Authors Paul Tremblay, John Langan and Laird Barron congregated in the warmth of the Brown Bookstore Saturday night as cold rain and snow fell in the dark outside. It was fitting weather for the end of the bookstore's first Speculative Fiction Fest.
Standing by a table with a number of creepy-looking titles, Barry, a tall, dark-haired bookstore employee answered the essential question — what is speculative fiction?
"Speculative fiction is sort of an overlap of sci-fi, fantasy, horror and the supernatural — anything that uses unconventional themes, settings as part of the storytelling process," he said, moving a book with a scorpion on the cover to make room for one with a dead hand.
"Last year, we just had one night called Sci-Fi in R.I., but this year, we wanted to expand," Barry said. The new, longer and more extensive event began Thursday afternoon and continued into Saturday night. It included panel discussions, informative speakers, author readings and movie viewings.
Authors including Dan Pearlman, Paul DiFillipo and Brian Evenson, professor of literary arts, came to the bookstore to share their craft — the eerie, off-beat stories of this expanding genre.
"People have to come up with something new," said Bob Geake, a Brown Bookstore employee involved in planning the Speculative Fiction Fest. "American fiction has become very mundane," he said. "It's these new authors who are trying to extend it."
While the panel discussions and readings were fairly well attended, both organizers expressed disappointment that so few people showed up for the movies. "It's about finding the right mix of things to draw people in," explained Geake.
Difficulty advertising the event as well as its coinciding with Halloween may have caused attendance to be low, the organizers speculated.
The event portends something larger for the bookstore than this one genre, on this one weekend, Geake said. "We are trying to make this more of a venue for local authors," he said.
The Speculative Fiction Fest represents the first multiple-day, genre-themed event to be held at the Brown Bookstore. "But just like in speculative fiction," Barry said with a wave of his hand, "The possibilities are endless."
