Posts bynaching, Author at Horror Writers Association [ 124 ]

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with John Linwood Grant

• June 26, 2024
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What inspired you to start writing?

I’ve always written, mostly for my own amusement, since I was a small child. To me, it was something you just ‘did’ - invented stories and fancies – and I sometimes found it odd that others didn’t. My own breakthrough moment was when I stopped drafting endless convoluted novels and went directly into writing short stories, novelettes, and novellas, most of which sold immediately. So I kept doing that.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Lindsay King-Miller

• June 24, 2024
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What inspired you to start writing?

I’ve loved writing for so long I can’t remember starting! I was writing short stories at least as far back as second grade, maybe earlier. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and whenever I read something that I really love, I have to try to figure out how to do it myself.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Sofia Ajram

• June 22, 2024
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What inspired you to start writing?

My pre-teen years were limned to AOL chat room roleplays and Livejournal blogging. Role-playing has a kink connotation to it (unless you worked in retail, by which, it’s the hellish exercise you’re coached with to practice customer service scenarios), but before websites like FanFiction.net or AO3 were popularized, roleplaying was the sort of way you’d collaboratively generate stories.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Rory Michaelson

• June 20, 2024
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What inspired you to start writing?

Writing came to me in my teens because none of the mainstream media I had access to included people like me, so I started making up my own stories. That makes it sound like an inspiring turn of events but really it was section 28 in the UK (prohibition of “promotion of homosexuality”) which was a horror story in itself that did significant harm to many people, and one we’re currently seeing repeated.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Rob Costello

• June 18, 2024
• 1 Comment

What inspired you to start writing?

I’m an only child. When I grew up, I spent a lot of time on my own making up stories. With my legos and stuffed animals, I would while away entire weekends in perfect bliss concocting elaborate dark fantasy worlds involving aliens, ghosts, and monsters. (Godzilla was a particular favorite.) Eventually, the toys disappeared, but the stories stuck around.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Pixie Bruner

• June 16, 2024
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What inspired you to start writing?

It’s a cliché, but some of my first friends were books and book characters. It’s still true. I was always creating stories and narratives in my head. Plus, they kept giving me crayons and pencils as a little kid and wanted me to use them. I was inspired by the power of words to take me places, to evoke emotions, to escape reality. I wanted to share my inner worlds and stories.

NUTS & BOLTS: Interview with Publisher, Editor, and Mentor Joe Mynhardt

• June 15, 2024
• Comments Closed

Publishing great horror authors proved more rewarding than he’d imagined,

so Crystal Lake Entertainment founder and CEO Joe Mynhardt took it a step further. He’s expanded what started as a small press into “a platform for launching careers.” In that spirit, Crystal Lake’s recent two-volume Shadows and Ink writing guide serves as a comprehensive education course for aspiring horror authors. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, Joe has agreed to share some advice on what beginning writers should know. 

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Nora B. Peevy

• June 14, 2024
• Comments Closed

What inspired you to start writing?

I was a quiet child and came from a family of readers. I was also a child who had really bad asthma and allergies at a time when medicine hadn’t advanced enough to be enough of some help for five-year-old little me, which is when I started to entertain myself when I was in bed sick by writing my own stories and drawing illustrations for them.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with M. Kate Allen

• June 12, 2024
• Comments Closed

What inspired you to start writing?

I began writing in a diary at age ten. Exploring my thoughts at length without the pressure of interacting with someone else appealed to me. Writing gave me a safe medium for exploring my thoughts and interests. In eighth grade, I wrote fiction in English class and found it intensely absorbing.

A Point of Pride: An Interview with Laramie Dean

• June 10, 2024
• Comments Closed

What inspired you to start writing?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, from the moment I first learned to read. After I realized I could (and then did, all the time, voraciously), I decided I wanted to write my own stories. I started reading Stephen King at an obscenely young age—it was the 80s; I think there are lots more kids like me who cut our fangs on It and The Tommyknockers—and when he sent me an autographed copy of the Cycle of the Werewolf/Silver Bullet screenplay when I was eight, that was it. I had to be a writer.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Briana Una McGuckin

• June 8, 2024
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What inspired you to start writing?

I have cerebral palsy, so when I was ten and everyone else was playing pretend outside, in their bodies, I realized that I was more comfortable playing pretend in my mind, sitting still. When we got a computer at home, Microsoft Word was a gaming application for me: an open-world simulator where I had complete control of everything that happened.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Michael G. Williams

• June 6, 2024
• Comments Closed

What inspired you to start writing?

I grew up in Appalachia in a family where storytelling was highly prized. I can’t count the number of hours I spent hearing relatives and neighbors tell stories, some true, some maybe not so true but entertaining all the same. From a very early age, I wanted to participate in creating and telling stories, and books were the form that I could practice in private.

THE 2023 BRAM STOKER AWARD® WINNERS

• June 5, 2024
• Comments Closed

SAN DIEGO, CA--The 2023 Bram Stoker Awards® took place on June 1, during the Annual Bram Stoker Awards® Banquet at StokerCon™ 2024. Winners received awards for superior achievement in the following categories:

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Eric Raglin

• June 4, 2024
• Comments Closed

What inspired you to start writing?

When I was a kid, I loved episodic fantasy adventures like Dungeons and Dragons (which I still play to this day) and the Deltora Quest book series. These experiences inspired me to write my own fantasy novel—something I never finished but had a great time working on. Nowadays, I’m not as interested in fantasy, but my love of writing carries into the present.

A Point of Pride 2024: An Interview with Chad Stroup

• June 2, 2024
• Comments Closed

What inspired you to start writing? 

I was a lover of horror at a very young age (we’re talking like two years old and I was already obsessed with monsters). I was reading by age three, and by about year seven or eight, I found Stephen King, which led to eventually discovering Cabal by Clive Barker at age 11 or 12 (a very queer book not only because of its author, and still my favorite novel to this day).

A Point of Pride 2024: Introduction by Angel Leigh McCoy

• June 1, 2024
• 2 Comments

LGBTQ+ — B Stands for Bisexual

By Angel Leigh McCoy

Our job as fiction writers requires us to step into the hearts, minds, and bodies of other people. For this reason, writers are some of the most empathic beings I know. We’re skilled at using our imaginations. We use that tool to choose the actions, thoughts, and feelings experienced by our characters.

Asian Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Wen-yi Lee

• May 21, 2024
• Comments Closed

What inspired you to start writing?

I’ve been writing stories since I could write and never stopped, basically. I just got around to actually learning how to revise and submit things to publishing places eventually, but it’s one of those things I think I’d be doing all my life regardless. Just for me.

Asian Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Pauline Chow

• May 20, 2024
• 2 Comments

What inspired you to start writing?

I started to write fiction in 2018. I had moved to a small town. My first drafts of the Nanowrimo novel experiment were cathartic and healing. I wrote my maternal grandmother back to life, and together we got through a hard part of life, a toxic work environment, and becoming a new mother. In 2022, I took an inspiring online writing class called The Art of Fiery Prose with Giulietta Nardone. One of the assignments was submitting short stories to online journals. And I did! And mags published things!

Asian Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Olivia Bing

• May 15, 2024
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What inspired you to start writing?

Drawing gives me carpal tunnel, so I must externalize my thoughts through other mediums. More importantly, I was first inspired by great stories that kept me reading till the sun came up. I wanted to write like those authors and create exciting worlds and loveable characters.

NUTS & BOLTS: Interview with Author, Songwriter, and Actor Kasey Lansdale

• May 15, 2024
• Comments Closed

Think it’s difficult to self-edit, or to create characters? Try writing a satisfying narrative that clocks in at three minutes. Or standing in front of a roomful of strangers and convincing them you’re somebody else. Those are the kinds of challenges facing songwriters and actors.