The HWA Honors Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Horror Writers

Dear HWA Members and Horror Writing Community,

May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States. Over the past several weeks, as I have engaged in conversations with friends, colleagues, and even relatives (as I grew up in Hawaii from age 11 onward and have cousins who are Native Hawaiian) I have come to realize that I have inadvertently contributed to the erasure of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders by not explicitly including them in the call for Asian & Asian Diaspora horror writers this May.

Pacific Islandera, Pacificer, Pasifika, or Pasefika are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. Last year in 2021, the White House renamed our May Heritage holiday as Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month, in order to specifically honor Native Hawaiians, who are Indigenous Peoples in the United States.

May is not over. It’s been a pretty full month, with StokerCon and two interview series.

But it is not over, and representation matters.

In order to rectify the situation, I am reaching out to Horror Writers from the Pacific Islander community. I will be accepting requests from authors who wish to be interviewed, and nominations for authors to be interviewed, from now until the end of May.

If you are a Pacific Islander Heritage Horror Writer who wishes to be interviewed, or if you would like to recommend anyone, please email me at sumikoska@yahoo.com by May 31, 2022.

The series itself will be presented on our blog in July.

Sincerely,

Sumiko Saulson

Social Media Manager

Horror Writers Association