I am thrilled to be part of this anthology celebrating the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In honor of this cornerstone of horror literature, the new anthology features short stories with alternative takes on the theme of the monster and otherness.
During high school, I was obsessed with Frankenstein–the writing, the story, the angst of the monster and its creator. I am incredibly honored to, years later, pay homage to this brilliant tale and its remarkable author. My story, “Wanting,” debuts in this collection and shows the disturbing lengths a teenager girl will go to in order to fit in in a cybernetic future.
7-time Aurora Award-winning editor and critic Derek Newman-Stille teamed up with Renaissance Press to pull together horror stories from authors around the world. On the anthology’s Kickstarter page, Newman-Stille describes the project:
200 years ago, Mary Shelley wrote a genre-changing book, which she titled “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus”. This story helped to shape the genres of science fiction and horror and helped to articulate new forms for women’s writing. It also helped us to think about the figure of the outsider, to question medical power, to question ideas of normal, and to think about what we mean by the word “monster”. Her book inspired adaptations into stage, into film, into new books, poetry, television, and all manner of art.
We Shall Be Monsters: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Two Centuries On will feature a broad range of fiction stories, from direct interactions with Shelley’s texts to explorations of the stitched, assembled body and narrative experiments in monstrous creations. We Shall Be Monsters is a fiction collection that will feature explorations of disability through Frankenstein, queer and trans identity, ideas of race and colonialism. Shelley’s story provides a space for exploring a multitude of identities through the figure of the sympathetic outsider. Frankenstein’s “monster” is a figure of Otherness, and one that can tell stories of exclusion and social oppression.
The Kickstarter has already met its funding goal, but if you are interested in supporting the project, there are 3 days left to contribute!
Initial publication of Frankenstein, 1818.
KC Grifant 