If you follow this blog on Twitter (@gothic_library), you may have seen my daily tweets participating in the #MonstrousMayChallenge. The #MonstrousMayChallenge is a series of creative prompts created by Johannes Evans (@JohannesTEvans on Twitter) that approach the theme of monsters from a different angle for each day in May. [Please note: Johannes’s Twitter account and the content he produces is designated as 18+ and contains mature content. Some of the tweets by others under the hashtag may, as well.] You can find Johannes’s master thread detailing the prompts here. These prompts are primarily aimed at artists and fiction writers, and if you peruse the #MonstrousMayChallenge hashtag on Twitter, you’ll find everything from tweetfic to short stories, essays, and excerpts from works-in-progress, alongside sketches, comics, and digital art. Since I, alas, lack these creative talents, I decided to put my own spin on the Monstrous May prompts.
For each day this month, I’ve been tweeting out a book recommendation that corresponds with that day’s #MonstrousMayChallenge prompt. That’s right, thirty-one book recommendations in total! And almost all of them are books that I’ve reviewed here on this blog. Participating in this challenge made me think more deeply about the concept of monsters than I ever have before. What counts as a monster? Are ghosts monsters?—I’m not sure I’d categorize them that way, but I did include Leanna Renee Hieber’s ghostly police procedural The Spectral City as my recommendation for the “The Human is the Monster” prompt. This exercise also made me realize the sheer variety of monsters in Gothic and horror literature. I thought I might have trouble listing thirty-one monsters total, let alone finding book recommendations tailored to each specific prompt. But it turns out the vast majority of books I’ve reviewed here on this blog contain some form of the monstrous, and I rarely had to stretch far to make them meet a prompt. I had a lot of fun looking through all the books I’ve reviewed over nearly six years of blogging to find books for each category. While recent reads like Maplecroft and Lost in the Never Woods were some of the first to come to mind, I also dug up books I’d read years ago, like Winter Tide and The City of Brass, and even one book I read before this blog was created (Uprooted by Naomi Novik). In one case, the #MonstrousMayChallenge prompts inspired me to read a book that had been on my TBR pile forever: I picked up Beasts Made of Night specifically so that I would have something for the “Feeding Time” category. And I occasionally looked outside of the Gothic for other genres where monsters appear. I do read plenty of books that don’t get reviewed on this blog, because they don’t quite fit the Gothic Library vibe. One such book was Becky Chambers’s sci-fi novella To Be Taught, If Fortunate, which approaches the subject of aliens from a truly unique angle, using them to explore ethics, science, beauty, and even, at times, horror.
I'm really loving the #MonstrousMayChallenge prompts created by @JohannesTEvans this year!
Alas, I am not a writer, artist, or other creative, so I'll be participating by providing book recommendations to go along with each prompt. pic.twitter.com/DP7cBg7C3Y— The Gothic Library (@gothic_library) May 1, 2021
I’m not the only one who decided to turn these prompts into an excuse to recommend some books. My good friend and the fearless leader of our Romancing the Gothic book club/lecture series Dr. Sam Hirst (@RomGothSam) was inspired by my thread to make their own book rec list. Since we share similar tastes (and have been reading the same books for book club), there’s quite a bit of overlap between the books we recommended, but it was fun to see how Sam categorized those books under completely different prompts than I did.
Day 1: What is a Monster?
The obvious choice for this for me is 'Monster of Elendhaven'. If you haven't read it… magnificent. And I love how it deals with that very question. pic.twitter.com/ckg65dQwa8
— Dr Sam Hirst (@RomGothSam) May 1, 2021
Another twitter user, @xoxoltsNotDan, has been using the #MonstrousMayChallenge categories to recommend classic works of Victorian Gothic literature, and her suggestions are spot-on!
#MonstrousMayChallenge The Dragon. Bram Stoker's 'The Lair of the White Worm' (1911) is set in the 1860s, and draws upon northern English #folklore of the Lambton Worm. This is the legend of a dragon said to have terrorised local villagers in County Durham pic.twitter.com/L5eIz3N4VZ
— Gothic Girl 👻 (@xoxoItsNotDan) May 24, 2021
Have you been participating in the #MonstrousMayChallenge? Which approach did you take—writing, art, book recs, or something completely different? Have you discovered new books, writers, or artists through the hashtag? Share your experiences, and feel free to link your own threads, in the comments!