Horror Writers Association Blog

2018 Award Recommendations

Members, log into the Members-Only area of the site and recommend those works from 2018 that you loved! Look for the link to "Bram Stoker Awards".

The HWA announces the 2017 Bram Stoker Awards® recipients!

Awards were announced in Providence, RI, on 3/2/18. Congratulations to all!

STOKERCON 2019

In gorgeous Grand Rapids, MI, May 9 - 12, 2019.

Click here for up-to-date info!

The CreEpy Catalog: Frozen Charlotte

The CreEpy Catalog: Frozen Charlotte

 
A Flash of Fear: Why Write Short-form Horror

A Flash of Fear: Why Write Short-form Horror

 
Q&A for The Frightful Ride of Michael McMichael

Q&A for The Frightful Ride of Michael McMichael

 

Recent Posts

Writing Prompt: A Family Fear

Writing Prompt: A Family Fear

Young Horror brings you writing prompts to energize your week with spooky idea inspiration. Are you writing picture books, chapter books, middle grade, or YA? Your next great idea could be sparked right here. Check back every first Monday of the month for inspiration. Share your ideas and discuss in the comments below. Look out for our September feature article: Found Footage Horror, on the third Thursday.

Parents can pass on their own fears to their children. Do you jump every time you see a spider in the house? Little Jimmy is picking up those cues, and he’ll …

Writing Prompt: Wicked Watermelon

Writing Prompt: Wicked Watermelon

Young Horror brings you writing prompts to energize your week with spooky idea inspiration. Are you writing picture books, chapter books, middle grade, or YA? Your next great idea could be sparked right here. Check back every Monday for new writing prompts. Share your ideas and discuss in the comments below.

In this final installment of summer treats, let’s twist a familiar tale for our wicked purposes: watermelon seeds growing plants in your belly.

It’s funny to picture at first, then absolutely horrifying. Reminds me of a rather hideous Garbage Pail Kid: Walter Melon.

Parents often tell this …

The CreEpy Catalog: Frozen Charlotte

The CreEpy Catalog: Frozen Charlotte

In order to write great children’s horror, you must READ great children’s horror. To help you out with this, we’ve invited our very own middle school librarian to take you into the deepest, darkest corners of the stacks to see what frightening fiction kids are reading. Welcome to the CreEpy Catalog!

Everyone who knows me knows that I have a soft spot for dolls. Even the ones that look “creepy” find a home with me because I can’t bear to have a representation of someone’s childhood go abandoned and unloved. I love reading horror stories that feature creepy dolls, and …

Writing Prompt: Ice Cream Truck

Writing Prompt: Ice Cream Truck

Young Horror brings you writing prompts to energize your week with spooky idea inspiration. Are you writing picture books, chapter books, middle grade, or YA? Your next great idea could be sparked right here. Check back every Monday for new writing prompts. Share your ideas and discuss in the comments below.

Writing Prompt: The Ice Cream Truck

Ice Cream Truck

Last week we discussed beating the summer heat of these dog days by eating popsicles. Popsicles with dire consequences! Another source of scorching heat relief is the always creepy Ice Cream Truck.

Driven by a stranger. Driving slowly down residential streets. …

Writing Prompt: Dog Days of Summer

Writing Prompt: Dog Days of Summer

Young Horror brings you writing prompts to energize your week with spooky idea inspiration. Are you writing picture books, chapter books, middle grade, or YA? Your next great idea could be sparked right here.

Check back every Monday for new writing prompts. Share your ideas and discuss in the comments below.

Dog Days of Summer

For today’s writing prompt, turn on the sprinkler, because we’re in the dog days of summer. These “dog days” point to the rise of Sirius, the Dog Star. Sirius ushers in the hottest 40 days in the Northern Hemisphere. Time to avoid heat …

A Flash of Fear: Why Write Short-form Horror

A Flash of Fear: Why Write Short-form Horror

For many (if not most), the first introduction to horror doesn’t come from a book or movie, but from a brief scary story told to them, perhaps around a smoky campfire in lonely–or are you alone after all?–woods. Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories collections include many of the selfsame creepy jewels of storytelling’s oral tradition, and have inducted many a child into the ranks of the horror lovers.

Sometimes, what readers really need is unfiltered, filler-free horror delivered directly to the brain.

Short horror is also popular in amateur circles, via various user-driven websites and podcasts. So, even though word counts …

Writing Prompt: Knock on Wood

Writing Prompt: Knock on Wood

Young Horror logo

Young Horror brings you writing prompts to energize your week with spooky idea inspiration. Are you writing picture books, chapter books, middle grade, or YA? Your next great idea could be sparked right here.

Check back every Monday for new writing prompts. Share your ideas and discuss in the comments below.

“Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational–but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?” -Judith Viorst

Your superstitions are much older than you. If you take that moment to knock on wood, you’re joining in on an activity to ward off anger and …

Q&A for The Frightful Ride of Michael McMichael

Q&A for The Frightful Ride of Michael McMichael

It’s Friday the 13th–the perfect day to reach down into the grave dirt and resurrect the Young Horror (formerly YA Horror) blog and to talk about NEW BOOKS.

Hop aboard the Thirteen bus and drive through the brand new spooky picture book The Frightful Ride of Michael McMichael (Candlewick 2018). Author Bonny Becker and Illustrator Mark Fearing give all the gory details to HWA YH blogger Shanna Heath below.

Whether you write horror for young people, or want to share more horror stories with the kids in your life, check in every Monday for Young Horror Writing Prompts and every …

I Know Why the NyteBird Sings: An Interview with Linda D. Addison

I Know Why the NyteBird Sings: An Interview with Linda D. Addison

 

by David E. Cowen, Author of The Madness of Empty Rooms and The Seven Yards of Sorrow. Follow David at www.decowen.com.

 

I first experienced the work of Linda D. Addison in a volume of verse I still consider one of the great contemporary works of speculative poetry Four Elements (Bad Moon Books). Linda along with Marge Simon, Charlee Jacob and Rain Graves created what I consider one of the best examples of modern dark poetry. The HWA apparently did as well as it was awarded a …

New Bram Stoker Awards® Category Added

New Bram Stoker Awards® Category Added

The Horror Writers Association (HWA), the premier organization of writers and publishers of horror and dark fantasy, announces a new Bram Stoker Awards® category. A Short Non-Fiction category will be added to next year’s ballot. HWA President, Lisa Morton welcomes the new addition, stating: “As a writer who has written non-fiction at all lengths, a reader who loves articles and essays, and an admirer of academic study of dark fiction, I am pleased to announce this new awards category.”

Ms. Morton is a scholar of dark fiction and she feels the new category will help foster and reward excellence in …

HWA Announces the Top 3 Poems for the Poetry Showcase Volume V

It is with great pride and admiration that I can now share the top 3 poems and two honorable mentions chosen by the jury for the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. V. — David Cowen*

HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. V is edited by multiple Stoker nominee and Stoker winner for poetry Stephanie M. Wytovich, MFA.

The top 3 chosen poets are:

  • R J. Joseph is a Texas based writer and professor who must exorcise the demons of her imagination so they don’t haunt her being. A life long horror fan and writer of many things, she has recently discovered the
…

2018 Poetry Showcase Accepting Submissions

  • Comments Closed

poetry300Before the current form of the novel arose, dark narrative poetry spun the tales of heroes and demons. Carrying that tradition writers of Horror fiction have kept dark poetry close to their hearts. Poe, Carroll, Wilde, Lovecraft and even more recently Neil Gaiman dipped their quills into dark verse.

Recognizing the contribution of dark poetry to the field of Horror and to celebrate National Poetry Month, the Horror Writers Association is holding their third annual HWA Horror Poetry Showcase. Open only to HWA members, the Showcase will be accepting submissions in April with four poems chosen by HWA member judges …

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