| Author | Message | ||
     Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Spent last Thursday at Ashcroft Secondary School, talking to each of the four English blocks in turn, discussing ghost stories, writing, editing, and related matters, tailoring each presentation to the age of the class (which ranged from grade 8 to grade 12) and their needs (the grade 9 and 12 classes are doing a writing module, so wanted to know a good deal on that subject). I wanted to read a short supernatural/horror story that would convey such things as concrete modern setting, subtle hints and clues, and vivid characterisation in a limited space, and hit on Ramsey's 'Call First' as a suitable tale. I read it to two of the classes, and it went down very well; there was silence while I read (no easy feat to achieve in a high school class), and some excellent questions/comments after (the one that elicited the most discussion/interest was whether or not The Old Man had had previous visitors to the house, who had presumably met the same fate as Ned). They were also interested in WHY The Old Man had done what he (presumably) did, and whether he had known what the woman would be like when he resurrected her: did he do it out of love, or something else? So there are 50 or so kids wandering around Ashcroft who have been exposed to their first Ramsey Campbell story. Hey, just trying to do my bit. . . . | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.230.239.233 |
fantastic, Barbara! I wish the listeners of my grade 10 drama class had been as astute when I recited it for a class - it was probably my own failing in the delivery, but most of them didn't get it.  | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Well, I did discuss a lot of points about modern horror in general before I read the story to them, as context; and while I'm not quite in Freddie Jones's league when it comes to putting my all into a line (who is?), I did give it my best shot when reading such lines as 'Some of it [the face] was still on the bone' and 'The eyes, unsupported by flesh'. Afterword: Late on Thursday afternoon my dad, who lives here in Ashcroft, was in the local hardware store, and a teenage girl who he didn't know, but who obviously knew him, came up and said 'Hi, Mr. Hacock; your daughter came and talked to our class today, and I really enjoyed it.' That's small town life for you. . . . | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.157.35.138 |
That's excellent, Barbara. I wish a guest speaker had come to my school to discuss horror fiction when I was young...armed with Ramsey's work no less! The closest experience I had was when my ninth grade English teacher gave the class a vigorous recitation of 'The Monkey's Paw' one October afternoon. That remains one of the few positive memories I have of what was otherwise a tedious academic career. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.112 |
Wow. Kids nowadays are so spoilt. Like Richard, I wish I'd have been pointed towards such quality when I was younger. I even had to lie to my librarian when she asked me if my parents knew I was reading Arthur Conan Doyle and Peter Haining. Barbara, you might have just ignited a future generation of Canadian horror writers. | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.189.45 |
Yes, I wish I'd had someone come in and read me something like 'Call First', or 'The Monkey's Paw' (which I read to two classes a couple of years ago, and synopsised this time); it would have been welcome assurance that someone else liked and appreciated this sort of tale. As it was, I kind of muddled along on my own until I was in my mid-twenties, when I discovered the GSS and Ghosts & Scholars. Hey, if even one or two of those kids goes on to read more in the genre, and perhaps be encouraged to write, then I'll be happy. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.187.244 |
Good job, Barbara! Did you get my email, by the way? Just wondering, in case I used the wrong email address or something... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
I first read The Monkey's Paw as part of my voracious consumption of the Pan & Fontana Horror series as an 11 year old, which I then remorselessly recycled to death telling all my friends | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.9.157 |
I first read it in my parent's beat-up hardback Modern Library copy of Bennett Cerf's FAMOUS GHOST STORIES. That book has a special place in my life. I remember reading in Cerf's intro, that he really wanted to include "The Turn of the Screw," since he thought it the greatest ghost story, but it was too long to include. I of course then was eager to find that one. When you're a single-digit aged boy in SoCal desperate to read Henry James, you just know you're f*cked up for life. |