and the infamous 50 Shades of Grey, which has made its own mark on the publishing industry.
So you might not like it, you may not have even read it, but Twilight has had a massive impact on the publishing world- scary stuff indeed.
We heard from four speakers: Prof William Hughes, Dr Marie Mulvery-Roberts, Anthony Mandel and Dr Sam George. All of these guys are literary academics obsessed with all things Gothic. From Dracula to Twilight they covered the history of the gothic genre and how it has faced tough prejudices from the press.
Right from the start Gothic was seen as sensationalist and despite being a bestselling genre it was never really taken seriously. And this can still be seen now when you look at things like Twilight and the new emergence of American vampire dramas on TV. They're popular but very few people take them seriously.
So it was interesting to hear from people who do take Gothic seriously, or at least seriously enough to teach it, publish books on it or start journals about it.
But I think what I took away from the evening was a realisation of just how big a deal the Twilight books are. They paved the way for a new found interest in vampires and all things Gothic with the classics enjoying a revival thanks to recovering in the Twilight style. It also encouraged fan fiction style titles to appear such as the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies style titles and the infamous 50 Shades of Grey, which has made its own mark on the publishing industry.
So you might not like it, you may not have even read it, but Twilight has had a massive impact on the publishing world- scary stuff indeed.
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