By Lee Murray
Trigger Warning: This article addresses issues of grief, loss, and mental health.
Moderated with compassion by Mo Moshaty, an author-producer with experience working closely with death doulas, the panel commenced with a round-robin of introductions, including the panellists’ relevant work, and also their particular interest in the topic of grief horror.
By Lee Murray
Trigger Warning: This article addresses mental illness.
For this panel, held in the virtual space, I had the honour to be joined by panellists L.E. (Lauren Elise) Daniels, Lauren McMenemy, John Palisano, and Angela Yuriko Smith to discuss tools and techniques for addressing mental illness in horror, including fresh approaches for depictions that are authentic and affective.
National Poetry Month may be done, but if you still have piles of verse flowing from your pen, here’s some places you can send it. Not all of these are speculative markets so read your submission guidelines and maybe hold your vampyre poems for a darker market… or ask and see if they will invite you across their threshold and onto the page.
The HWA is proud to announce that it will call for submissions from its members for the HWA Poetry Showcase Volume XI beginning April 1st, 2024. Maxwell I. Gold will be the editor for the volume. This year’s judges, along with Maxwell, will include L.E. Daniels, Sumiko Saulson, Pedro Iniguez, and Ngô Bình Anh Khoa. Maxwell I. Gold has agreed to take over as the editor for the next two volumes to follow, HWA Poetry Showcase volumes XI and XII.
Only HWA members (of any status) may submit. Non-members may also submit, but if their poem is accepted, they must become members of the HWA (of any status) prior to publication.
This month on Holistic Horrors we take a brief look at the role of poetry in promoting well-being and connectiveness. Numerous studies suggest that this is the case. For example, in their 2018 study examining the value of writing poetry as a “means to help people living with chronic pain to explore and express their narratives in their own unique way”, researchers Hovey, Khayat, and Feig concluded that “to write cathartic poetry means bringing into presence our inner reflective thinking, emotions, and self-empathy to help ourselves and others who suffer alongside us.”
In this column, I’m pleased to offer a report of the inspirational virtual panel on sensitive treatments of mental illness in horror, a discussion moderated by HWA Wellness co-chair Dave Jeffery and including an expert panel of speakers, which was published in June 2023 at our annual StokerCon convention. Also in this column is a short personal essay incorporating my takeaways from that panel discussion as they relate to three short stories on the subject of dementia and caregiving: Dave Jeffery’s “Once” which is published in its entirety at the end of this column with kind permission of the author; Lisa Morton’s “In the Garden” which appears in Alessandro Manzetti’s The Beauty of Death Vol 1 (Independent Legions); and my own short story “Nightshift” which appears in An Unholy Thirst (Pavanne Press, edited by Cliff Biggers & Charles Rutledge) and also in translation (by Nicola Lombardi) in Weird Book Italy’s 2023 anthology Midnight (edited by Luigi Boccia and Nicola Lombardi).
Written by Lee Murray
(Trigger Warning: Articles in this column discuss mental health/illness)
In this column, I’m pleased to offer a report of the inspirational virtual panel on sensitive treatments of mental illness in horror, a discussion moderated by HWA Wellness co-chair Dave Jeffery and including an expert panel of speakers, which was published in June 2023 at our annual StokerCon convention. Also in this column is a short personal essay incorporating my takeaways from that panel discussion as they relate to three short stories on the subject of dementia and caregiving: Dave Jeffery’s “Once” which is published in its entirety at the end of this column with kind permission of the author; Lisa Morton’s “In the Garden” which appears in Alessandro Manzetti’s The Beauty of Death Vol 1 (Independent Legions); and my own short story “Nightshift” which appears in An Unholy Thirst (Pavanne Press, edited by Cliff Biggers & Charles Rutledge) and also in translation (by Nicola Lombardi) in Weird Book Italy’s 2023 anthology Midnight (edited by Luigi Boccia and Nicola Lombardi).
Congratulations to all the poets and poems that made the HWA Poetry Showcase X, and thank you to everyone who submitted. There were nearly 300 poems submitted, all excellent. It was difficult to whittle down to just 50 poets. For everyone not on this list, you should feel proud. If we could include all 300 submissions we would. Each of these poems was worth it.
Denise Dumars has published hundreds of poems in journals, magazines, and anthologies, as well as authoring several volumes of poetry. She has been nominated for the Rhysling Award for speculative poetry several times, the Dwarf Stars award for poems of under 10 lines, and her book, Paranormal Romance: Poems Romancing the Paranormal, was nominated for the Elgin award. She is currently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. A retired college English professor, Denise is a fulltime writer now, writing fiction and nonfiction as well as poetry. Denise speaks on poetry and reads poetry at various conferences and conventions, including the The Eaton Conference on Science Fiction Poetry, The World Fantasy Convention, Westercon, Loscon, The Stoker Convention, The Gaslight Expo, and many more. Every weekend in April 2023 she is performing at one poetry event or another in Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles’ beautiful South Bay region, but her heart is in New Orleans. Find her at www.DeniseDDumars.com, and Rev. Dee’s Apothecary: a New Orleans-Style Botanica, www.DyanaAset.com. Her most current chapbook, Cajuns in Space and Other Speculative and Fantasy Poems, is available from her for $5 and is eligible for the Elgin Award. Contact her at eerieaerie@hotmail.com.
Colleen Anderson is a Canadian author writing fiction and poetry and has had two collections and over 300 poems published in such venues as Grievous Angel, Polu Texni, The Future Fire, HWA Poetry Showcase and many others. She is a member of HWA and SFPA and a Canada Council grant recipient for writing. She has performed her work before audiences in the US, UK and Canada and has placed in the Balticon, Rannu, Crucible and Wax poetry competitions. Colleen also enjoys editing and co-edited Canadian anthologies Playground of Lost Toys (Aurora nominated) and Tesseracts 17, and her solo anthology Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland was published by Exile Books. She has served on both Stoker Award and British Fantasy Award juries, and guest-edited Eye to the Telescope. Her latest collection, The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams, will be released June 3.
Madison McSweeney is the author of The Doom That Came to Mellonville (Filthy Loot), The Forest Dreams With Teeth (Demain Publishing), and the poetry chapbook Fringewood (Alien Buddha Press). Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies like Zombie Punks F*ck Off (Weirdpunk/CLASH), America
Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert is a Technical Services Librarian who writes short fiction and poetry in the horror, scifi, and dark fantasy genres. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies Dastardly Damsels (forthcoming), Wicked Women, The Final Summons, and Killing It Softly (Vol.1). Read her poetry in the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. VI, the anthologies Beneath Strange Stars and Wicked Witches, and in The Wayfarer: A Journal of Contemplative Literature.
Austin Gragg is a queer writer, poet, and stay-at-home dad. He’s been a finalist and multi-honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, and Publishers Weekly has praised Austin’s dark fantasy as “decadent”. Austin spent four years working on the venerable Space & Time Magazine (Est. 1966) and closed his time there with a two-issue run as editor-in-chief. Formerly, Austin has been a public librarian, digital literacy instructor, and IT guy of all stripes. He studied creative writing at UMKC and lives in his hometown of Independence, MO with his partner, daughter, and four lovely, obnoxious cats.
Timothy P. Flynn is a dark poet from Massachusetts. His previous poetry resides in Space and Time magazine, Anthocon’s book collections: Anthology Years 1-3, Wicked Tales, Wicked Creatures, Scifaikuest, haikuniverse, Haiku Journal and the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol 5 & Vol 6, and in the current HWA Poetry Showcase Vol 9. Flynn’s first chapbook, Embrace the Madness, is available via eBook on Amazon. He is a member of the New England Horror Writers, an Affiliate member of the HWA, and recipient of the 2021 HWA Dark Poetry Scholarship. Follow him on Twitter: @TimothyPFlynn or on Instagram: instagram.com/timothypflynnwriter
Amanda Worthington is a writer of the speculative whose work is alternately dark and whimsical. When she’s not writing, she’s probably enjoying the great outdoors, reading, working a crossword, or cuddling one of her 3 floofy cats. Her newest release is No Quarter: A Novella in Verse.
