The HWA Scholarship Committee is pleased to announce the following recipients for this year’s scholarship selections. The committee would like to thank those who applied and the volunteers who reviewed the many applications we received.
Congratulations to all those selected!
Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship Recipient: Victoria Timpanaro
Victoria Timpanaro is a PhD Candidate at Rutgers University – Newark, NJ in the American Studies program. Her areas of study are film, media, gender, and popular culture. She is currently working on a dissertation focusing on the work of George A. Romero and female representation in horror cinema. Victoria is a Humanities Adjunct Professor at Essex County College and Union County Colleges in New Jersey, as well as SNHU Online. She is also a filmmaker and musician.
Mary W. Shelley Scholarship Recipient: Emily Rosenthal
Emily Rosenthal (she/her) is a writer and illustrator based in Baltimore. She tells stories across age ranges and mediums, including picture books, graphic novels, and prose. She uses fantastical creatures and speculative elements to explore self-doubt, the nuances of butch lesbian identity, womanhood, and disability. Her debut picture book, Leroy Has Something to Say (illustrated by Thai My Phuong), will be published by Bloomsbury in 2026. You can find her watching B-horror movies, cuddling with her cat, and online at: emilyrosenthalart.com.
HWA Scholarship Recipient: Amanda Adgate
Amanda Havill Adgate is a writer and therapist whose work explores the dark intersections of trauma, memory, and the supernatural. With a background in mental health and a passion for gothic storytelling, Amanda weaves narratives that are both emotionally resonant and hauntingly atmospheric. Her fiction often centers on women navigating grief, isolation, and inherited horror, drawing inspiration from folklore, cult psychology, and feminist theory. She has published short horror stories in Gone By Morning, an independently published international horror anthology with proceeds going to We Need Diverse Books (2022), and Exquisite Poison, an anthology from Phantom House Press (2022). She’s also a member of the Horror Writers Association. She lives near the Appalachian Mountains with her feral children and the love of her life, where she balances writing with wild, wonder-filled chaos.
HWA Dark Poetry Scholarship Recipient: Abdulbasit A. Olúwaníshọlá
Abdulbasit A. Olúwaníshọlá, SWAN V, has works up/forthcoming in A Long House, ANMLY, Ake Review, BAM Quarterly, Poetry Journal, Poetry Column, Palette Poetry, Tahoma Literary Review, Ninshãr Arts, Rowayat, Haven Spec, Singapore Unbound, Sley House, Invisible City and elsewhere. He is a Best of the Net Nominee, and likes reading, meditating and bodying the facial expressions of the world with his writing and photography.
Sincerely,
Marge Simon
HWA Scholarship Committee, Chair
