Back ‘Under the Mountain’
The O’Neal Library is bringing back its horror genre programming, Under the Mountain, later this month.
Under the Mountain’s events are celebrations that welcome everyone and feature events from movie screenings, author visits, a lecture on Folk Horror, or even the classic Christmas tradition of a live reading of a ghost story,
This series was created by librarian Anthony Vacca to be the community’s source for exclusive horror author events and movie screenings that celebrates the strange and uncanny in literature and films.
Vacca describes Under the Mountain as a labor of love combining his 10 years of programming experience and his passion for the strange and uncanny in art, film, music and literature.
“For a long-lasting and far-reaching genre, horror is one that is often most dismissed,” Vacca said. “We want to excite fans, but it’s as important to welcome those who think the genre has nothing for them. Writing a good scary story is writing a good story. It requires thoughtfulness, empathy and artistry.”
Bestselling novelist Jeff VanderMeer will be the guest author at the Under the Mountain series scheduled for Sept. 17. VanderMeer is one of the most acclaimed authors of speculative writing today and the latest author in the Under the Mountain series.
“Having VanderMeer as a guest of Under the Mountain is an exciting opportunity for the series as well as for the community at large,” Vacca said. “VanderMeer is a careful stylist whose unsettling, yet deeply empathetic, stories defy easy classification as horror, science fiction, fantasy, or literary fiction. Great writing, a flair for the macabre, a visionary imagination that never slights the importance of a grounded sense of humanity — these are qualities that Under the Mountain holds dear.”
Originally from Pennsylvania, VanderMeer spent much of his formative years in the Fiji Islands where his parents worked for the Peace Corps. He later relocated to Gainesville and then attended Florida State University. While in high school in the 1980s, he began writing for small-press magazines and self-publishing his own stories.
He achieved widespread acclaim with his Southern Reach trilogy, the first of which, “Annihilation,” won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards for best novel, and in 2018 was adapted into a major motion picture.
Currently residing in Tallahassee, VanderMeer is a frequent editor of science fiction and horror anthologies, as well as a contributor to the New York Times, The Guardian, Vulture, Esquire.com and The Los Angeles Times.
Another important aspect of the series is to draw on the well of artistic talent in the greater Birmingham area to create unique promotional materials, such as the program’s logo designed by Walker Miller, and Hannah Adamson’s poster for the upcoming VanderMeer event.
The Under the Mountain event is set for Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. at O’Neal Library. A question-and-answer session and book signing will follow, with Thank You Books on site to sell books. The event will be streamed live or recorded to be made available on the library’s Youtube channel.
The event is free and open to the public. However, registration is encouraged via the library website due to limited seating. For more information, follow @undrmtn on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter or visit oneallibrary.org/utm.
Under the Mountain
WHERE: O’Neal Library
WHEN: Sept. 17, 7 p.m.
WEB: oneallibrary.org/utm