Women in Horror: Interview with Monique Snyman

Monique Snyman’s mind is a confusing bedlam of glitter and death, where candy-coated gore is found in abundance and homicidal unicorns thrive. Sorting out the mess in her head is particularly irksome before she’s ingested a specific amount of coffee, which is equal to half the recommended intake of water for humans per day. When she’s not playing referee to her imaginary friends or trying to overdose on caffeine, she’s doing something with words—be it writing, reading, or editing. Monique Snyman lives in Pretoria, South Africa, with her husband, daughter, and an adorable Chihuahua. She’s the author of the Bram…

Women in Horror: Interview with Hailey Piper

Hailey Piper is the author of The Worm and His Kings, Queen of Teeth, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, and Benny Rose the Cannibal King. She is an active member of the HWA, with short stories appearing in Pseudopod, Vastarien, Cast of Wonders, Daily Science Fiction, and other publications. She lives with her wife in Maryland, where their paranormal research is classified. Find Hailey at www.haileypiper.com or on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays. What inspired you to start writing? I've gravitated to telling stories since I was little, going on and on about all kinds of strange ideas, and eventually, early books…

Women in Horror: Interview with Nancy Holder

Nancy Holder is a New York Times bestselling author and recipient of six Bram Stoker Awards. In 2019 she was named a Grand Master by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. She has served HWA as vice president and a member of the board of trustees. She and her co-writer Alan Philipson are writing comic book series for Moonstone and IFG, as well as a short story for the 50th-anniversary celebration of Kolchak the Night Stalker. Her most recent solo publication is “Chickens for Chompy,” a short story in the forthcoming Diablo House anthology from Clover Press. What inspired you to start writing? My…

Women in Horror: Interview with Marge Simon

Marge Simon lives in Ocala, FL, City of Trees with her husband, poet/writer Bruce Boston and the ghosts of two cats. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side. Marge’s works have appeared in Pedestal Magazine, Asimov’s, Crannog, Silver Blade. New Myths, Daily Science Fiction, more. She attends the ICFA annually as a guest poet/writer and is a founding member of the Speculative Literary Foundation. A multiple Bram Stoker award winner, Marge is the second woman to be acknowledged by the SF &F Poetry Association with a Grand Master Award. She received…

Women in Horror: Interview with Lee Murray

Lee Murray is an author, editor, screenwriter, and poet from Aotearoa-New Zealand. A USA Today Bestselling author, double Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson Award winner, her work includes military thrillers, the Taine McKenna Adventures, supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra (with Dan Rabarts), and debut collection, Grotesque: Monster Stories. Lee is the curator-editor of eighteen volumes of dark fiction, among them Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (with Geneve Flynn). Lee’s first poetry collection, Tortured Willows, a collaboration with Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng, and Geneve Flynn was released in October 2021.   What inspired you to start writing?…

Women in Horror: Interview with Cassondra Windwalker

Cassondra Windwalker is the author of the new gothic horror Hold My Place. She has three other published novels, two full-length poetry collections, and a melange of short-form works in literary magazines, anthologies, and art books. She's lived in the South, the Midwest, and the West, and presently writes full-time from the Frozen North. She keeps company mostly with ghosts, literary characters, unwary wild animals, and her tolerant husband.   What inspired you to start writing? I don’t know that I ever started writing. My earliest memories are of me narrating the world in my head, my mom telling me…

Women in Horror Month Interview Series: Introduction by Lindy Ryan

Women in Horror Month HWA Interview Series: Introduction by Lindy Ryan From literature to film and everywhere between, Women in Horror Month (WiHM) celebrates and amplifies the contributions of women in the genre. This annual event embraces all those in horror who identify as women—championing a special sisterhood amongst women who shine brightest in the dark. Though historically underrepresented and oft-ignored, from Mary Shelley’s creation of Frankenstein—one of the most lasting and reanimated icons of the genre—women have always been at the heart of horror. We have been victims and tropes, Final Girls and Pretty Dead Girls, and caricatures by…
Scary Out There with Dawn Kurtagich

Scary Out There with Dawn Kurtagich

Scary Out There recently interviewed Dawn Kurtagich, author of And the Trees Crept In and The Dead House. In this episode of the podcast, Dawn discusses the importance of horror in the world of children's and YA literature, shares some of her own fears, and she gives us the scoop on her forthcoming book: Teeth in the Mist.  Listen to to the episode HERE! Podcast Music by John Leonard French. Dawn Kurtagich is an award winning author of creepy, spooky, and psychologically sinister YA, where girls may descend into madness, boys may see monsters in men, and grown-ups may have something to hide. Her debut…
Q&A for The Frightful Ride of Michael McMichael

Q&A for The Frightful Ride of Michael McMichael

It's Friday the 13th--the perfect day to reach down into the grave dirt and resurrect the Young Horror (formerly YA Horror) blog and to talk about NEW BOOKS. Hop aboard the Thirteen bus and drive through the brand new spooky picture book The Frightful Ride of Michael McMichael (Candlewick 2018). Author Bonny Becker and Illustrator Mark Fearing give all the gory details to HWA YH blogger Shanna Heath below. Whether you write horror for young people, or want to share more horror stories with the kids in your life, check in every Monday for Young Horror Writing Prompts and every other…

Women in Horror Month Interview – Charlee Jacob

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Charlee Jacob, who won for Novel in 2005 (Dread in the Beast), Poetry Collection in 2005 (Sineater), Poetry Collection in 2007 (VECTORS: A Week in the Death of a Planet, co-written with Marge Simon), and Poetry Collection in 2013 (Four Elements, co-written with Linda Addison, Rain Graves, and Marge Simon). Special thanks by Sanda Jelcic and Alessandro Manzetti for conducting this interview.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning works. Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing…
Women in Horror: Part Eighteen

Women in Horror: Part Eighteen

 It may be March but I'm still rolling with WiHM! Today, my dear friends, is the final article. Yes...it's true. Please do not weep, do not lose hope, we will meet again. For now we can explore a great viewpoint on the whole concept of Women in Horror from editor, author, anthologist & all-round great friend...Joe Myndhardt...   Female authors, characters and inspirations… and those who have a problem with them. by Joe Mynhardt I learned something over the last few days; I learned that there is still a lot prejudice when it comes to the work of female authors.…
Women in Horror: Part Seventeen

Women in Horror: Part Seventeen

Today we're joined by author Roh Morgon on what horror means to her...     It’s an honor to have been selected to participate in the HWA’s recognition of Women in Horror Month.     Examining the accomplishments of women in this genre has forced me to look closer at my own work and determine whether or not it actually belongs in the horror category.   Before discussing the contributions of women writers to the horror genre, we should first conduct a brief examination of the genre itself.   Horror.   The word conjures images of screaming women, dripping blades,…
Women in Horror: Part Sixteen

Women in Horror: Part Sixteen

Hello & welcome back to our feature special series for WiHM! You'll all have noticed a gap in the posting of these articles & I can only apologise for that. I've been down with a horrible virus & couldn't get any work done...but I'm back now & ready to finish what we've started! Today we welcome author & editor Sandy DeLuca. This lovely lady barely needs an introduction, author of Messages from the Dead & Hell's Door amongst many others, artist & anthologist. For our series she decided to concentrate on a Woman in Horror from the world of film, rather than the print...     Gale Anne Hurd of “The…
Women in Horror: Part Fifteen

Women in Horror: Part Fifteen

  Here we are again, still celebrating Women in Horror Month & going strong! Chantal Noordeloos, author of Deeply Twisted & Coyote-The Outlander, is here to talk about stereotypes & categorisation...     Every February we explore the world of ladies in the horror genre. We shine the limelight on female authors, directors, actresses, and perhaps even the female characters in their books. As a woman who writes horror I’m very grateful for this little bit of illumination. Most of us still struggle to make a name for ourselves, and a lot of women suffer from a stigma that’s been…
Women in Horror: Part Fourteen

Women in Horror: Part Fourteen

Welcome to our next installment of HWA's Women in Horror Month! Today we have the delectable Rena Mason joining us & she's talking about the writers who inspired her...         One of the first “horror” novels I remember reading in my pre-teen years, because it was popular, was Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. It left me wanting more, so as simple as it sounds, I chose my next book because the cover art had a similar “creepy girl” feel to it. Both books also had strong female protagonists. The second book just happened to be…

Women in Horror: Part Thirteen

Here we are at lucky number thirteen of WiHM!  Today we're joined by author Kami Garcia & she's telling all about the reactions she faced when she announced that she was going to write horror fiction...       Why would you ever want to write a horror novel?—that was the question people kept asking when my solo novel, Unbreakable, released last Fall. The same people who had never questioned my choice of genre when I was writing Southern Gothic were suddenly thrown by the word horror. They associated it with violence and gore, instead of the elements at the…
Women in Horror: Part Twelve

Women in Horror: Part Twelve

Today we are joined by Carol MacAllister, author of The BlackMoor Tales...     Toni Morrison, author, whose work won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 is generally categorized as most interested in presenting the human condition of African Americans through her work. Her characters are African Americans, but even though she addresses racism, it is curious to note that she easily crosses the borders of reality and dips into horror to paint her scenes.   BELOVED, her novel ranked as one of American’s best works, relies on the element of a ghostly main protagonist who follows all the…
Women in Horror: Part Eleven

Women in Horror: Part Eleven

Today we have something a little different, Leigh M Lane covers a few of the theories surrounding the whole role women have i  Horror Fiction... Women’s Roles in Horror—Playing the Victim?   I’ve been thinking a lot lately about roles versus expectations in horror writing. There are many who deny that there continues to exist gender bias in horror, and to those people I must ask: Then why is there a Women in Horror Month? If there were no problem, we’d also have a Men in Horror Month … or would we?   I don’t want to foster any false…