Seers’ Table

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…

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…

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…

Linda 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.” Kate Maruyama recommends: Since Latoya Jordan’s sophomore English class in high school, she knew she wanted a career as a writer. However, she didn’t realize she’d be writing by day and by night: in addition to her fiction, poetry, and the occasional essay or reported piece, she works as a professional writer for a local government agency. Her writing has appeared in…

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Linda Addison introduces: Aiden Thomas is a trans, Latinx, New York Times-bestselling author with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Originally from Oakland, California, they now make their home in Portland, OR. Aiden is notorious for not being able to guess the endings of books and movies, and organizes their bookshelves by color. The Sunbearer Trials (Book One of The Sunbearer Duology) was released September 6, 2022 from Feiwel & Friends, where teen semidioses compete in a series of challenges with the highest of stakes. Their 2019 novel, Cemetery…

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 introduces: Johnny Compton (he/him) is a San Antonio-based author whose short stories have appeared in several publications since 2006, including Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, and The No Sleep Podcast. His fascination with frightening fiction started when his kindergarten teacher played a record of the classic ghost story “The Golden Arm” for her class. The Spite House is his debut novel through…

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 selection menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works.” Rob Costello recommends: Headshot Photo Credit: Adrienne Giles Lamar Giles is the author of a wide range of books for young readers, as well as a founding member of We Need Diverse Books, which advocates for essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people. He is a two-time…

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Linda Addison introduces: Beatrice Winifred Iker (eye-kerr) grew up in the picturesque (and undoubtedly haunted) valley of the Great Smoky Mountains. As a child, they spent an incalculable time in their grandmother’s living room staring at the unending ridges and peaks; eventually, they decided to write about this bewitching place. A great passion of theirs is genealogy and ancestry. As a result, much of their writing lives in the southern gothic genre, where they grapple with the American South’s history, which is both terrifying and entrancing. Their stories feature characters and…

October 30, 2022 by HWAWeb 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 selection menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works.” Tish Booker recommends: A.P. Thayer is a master of the short form of writing. He is a queer Mexican-American writer out of Los Angeles who dabbles in different genres and is adept at all of them. Speculative fiction, magical realism, and outright horror are all genres attached to his writing and all can apply since he…

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Committee Halloween is the hardest working time for horror writers, but it’s also the most exciting. We have some good reading for you this month! Hope you all enjoy the HWA’s favorite holiday. Rob Costello introduces: Ross Showalter (he/him) is a Deaf queer writer based in the Pacific Northwest. His short stories, personal essays, and critical pieces have been published in The New York Times, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Catapult, Literary Hub, Strange Horizons, CRAFT, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. His work has been a finalist for the Best of the Net anthology, included on Entropy Magazine’s Best of the Year lists, and supported…

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 selection menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works.” Lauren Salerno recommends: Julia Armfield is the author of the story collection salt slow and the novel Our Wives Under the Sea. Her work has been published in Granta, Lighthouse, Analog Magazine, Neon Magazine, and Best British Short Stories. She is the winner of the White Review Short Story Prize and a Pushcart Prize, and she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2019. She lives and works…

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 the menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works”. Linda D. Addison recommends: Tori Eldridge is the national bestselling author of the newly-released dark fiction, Dance Among the Flames, and the Lily Wong mystery thriller series—The Ninja Daughter, The Ninja’s Blade, and The Ninja Betrayed—nominated for the Anthony, Lefty, and Macavity Awards and winner of the 2021 Crimson Scribe Award for Best Book of the Year. Her shorter works appear in the inaugural…

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 selection menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works”. Lauren Candia recommends: Marytza K. Rubio has an MFA in creative writing: Latin America and was a Bread Loaf scholar. She is the founder of Makara Center for the Arts, a nonprofit library in her hometown of Santa Ana, California. Maria, Maria and Other Stories (April 2022) is Rubio’s debut collection of short stories starring mystics and misfits playing in the…

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community It’s time for Summer Reading, and we have some new authors for you to acquaint yourself with. What’s fun this month is there are links so that you can read pieces by Phoenix Alexander and K.M. Szpara directly. Save the links on your phone and read them wherever you’re traveling! Rob Costello introduces: Phoenix Alexander (he/him) is the Science Fiction Collections Librarian at the University of Liverpool, Special Collections and Archives. He manages the largest collection of catalogued science fiction in Europe, including the archive of the Science Fiction Foundation. He completed…

The Seers Table! April 29, 2022 by HWAWeb 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 selection menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works.” Rob Costello recommends: Ai Jiang (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian and immigrant writer who desires to write fiction that mixes both literary and speculative elements while incorporating aspects of her cultural background and native landscape whenever she can. She likes to draw on East Asia mythology, legends, and folklore in her dark fantasy and…

The Seers Table March 28, 2022 by HWAWeb Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community So much good reading this spring! We’ve all been catching up on reading for the Bram Stoker Awards® and reading new releases in journals, books, and elsewhere. Hope you enjoy this month’s lineup of writers of dark things. The excerpts alone have added a few books to my stack. Linda Addison introduces: Alex Jennings was born in Germany and raised in Botswana, Paramaribo, Tunis, and Columbia, MD. His writing has appeared in Strange Horizons, PodCastle, and Uncanny Magazine, among others, and he is a regular contributor to The Magazine of…

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community   Rob Costello introduces: Author Photo Credit: Melanie Elise Photography LLC . Aden Polydoros is a queer, Jewish writer of speculative fiction for young readers. He grew up in Illinois and Arizona, and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Northern Arizona University. He is the author of several books for young readers, including the forthcoming Bone Weaver (Fall 2022) and The Ring of Solomon (Winter 2023). He has also contributed to the upcoming YA anthology The Gathering Dark, An Anthology of Folk Horror, edited by Tori Bovalino (Fall 2022). Aden’s current YA release, The City Beautiful, which is on…

The Seers Table! December 31, 2021 by HWAWeb 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 selection menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works”. Kate Maruyama introduces: Darcie Little Badger is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. As an author, she specializes in speculative fiction, especially horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Elatsoe, was featured in Time Magazine as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. Elatsoe also won the Locus award for Best First…

The Seers Table November 30, 2021 by HWAWeb Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Tish Jackson suggests: Briana Morgan loves all things literary: from Gatsby to vampires. Using her Bachelors in English, she has been editing manuscripts and writing reviews for a decade, but has also been writing her own stories at the same time. She started her fiction career writing compelling Young Adult stories. Her debut novel, Blood & Water, is especially chilling for its subject matter. The protagonist is a young teenager trying to survive a deadly pandemic and save what’s left of his family. The virus has killed…