Turns out, the potential readership is more gullible than ever - particularly in my home province of Ontario. According to this piece in Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper, only 51 per cent of Ontario residents believe that the Earth is millions of years old, and human beings evolved from less complicated forms of life. In Canada, 59 per cent believe in evolution. Otherwise, it's an unequal mix of uncertainty, and the belief that the world's just 10,000 years old, the Grand Canyon is nothing but a trick of Satan, dinosaurs walked the Earth with early humans, and a jealous, all-powerful deity is behind the whole thing.
For writers of supernatural horror fiction - liars to the last one - this is nothing less than a fantastic opportunity. For almost half of our potential readers in Canada, suspension of disbelief - that huge impediment to telling convincing stories about vampires, sentient goo and brain-eating zombies -
is simply not an issue. Why, they're as easy to frighten as a three-year-old without a night-light.
Horror fiction isn't dead. It's dead easy, is what...