Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Nicole D. Sconiers

What inspired you to start writing? When I was a kid, I used to sit at the feet of my great-grandmother, Sallie, and listen to her tell stories. She had a way of captivating the listener with her tales of growing up down South, protecting her property from the Klan with a nine-shooter Winchester rifle she called Ole Betsy. I developed a love for storytelling by osmosis, just absorbing the colorful language and the joys and horrors of everyday life she shared with me. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?  I’ve always been drawn…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Chanel Harry

What inspired you to start writing?  I have drawn inspiration from many facets of my life. I have always been reading horror novels and watching horror movies since I was about four years old thanks to my mom. She used to read a lot of Stephen King and Anne Rice books which, of course, I picked up and read. So, I would say that my mother was the main inspiration, and I thank her every day for instilling literature in my life.   What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?  One thing that drew me…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Kai Leakes

What inspired you to start writing? My inspiration to write came from just growing up and aching to see myself reflected in the stories that I loved. I used to have to do a cognitive dissonance as a child where I’d replace the white characters with BIPOC and myself because I became over-saturated with being given stories about children who did not look like me. It also didn’t help that I loved books so much that I was reading out of my grade level. This led to me developing my own stories In my mind. As I grew up, I…

The Seers’ Table February 2024

Tracy Cross’ work has been featured in several podcasts, including “Nighty Night with Rabia Chaudry” (advocate and author of the New York Times bestselling book Adnan’s Story). Her work can be found in several anthologies, including Other Terrors, Don’t Break the Oath, Pandemics Unleashed, and 99 Tiny Terrors. Her first book, Rootwork, a folk horror homage to her late grandmother, was published in the fall of 2022. Tracy understands what it feels like to be the 21st Century invisible woman. She creates strong female characters to debunk the stereotype that women should be seen and not heard. Her protagonists are strong, Black women, that any reader can see and support.

The Seers’ Table January 2024

Linda D. Addison recommends: Jenny Kiefer is a Kentucky native and an avid rock climber. Together with her mother, she is the owner and manager of Butcher Cabin Books, an all-horror bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky. This Wretched Valley is her debut novel. She has short stories published in Pseudopod, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

The Seers’ Table December 2023

Ace Antonio-Hall recommends: Lisa Springer is a writer from Barbados currently living in New York with her family. She loves creating worlds readers can get lost in. Lisa is passionate about writing thriller and horror fiction for young people.

The Seers’ Table November 2023

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Kate Maruyama here. Spooky reading is a joy year ‘round for those of us at the Seers’ Table, but November, with its shortened days and gray skies, amps up the mood a bit. This month there is some poetry in the mix, along with some pizza and New Orleans. So, grab a cup of something warm, curl up, and dig in! Linda D. Addison recommends: Carol Edwards is a northern California native transplanted to southern Arizona. She lives and works in relative seclusion with her books, plants, and pets (two dogs,…

The Seers’ Table October 2023

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Linda Addison recommends: London native C.C. Adams is the horror/dark fiction author behind books such as But Worse Will Come, Misery And Other Lines, and Downwind, Alice. A member of the HWA, he still lives in the capital. This is where he lifts weights, cooks—and looks for the perfect quote to set off the next dark delicacy. Adams has a story in The Black Beacon Book of Horror anthology releasing Friday, October 13, 2023 (yes, you read that right, Friday the 13th). The anthology features dark and disturbing tales of psychological,…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Ashley Dioses

Ashley Dioses is a writer of dark poetry and fiction from southern California.  She is the author of Diary of a Sorceress, a collection of dark fantasy and horror poetry, and The Withering, a collection of psychological horror and supernatural horror poetry.  Her third and latest collection, Darkest Days and Haunted Ways was just released from Jackanapes Press.  Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Cemetery Dance Publications, Weirdbook, Black Wings VI: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, and others.  Her poem “Cobwebs,” was mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s recommended Best Horror of the Year Volume Twelve list. She has also appeared in the…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Leticia Urieta

Leticia Urieta (she/her/hers) is a Tejana writer from Austin, TX. She is a teaching artist in the greater Austin community and the Program Director of Austin Bat Cave, a literary community serving students in the Austin area, as well as the co-director of Barrio Writers Austin and Pflugerville, a free creative writing program for youth. Leticia is also a freelance writer. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Chicon Street Poets, Lumina, The Offing, Kweli Journal, Medium, Electric Lit and others.…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Michael Paul Gonzalez

Michael Paul Gonzalez is the author of the novels BENEATH THE SALTON SEA, ANGEL FALLS, and MISS MASSACRE'S GUIDE TO MURDER AND VENGEANCE and creator of the serial horror audio drama podcast LARKSPUR UNDERGROUND.  An Active Member of the Horror Writers Association, his short stories have appeared in print and online, including the Chiral Mad 5, Qualia Nous vol. 2, Flame Tree Press Anthologies Endless Apocalypse and Gothic Fantasy: Chilling Horror Stories. He has also appeared in Tales from the Crust: A Pizza Horror Anthology, Where Nightmares Come From, Lost Signals, HeavyMetal.com, and Fantastic Tales of Terror. He resides in…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Fernanda Castro

Fernanda Castro is a Brazilian writer from Recife, also a freelance translator and copyeditor. Her work has appeared before in Strange Horizons and The Dark Magazine. You can find her on social media as @fernandaversa. What inspired you to start writing? I read a lot as a child, especially fantasy, under the influence of my older sister. Being always immersed in stories, writing was a natural development for me. I made fanfics where my school friends and I lived adventures in fictional worlds (Legolas, sorry to break your heart, sweetie, but I've grown up). However, the idea of writing professionally…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with John C. Mannone

John C. Mannone has poems in Windhover, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, and others. He won the SFPA Dwarf Stars Award (2020), was awarded an HWA Scholarship (2017) and a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature, and served as celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). His full-length collections are Disabled Monsters (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2015), Flux Lines (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2022), Sacred Flute (Iris Press, 2023), and Song of the Mountains (Middle Creek Publishing, 2023). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other journals. He’s a college professor of physics &…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Richard Z. Santos

Richard Z. Santos' debut novel, Trust Me, was a finalist for the Writer's League of Texas Book Awards and was named one of the best debuts of the year by CrimeReads. He's the editor of the collection A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories. He is the Executive Director of Austin Bat Cave, an organization that provides creative writing workshops to students in under-resourced areas. He is a former Board Member of The National Book Critics Circle and has judged contests for The Kirkus Prize, The NEA, and many more. Recent work can be found in Austin Noir (Akashic Books),…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Luis Paredes

Luis Paredes is the author of the horror / urban fantasy novella, Out On a Limb. Other work includes the mob-inspired short story, Forgive Us Our Debts in Tangled Web’s latest issue and The Ammuntadore on Tall Tale TV.  Luis lives in Westchester, New York where you can find him training for marathons or chatting up strangers about a platypus’s life cycle.  Find Luis on Instagram @luisparedeswrites or on Twitter @Luis_Writes Q. What inspired you to start writing? A. I’ve joked that my writing career started when I was seven. That’s when I plagiarized Mark Twain's The Celebrated Jumping Frog…

The Seers’ Table September 2023

Linda D. Addison, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community You can see any of The Seers’ Table posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selecting menu item “Our Blogs / Seers’ Table.” Linda D. Addison recommends: Candace Nola is an award-winning Pittsburgh author, editor, and reviewer. You can find her short stories in The Baker’s Dozen, Just A Girl, and The American Cannibal anthologies as well as multiple short stories on Godless. Her novels include Breach, Beyond the Breach, Hank Flynn, Bishop, and Bishop: Man vs Monster. She is the publisher and editor…

The Seers’ Table August 2023

Linda D. Addison, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community You can see any of The Seers’ Table posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selecting menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works.”   Linda D. Addison recommends: Like a magpie, Rhonda Parrish is constantly distracted by shiny things. She’s the editor of many anthologies and author of plenty of books, stories, and poems (some of which have even been nominated for awards!). She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, and she can often be found there playing Dungeons & Dragons, bingeing crime dramas, making blankets,…

The Seers’ Table July 2023

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community We’re deep into summer reading, so we’re bringing you three flavors of novels to add to your TBR pile! A ghost story, a space opera, and a harrowing horror tale. You can see any of “The Seers’ Table” posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selecting menu item “Our Blogs/Diverse Works.”   Linda Addison recommends: India Hill Brown is an author with a passion for writing, reading, and all things literary. Her debut novel, The Forgotten Girl, has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award…

The Seers’ Table June 2023

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community   Linda D. Addison recommends: E.E. King is an award-winning painter, performer, writer, and naturalist. She’ll do anything that won’t pay the bills, especially if it involves animals. She’s been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies, including Clarkesworld, Daily Science Fiction, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Short Edition, and Flametree. Her novels include, Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife: All you need to know to choose the right heaven, and several story collections. Ray Bradbury called her stories, “marvelously inventive, wildly funny, and deeply thought-provoking.” Her stories are on Tangent’s…

The Seers’ Table May 2023

Linda D. Addison, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community You can see any of “The Seers’ Table” posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selecting menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works”. Tish Jackson recommends: Tamika Thompson has been writing for her whole adult life, crisscrossing genres until landing squarely into horror with her new fiction collection Unshod, Cackling and Naked. As someone who writes for the love of the written word, she wears all the hats—author, producer, and journalist—while creating worlds for readers to fall into. She carries degrees from Columbia and…