Interviews

From Detroit, Michigan, Vincenzo Bilof has been called “The Metallica of Poetry” and “The Shakespeare of Gore.” With a body of work that includes gritty, apocalyptic horror (The Zombie Ascension Series), surrealist prose (The Horror Show), and visceral genre satire (Vampire Strippers from Saturn), Bilof’s fiction remains as divisive and controversial as it is original. He likes to think Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and Charles Baudelaire would be proud of his work. More likely, Ed Wood would have been his biggest fan. HWA: Where did the concept/inspiration for 'Visions of a Tremulous Man' originate? VB: No matter how I answer…

Cynthia (Cina) Pelayo is an International Latino Book Award winner. She is the author of Loteria, Santa Muerte, and The Missing and holds a Master of Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son. With the publication of her new collection, POEMS OF MY NIGHT, Cynthia Pelayo constructs a narrative in her poetry in response to the work of Jorge Luis Borges that examines the themes and subsequent consequences of insomnia, death, and blindness. To help celebrate the release of this fascinating collection, the HWA Poetry Page is…

Matt Betts is a pop culture junkie-sometimes to levels that are considered unhealthy by the Surgeon General. He grew up on a steady diet of giant monsters, comic books, robots and horror novels, all of which creep into his own work. Matt’s speculative poetry and short fiction have appeared in a number of anthologies and journals. His poem “Godzilla’s Better Half” was nominated for a Rhysling Award for speculative poetry in 2010. Matt’s first novel, the steampunk/zombie/alternate history adventure Odd Men Out was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award for excellence in independent publishing. Matt is a former radio…

At 9:59 AM on February 11, 2014 I wrote an email to Rocky Wood (then President of the Horror Writers Association), Lisa Morton (then Vice-President), and Board Member Marge Simon. For purposes of historical accuracy, here is the email in its entirety: I was trying to think of something that the Poetry Page could do for future months and, in speaking with Marge who suggested tying one thought into National Poetry Month in April, I had an idea I was hoping to get board approval for. I was wondering if we could do an HWA Poetry Page poetry contest for…

Bram Stoker Award® Winning Author Alessandro Manzetti’s work has been published extensively in Italian, including novels, short and long fiction, poetry, essays, and collections. English publications include his collections ‘The Monster, the Bad and the Ugly’ (co-written by Paolo Di Orazio),’The Massacre of the Mermaids’, ‘The Shaman and Other Shadows’, ‘Dark Gates’ (co-written by Paolo Di Orazio), ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ (co-written by Stefano Fantelli), and the poetry collections ‘Eden Underground’, ‘Venus Intervention’ and ‘Sacrificial Nights’ (co-written with Bruce Boston). His stories and poems have appeared in Italian, USA and UK magazines and anthologies, such as Dark Moon Digest, The Horror Zine,…

Z.M. Wise is a poet, editor and poetry activist. He has been a written-word poet for almost two decades and a spoken-word poet for four years and is co-owner and co-editor of Transcendent Zero Press, an independent publishing house for poetry that produces an international quarterly journal known as Harbinger Asylum, with founder Dustin Pickering. The journal was nominated Best Poetry Journal in 2013 at the National Poetry Awards. He is also an Assistant Editor at Weasel Press. He has published four books of poetry, including: 'Take Me Back, Kingswood Clock!' (MavLit Press), 'The Wandering Poet' (Transcendent Zero Press), 'Wolf:…

Stephanie M. Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, a book reviewer for Nameless Magazine, and a well-known coffee addict. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her poetry collections, Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, and An Exorcism of Angels are all Bram Stoker Award-nominated, and her debut novel, The Eighth, will be out in 2015 from Dark Regions Press. Continuing the HWA Poetry Page exploration of the current state of…

Michael Randolph is a horror author, poet, and editor currently living in San Antonio Texas. He is the owner-operator of Eldritch Press. He is a U.S. Army Veteran of Desert Storm/Shield where he first witnessed the true horrors of the world. A navy brat, he travelled to many countries throughout his childhood and still travels sometimes more than he likes. He’s a certified Gemologist and has spent nearly twenty-five years in the aviation field, mostly in military defense as an airplane/helicopter structures mechanic. I’m incredibly grateful that Michael took some time from his busy schedule to talk to the HWA…

☢ F.J. Bergmann writes poetry and speculative fiction with work appearing in Black Treacle, Dreams and Nightmares, On Spec, The Pedestal, Pulp Literature, and, as F.J. says, ‘a bunch of regular literary magazines that should have known better.’ In addition to being the Poetry editor at Dark Renaissance Books (darkrenaissance.com), F.J. is the Editor of Star*Line, the journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association (sfpoetry.com), and poetry editor of Mobius: The Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com). Awards include the 2012 Rannu Prize for speculative poetry and the 2013 SFPA Elgin Chapbook Award for Out of the Black Forest (Centennial Press,…