Interviews

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Allyson Bird, who won the Bram Stoker Award in 2011 for her first novel, Isis Unbound.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? AB: Isis Unbound won for first novel. It was inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Prometheus Unbound, and the works of Rider Haggard and R.E.Howard. Set in an alternate history timeline, an '1890's' steampunk version of Manceastre, Britanniae, ruled by a new governor general...the descendant…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Lisa Morton, who has won the Bram Stoker Award six times for works including her short story, "Tested" (2006); non-fiction, A Hallowe'en Anthology (2008); long fiction, The Lucid Dreaming (2009); first novel, Castle of Los Angeles (2010); graphic novel, Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times with Rocky Wood (2012); and non-fiction, Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween (2012). Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? LM: I’ve won six times now,…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.   Tell us a little about your award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? CQY: Since the Stoker Award was a Lifetime Achievement Award, I knew it was coming in advance, so there were no surprises. Talk about winning the award – how surprised were you? Did winning pay off in any interesting ways? CQY: It was very nice to get the award ---…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Rain Graves who has won the Bram Stoker Award twice for poetry, including for The Gossamer Eye in 2002 and The Four Elements in 2013.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? RG: I received two awards; one for THE GOSSAMER EYE (written with David N. Wilson and Mark McLaughlin in 2002), and one for THE FOUR ELEMENTS (written with Linda Addison, Charlee Jacob, and Marge Simon in 2013). BARFODDER: Poetry…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Angel Leigh McCoy who won the Silver Hammer award in 2010 for volunteer work.   Tell us a little about your experience with the Horror Writers Association and how it has influenced your own writing. ALM: I could never express all the ways the HWA has influenced me as a writer. I’m sure there are even ways I’m unaware of. Here’s just a few that come to mind, in no particular order: I have found mentors who have taught…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Maria Alexander, who won the Bram Stoker Award in 2014 for her first novel, Mr. Wicker.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? MA: Thanks so much for having me! Mr. Wicker’s history is long and torturous. It started many years ago as a novelette that I very quickly adapted to a screenplay, which, in turn, was a Quarterfinalist in the Academy Nicholls Fellowships in Screenwriting.…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Marge Simon who won the Bram Stoker Award for poetry in 2013 for Four Elements, in 2012 for Vampires, Zombies & Wanton Souls, and in 2007 for VECTORS: A Week in the Death of a Planet.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? MS: 2007: My first was collaboration with the legendary writer/poet Charlee Jacob, VECTORS: A Week in the Death of a Planet” and it…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Lisa Mannetti, who won the Bram Stoker Award in 2008 for her first novel, The Gentling Box.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? LM: The Gentling Box is set in 19th century Hungary and Romania and is the story of Imre, a half-Rom and Hungarian horse trader who is beset by his mother-in-law, a villainous sorceress named Anyeta who relentlessly pursues him and his family…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Corrine De Winter, who won the Bram Stoker Award in 2004 for her poetry collection, “The Women At The Funeral.” Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? CD: My collection of poetry “The Women At The Funeral” was the Stoker Award Winner. I have always leaned toward the dark side in my writing, and this collection was inspired by many writers and as usual, my own experiences…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Rena Mason, who won the Bram Stoker award in 2014 for her short story, “Ruminations,” in 2013 for her first novel, The Evolutionist, and won the Silver Hammer Award in 2014 for volunteer work. Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? RM: I wrote The Evolutionist in Olympia, Washington after moving from Las Vegas where I’d lived for nearly a decade. Writing the story was a catharsis of the time I’d…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Sèphera Girón who won the Silver Hammer award for volunteer work in 2008. Tell us a little about your experience with the Horror Writers Association and how it has influenced your own writing. SG: I joined the Horror Writers Association when it was Horror Writers of America back around 1992 or so. I was one of the ones, back when we used to hang out on an online platform called "Genie" through the SFF-NET community, that rallied for a…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Elizabeth Massie, who won the Bram Stoker award in 1990 for her short fiction, “Stephen,” and in 1992 for her first novel, Sineater.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction?  I’ve won the Bram Stoker Award twice, for my first novel Sineater and my novella, “Stephen.” Sineater was inspired, believe it or not, by a made-for-TV movie in which Lindsay Wagner played a nurse who went…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors and editors. Following is an interview with Ellen Datlow, who has won the Bram Stoker award multiple times for anthologies including: The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, 13th Annual Collection with Terri Windling (2000); The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, 17th Annual Collection with Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant (2004); Haunted Legends with Nick Mamatas (2010); and Fearful Symmetries (2014). She also won the Lifetime Achievement Award (2010). Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors and editors. Following is an interview with Paula Guran, who won the Bram Stoker award in 1998 and 1999 for her non-fiction work, “DarkEcho.” Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? PG: It was a very long time ago. At the time it was notable for things that may not seem remarkable now. I was the first person to be given “active” status on professional digital credits alone. The awards were for…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Kathe Koja, who won the Bram Stoker award in 1991 for her novel The Cipher.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? KK: THE CIPHER was my first novel, and its genesis is as inscrutable as all fiction, as the Funhole it presents as a fact—who knows where the stories come from? I don’t think in terms of genre when I write, so I discovered that THE…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Linda Addison, who has won four Bram Stoker Awards for her poetry collections: Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes (2001); Being Full of Light, Insubstantial (2007); How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend (2011); and Four Elements with Charlee Jacob, Marge Simon and Rain Graves (2014).   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? LA: I won my first Bram Stoker for my poetry collection Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting interviews with award-winning authors. Following is an interview with Nancy Etchemendy, who won the Bram Stoker Award for her short fiction, "Nimitseahpah," in 2004; Young Readers novel, The Power of Un, in 2000; and Young Readers short story, "Bigger Than Death," in 1998.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? NE: Two of my Stoker-award-winning works, “Bigger than Death” (1998) and “The Power of Un” (2000), won in the “Work for Young Readers” category, which was very…

February is Women in Horror Month! The HWA is celebrating by posting daily interviews with award-winning authors. Starting off the month is an interview with Mercedes M. Yardley, who won the Bram Stoker Award in 2015 for her long fiction piece, Little Dead Red.   Tell us a little about your Bram Stoker Award-winning work(s). Inspirations? Influences? Anecdotes about the writing or critical reaction? MMY: My winning piece was a novella titled Little Dead Red. LDR is a modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood that’s deeply rooted in real tragedies. It has to do with sexual abuse, kidnapping, guilt, revenge,…