A popular series that starts around this time every year is back at the Springfield-Greene County Library. “Oh, the Horror!” will feature a variety of programs centered around scary themes, and this year it has a specific focus.
"We've wanted to do a holiday-themed series for awhile, but it never quite, you know, fit, and this was just the perfect year for it, and so we're doing this 'Oh, the Horror!' holiday special," said Konrad Stump, an employee of the Springfield-Greene County Library District and a co-creator of the series in 2015 with Katie Hopkins who was the adult programming coordinator for the district at the time. They still work together on the series.
It all began with a horror book club Stump started called "Donuts and Death," which met at Hurt's Donuts in downtown Springfield and which he said proved to be popular.
"There was clearly a desire within the community for horror programming," Stump said, "so I thought, 'how can we develop something that's a little bit larger and can attract more people?' "
Nine years later, "Oh, the Horror!" is going strong.
Half of this year's series will take place in October and the other half in November, Stump said, and there will be a variety of programs.
"We have local history programs. We have author events," he said. "We always partner with The Moxie to do movie showings, so this year we're doing kind of a double feature with a Halloween movie one week and then, you know, a Christmas horror movie the next week, and so it's going to be a fun, exciting series that engages with holiday horror."
The first program in the “Oh, the Horror!” series is Thursday, October 10, at 7 p.m. at the Library Center. Ozarks Alive’s Kaitlyn McConnell will present “Spooky Ozarks Stories, Lore and More.” Learn about madstones, water witching, the Mountain Maid of Roaring River and The Wizard of Oto.
When this year's series ends, Stump and Hopkins will start tossing around ideas for next year's. "We're always thinking about it," Stump said. And, for him, it's a labor of love.
It's a lot of work," according to Stump, "but it's fun work, it's enjoyable work. The community really appreciates it, and it's definitely the best part of my job, I'd say."
Stump is also co-chair of the Horror Writers Association Library Committee, helping other libraries "engage their communities with horror programming," he said. The Springfield-Greene County Library produces a programming guide each year that goes out to libraries across the country and which Stump said "provides them with the tools that they need to engage their communities."
Stump said it's been rewarding to be able to take his passion and grow it "to help other librarians engage with their passion and kind of...speak to their communities about the horror genre and work with authors to get to different libraries. It's a lot of fun."
Find out more about the "Oh, the Horror!" series at thelibrary.org.
