Women In Horror Month 2024 : An Introduction by Kathryn Ptacek

    The Journey is Never Done. Kind of Like Housework. Kathryn Ptacek We’ve come a long way, baby. Well, if you were alive many decades ago, you'd recognize that as the advertising jingle—somewhat altered—by a tobacco company for a cigarette that it geared toward women. That was back in the late ’60s and early ’70s when everything was bright and fresh and we could do anything. Except apply for credit cards and buy our own cars. But I digress. Yes, we—that is, women horror writers—have come a long way, but there’s no reason to sit back on our celebratory…

Women in Horror: Interview with Pamela Jeffs

Pamela Jeffs is an Australian horror author with a love for writing short fiction. Pamela has published five short story collections, co-authored an anthology with Aiki Flinthart titled ‘The Zookeeper’s Takes of Interstellar Oddities’ and published 80+ short stories in various national and international magazines and anthologies including ‘SNAFU: Dead or Alive, by Cohesion Press and ‘Lawless Lands: Tales from the Weird Frontier’ by Falstaff Books. She has been shortlisted for multiple awards throughout her career including numerous Aurealis Awards, Ditmar Awards and has been noted in the Writers of the Future Competition. For more information, visit her at www.pamelajeffs.com. What inspired…

Women in Horror: Interview with Nadia Bulkin

Nadia Bulkin is the author of the short story collection She Said Destroy (Word Horde, 2017). She has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award five times. She grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, with her Javanese father and American mother, before relocating to Lincoln, Nebraska. She has two political science degrees and lives in Washington, D.C. You can find her reviewing horror movies on Twitter and Instagram @nadiabulkin, or contact her through her website: nadiabulkin.com What inspired you to start writing? My brain uses narrative to process. I was retelling stories that my mother read to me before I could…

Women in Horror: Interview with Gemma Files

Formerly a film critic, journalist, screenwriter and teacher, Gemma Files has been an award-winning horror author since 1999. She has published for collections of short work, three collections of speculative poetry, a Weird Western trilogy, a story-cycle and a stand-alone novel (Experimental Film, which won the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel and the 2016 Sunburst Award for Best Adult Novel). Her collection In This Endlessness, Our End (Grimscribe) won the 2021 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. This year she has two fiction collections coming out — Dark Is Better (Trepidatio) and Blood From…

Women in Horror: Interview with Tonia Ransom

Tonia Ransom is the World Fantasy Award-winning creator and executive producer of NIGHTLIGHT, an IGNYTE Best Fiction Podcast featuring creepy tales written by Black writers, and Afflicted, a horror thriller best described as Lovecraft Country meets True Blood. Tonia has been scaring people since the second grade, when she wrote her first story based on Michael Myers. She lives in Austin, Texas. You can follow Tonia @missdefying on all the socials. Risen is her debut book. What inspired you to write? As a child, I told myself stories at night to help me fall asleep. I don’t really remember when…

Women in Horror: Interview with Sadie Hartmann

Sadie Hartmann, a.k.a. Mother Horror, is the co-owner of the horror fiction subscription company Night Worms and the editor-in-chief of her own horror fiction imprint, Dark Hart. Her non-fiction book 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered is coming from Page Street Books in August 2023. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of more than 20 years, where they stare at Mt Rainier, eat street tacos, and hang out with their three kids. They have a Frenchie named Owen. What inspired you to start writing?  My mom told me about Goodreads ten years ago and encouraged…

Women in Horror: Interview with V. Castro

V. Castro is a two-time Bram Stoker Award–nominated Mexican American writer from San Antonio, Texas now residing in the UK. As a full-time mother she dedicates her time to her family and writing Latinx narratives in horror, erotic horror, and science fiction. Her most recent releases include Aliens: Vasquez from Titan Books, Mestiza Blood and The Queen of the Cicadas from Flame Tree Press, and Goddess of Filth from Creature Publishing. Her forthcoming novel is The Haunting of Alejandra from Del Rey. Connect with Violet via Instagram and Twitter @vlatinalondon or www.vcastrostories.com. She can also be found on Goodreads, Amazon,…

Women in Horror: Interview with Carol Gyzander

Carol Gyzander writes and edits horror and science fiction. She focuses on strong women with twisted tales that touch your heart. She brought a female focus to her Bram Stoker Award®-nominated story, “The Yellow Crown,” inspired by Robert W. Chambers’ world of the twin suns. Her cryptid novella, Forget Me Not, occurs near Niagara Falls in 1969/1939; she co-edited the Even in the Grave ghost story anthology with James Chambers. The reversal of Roe v. Wade inspired the horror anthology she co-edited with Rachel A. Brune, A Woman Unbecoming; it presents stories of women's rage, power, and vengeance, and benefits reproductive healthcare services. Carol…

Women in Horror: Interview with Amy Grech

Amy Grech has sold over 100 stories to various anthologies and magazines including: A New York State of Fright, Apex Magazine, Even in the Grave, Gorefest, Hell’s Heart, Hell’s Highway, Hell’s Mall, Microverses, Punk Noir Magazine, Roi Fainéant Press, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, The Five-Two, The One That Got Away, Under Her Skin, Yellow Mama, and many others. She is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers who lives in Forest Hills, Queens. You can connect with Amy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/amy_grech, or visit her website, https://www.crimsonscreams.com.   What inspired you to…

Women in Horror: Interview with Lauren Elise Daniels

What inspired you to start writing? My parents said I could read anything I wanted, so long as we discussed it. That tactic had me reading collections like The Fourth Galaxy Reader edited by H. L. Gold, and the novels Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward and Stephen King’s Firestarter—and trying to move things with my mind—before I was twelve. I also had a stutter but when I wrote, I was free. I could use any language I wanted without getting tangled in the briar of certain vowel and consonant combinations. Then, I found I could conjure justice in my…

Women in Horror: Interview with Kathryn Ptacek

Kathryn Ptacek has published numerous short stories, novels, and articles in many genres. She edited the landmark anthologies, Women of Darkness I and Women of Darkness II, which came out at a time when few anthologies had women contributors. She edits the HWA Newsletter, the monthly publication for the international organization. Interesting teapots and Gila monster stuff make up some of her many collections, and she likes to garden in her always-messy yard (she loves black flowers); she has four cats. Contact her at gilaqueen@att.net or through her Facebook page. What was it about the horror genre that drew you…

Women in Horror: Interview with Rachel Harrison

Rachel Harrison is the national bestselling author of Cackle, Such Sharp Teeth, and The Return, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica, in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, as an Audible Original, and in her debut story collection Bad Dolls. She lives in Western New York with her husband and their cat/overlord. Her fourth novel, Black Sheep, is out September 19th from Berkley. What inspired you to start writing? It’s something I’ve always done. I used to dictate stories to my mother before I could physically…

Women in Horror: Interview with L. Marie Wood

L Marie Wood is an award-winning dark fiction author, screenwriter, and poet with novels in the psychological horror, mystery, and dark romance genres. She won the Golden Stake Award for her novel The Promise Keeper. She is a recipient of the MICO Award and has won Best Horror, Best Action, Best Afrofuturism/Horror/Sci-Fi, and Best Short Screenplay awards in national and international film festivals. Wood, a Brand New Weird nominated author, has penned short fiction published in groundbreaking works, including the Bram Stoker Award Finalist anthology, Sycorax’s Daughters, and Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire. She is also part of the…

Women in Horror: Interview with Alma Katsu

Alma Katsu has been writing novels since 2011. Her work has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal, been featured in the NY Times and Washington Post, and won awards in the U.S. and internationally. THE HUNGER (2018) is probably her best-known novel, was named one of NPR’s 100 favorite horror stories, was on numerous Best Books of the Year lists. She also writes spy novels, with RED LONDON being the latest in the series. almakatsubooks.com What inspired you to start writing? I was one of those introverted kids who always had her nose in a book and I…

Women in Horror: Interview with Lisa Kroger

Lisa Kröger is the author of Monster, She Wrote and Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult, as well as co-host of the Know Fear and Monster, She Wrote podcasts. She’s won the Bram Stoker and the Locus Award for nonfiction. She sometimes uses her Ph.D. in Gothic literature to teach, but mostly she uses it to write horror, science fiction, and thrillers. She’s contributed fiction and nonfiction to numerous anthologies and essay collections.  Lisa is a core member of the NYX Horror Collective, a group focused on women-created genre content for film, television, and new media. With…

Women in Horror: Interview with Tina Pavlik

Tina Pavlik is a lifelong fan of horror and working on her first book series in the genre. She publishes dark fantasy and erotica in another life for Red Sage Publishing and Changeling Press. Her horror stories sometimes draw on her experiences as a historian, tour guide, and paranormal investigator of one of the most haunted locations in the U.S. She currently works in extras casting in television and film on projects like Amazon’s upcoming show The Peripheral and HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones. As an extra, she worked on Cinemax’s Banshee and Robert Kirkman’s Outcast and on films like Masterminds,…

Women in Horror: Interview with Emma J. Gibbon

Emma J. Gibbon is originally from Yorkshire in the U.K. and now lives in Midcoast Maine. She is an award-winning horror writer, Rhysling-nominated speculative poet, and librarian. Her debut fiction collection, Dark Blood Comes from the Feet, from Trepidatio Publishing, was one of NPR’s best books of 2020 and won the Maine Literary Book Award for Speculative Fiction. Her stories have appeared in The Dark Tome and Toasted Cake podcasts, and the anthologies, The Muse & The Flame, Wicked Haunted, Wicked Weird and is upcoming in 13 Haunted Houses. Her poetry has been published in the HWA Poetry Showcase Volume VIII, Strange Horizons, Liminality, Pedestal Magazine,…

Women in Horror: Interview with Christina Sng

Christina Sng is the two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Collection of Dreamscapes (2020) and A Collection of Nightmares (2017). Her poetry, fiction, essays, and art have appeared in numerous venues worldwide, including Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Interstellar Flight Magazine, Penumbric, Southwest Review, and The Washington Post. Christina’s most recent title, Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken (2021), is the Bram Stoker nominated collaborative poetry collection with Lee Murray, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Geneve Flynn. Visit her at christinasng.com and connect @christinasng. What inspired you to start writing? It feels like I’ve always been writing. I always had a pen and…

Women in Horror: Interview with Cindy O’Quinn

Cindy O’Quinn is a four-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated writer. Author of “Lydia”, from the Shirley Jackson Award-winning anthology: The Twisted Book of Shadows,  “The Thing I Found Along a Dirt Patch Road”, “A Gathering on the Mountain”, and “One and Done”. She is an Appalachian writer from the mountains of West Virginia. Steeped in folklore at an early age. Cindy now lives in the woods of northern Maine, on the old Tessier Homestead, which makes the ideal backdrop for writing her dark stories and poetry. Her work has been published or forthcoming in The Bad Book, HWA Poetry Showcase Vol…

Women in Horror: Interview for Jennifer McMahon

Jennifer McMahon is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including Promise Not to Tell and The Winter People. Her latest, The Children on the Hill, will be out in April. She lives in Vermont with her partner, Drea, and their daughter, Zella. What inspired you to start writing? I wrote my first short story in third grade, “The Haunted Meatball.” I still remember that rush I got when I realized I could sit down and create a world on paper where anything could happen – even a little boy being chased through the woods by a glowing meatball. I was hooked. I have been…