Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Vincent Tirado

Vincent Tirado is a non-binary Afro-Latine Bronx native. They ventured out to Pennsylvania and Ohio to get their Bachelor’s degree in biology and Master’s degree in bioethics. Their first novel, Burn Down, Rise Up (2022) was recognized with the Pura Belpré Award, and nominated for both the Bram Stoker and Lambda Literary Award. We Don’t Swim Here (2023) is their newest novel. When they're not writing, you can catch them playing video games or making digital art. Find them on Twitter @v_e_tirado or visit them on their website www.v-e-tirado.com for more information. What inspired you to start writing? I feel…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Henry Bedwell

  Henry Bedwell is a well-known director, writer, and producer in Mexico, who has dedicated most of his work to Horror and Fantasy movies and novels.  He started his career as a TV producer back in the early 2000s. Henry was in charge of writing and directing a new version of the Mexican horror classic film Darker than Night. Wrote and directed Forward, a multi-awarded Horror extravaganza made entirely in one shot. Wrote and directed Karem The Possession released in 2021. As a writer, has published and contributed to several novels and anthologies such as Regreso a Aztlan, Ars Mortis,…

Bisexual Awareness Week — B Stands for Bisexual by Angel Leigh McCoy

LGBTQ+ — B Stands for Bisexual Our job as fiction writers requires us to step into the hearts, minds, and bodies of other people. For this reason, writers are some of the most empathic beings I know. We’re skilled at using our imaginations. We use that tool to choose the actions, thoughts, and feelings experienced by our characters. The diversity of our characters and their stories can attract a broader audience to our writing, add stronger storytelling to our works, and—dare I say it—open our readers’ minds to empathy and compassion. We learn to avoid stereotypes and clichés in our…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Introduction to Latinx Horror Month 2023 by Pedro Iniguez

  By Pedro Iniguez 2023 has been a monumental year in Latinx horror. As you may have noticed, recent Stoker Award® wins by Cynthia Pelayo and Gabino Iglesias, the first Latinx authors to do so, have shaken up the horror writing community in a positive and encouraging way. As the highest profile award in the genre, it was a validating win for the entire Latinx writing community. Along with nominations for other exceptional Latinx authors lately, we’ve also seen an upsurge in sales, reviews, and recognition. We’ve also been included in more anthologies, chapbooks, and magazines these last few years.…

World of Horror: Interview with Paolo Di Orazio

  Paolo Di Orazio has authored horror novels and comic books in Italian since 1987, and in English since 2015. He appeared in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year 2015. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I was hopelessly fascinated by horror during my childhood. Movies on TV during the early ’70s captured my heart forever. I love monsters, I love drama since I can remember. I was just a little child, so I really didn’t know what has drew me inside of it and why. I only believed that monsters were real.…

World of Horror: Interview with Chinaza Eziaghighala

Chinaza Eziaghighala is a medical doctor and storyteller. She is a University of Iowa International Writing Program, Voodoonauts, and EbonyLife Creative Academy alum. Her works are in/forthcoming in British Science Fiction Association's (BSFA) Fission #2 Volume 1 anthology, Mythaxis, Planet Scumm, Metastellar, BrittlePaper, Afritondo, and BSFA's Focus. Chimera, her debut novella, is forthcoming in 2024 from Nosetouch Press. She is diversifying her writing by working as a screenwriter for TV and film and also moonlights as a budding film development executive. In her free time, she enjoys mobile photography, meditation, dancing, and spending time with loved ones, because she is…

World of Horror: Interview with Johann Thorsson

Johann Thorsson is an Icelandic author whose short stories have appeared in publications both in Icelandic and English, such as Fireside Fiction and The Apex Book of World SF series.  His first novel, the crime-horror novel Whitesands, will be out from Canelo UK's new horror imprint in early 2024 and blends Nordic noir with the supernatural. He grew up partly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe but now lives in Reykjavik with his wife, two kids and ever-decreasing space on his bookshelves. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I think maybe it was…

World of Horror: Interview with Marie O’Regan

Marie O’Regan is a multiple award-nominated author/editor based in Derbyshire. Her fiction has appeared in many genre magazines and anthologies, and she is the author of three collections (Mirror Mere, In Times of Want, and The Last Ghost and Other Stories), a novella (Bury Them Deep), and the internationally best-selling debut novel Celeste. Her genre journalism has appeared in magazines like The Dark Side, Rue Morgue, and Fortean Times, and she co-authored an interview book with prominent figures from the horror genre, Voices in the Dark. She is co-editor of the bestselling Hellbound Hearts, Mammoth Book of Body Horror, A…

World of Horror: Interview with Marty Young

  Marty Young is a Bram Stoker nominated and multiple Australian Shadows award-winning writer and editor, and sometimes ghost hunter. His fiction and anthologies have been nominated for and won numerous awards, while his essays on horror literature have been published in journals and university textbooks across the world.  Marty was also the founding president of the Australian Horror Writers Association from 2005-2010, and one of the creative minds behind the internationally acclaimed Midnight Echo Magazine, for which he also served as executive editor until mid-2013. As of 2023, Marty is the co-chair of Asylumfest, an all-new annual Australian horror…

World of Horror: Interview with Steve Stred

A two-time Splatterpunk-nominated author, Steve Stred lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, with his wife, son and their Staffy, Cocoa. His work has been described as haunting, bleak and is frequently set in the woods near where he grew up. He’s been fortunate to appear in numerous anthologies with some truly amazing authors. He is an Active Member of the HWA. Website: stevestredauthor.ca, Twitter: @stevestred, Instagram: @stevestred, Tik Tok: @stevestredauthor, Universal Book Link: author.to/stevestred What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? Honestly, I’ve always been drawn toward the horror/dark fiction world because it’s a genre that…

World of Horror: Interview with Eric Nash

Eric Nash (he/him) lives with ghosts in Southwest England. His dark tales have been published in numerous venues, including Bleed Error magazine, Coffin Bell Journal, Demain’s Short Sharp Shocks! series, and by WyldbloodPress. Read more of his work at https://eric-nash-inked-up-and-earthbound.com/, or give him a follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EANash1. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? When I was knee-high, my Irish grandmother babysat me regularly. During those evenings, I’d sit by her side, drink milk stout, and watch black-and-white horror movies such as Cat People, Dracula, and The Ghoul. I discovered the thrill of being…

NUTS & BOLTS: INTERVIEW WITH LINDA GOULD, CREATOR OF KAIDANKAI PODCAST

By Tom Joyce Linda Gould’s Kaidankai podcast, which she started as a project during the pandemic, is still going strong with 60,000 downloads. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, Linda talks about how she found an audience and the kinds of narratives that lend themselves to a storytelling format.  Q: Can you tell us a little bit about Kaidankai and how it got started? A: What a long story this could be! I'll give you a short answer. When I started the Kaidankai podcast, I lived in Japan where it has become a tradition to tell ghost stories…

World of Horror: Interview with Neil D’Silva

  Neil D’Silva is an Indian author known for his books such as Maya’s New Husband, Yakshini, and Playthings among others, all of which have hit the #1 spot on Amazon India charts in multiple categories. His work includes co-authored works such as Haunted and The Spirits Talk to Me with noted paranormal investigators Jay Alani and Sarbajeet Mohanty respectively. He is widely published with over 12 books with publishers such as Penguin Random House, Hachette, Rupa, and HarperCollins among others. He writes predominantly in the horror genre.  Along with his writing work, Neil is also a TEDx speaker and…

World of Horror: Interview with J. Ashley Smith

J. Ashley Smith is a British-Australian author of dark fiction and co-host of the Let The Cat In podcast. His first book, The Attic Tragedy, won the Shirley Jackson Award. Other stories have won the Ditmar Australian Shadows and Aurealis awards. He lives with his wife and two sons beneath an ominous mountain in the suburbs of North Canberra, gathering moth dust, tormented by the desolation of telegraph wires. You can find him at spooktapes.net, performing amazing experiments in electronic communication with the dead. His debut collection, The Measure of Sorrow, is out now from Meerkat Press. What was it…

World of Horror: Interview with Santiago Eximeno

Santiago Eximeno (Madrid, Spain, 1973) is a Spanish-genre writer who has published several novellas and collections, mainly horror literature. His work has been translated to English, Japanese, French and Bulgarian. His last book published in English is Umbría (Independent Legions Publishing, 2020). His short story, “Noverim Te,” was included in the 2019 Full recommended list (Best Horror of the Year volume Eleven) by Ellen Datlow.  What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? Its power. Horror allows us to show the social reality of our world without limits. We can extrapolate real, everyday problems, playing with…

World of Horror: Interview with Austrian Spencer

Austrian Spencer lives with his family in Austria, nestled under a mountain, and is slowly hoarding gold in an attempt to lure his own dragon. Until such a time, he acts as the headbutting post to two cats, edits books for other writers, and writes horror novels or shorts such as: "Krampus" in Burial Day's Gothic Blue Book VI: A Krampus Carol; "9/11" in Ghost Orchid Press's Beneath: An Anthology of Dark Microfiction; and The Sadeiest. Austrian's media Website: https://www.austrianspencer.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpencerAustrian Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austrianspencer/ Substack: https://austrianspencer.substack.com What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? It’s the most…

World of Horror: Interview with Flavius Ardelean-Bachmann

Flavius Ardelean-Bachmann is a Romanian award-winning writer of dark fiction, the author of nine novels and three short story collections for adults and children. His work has been translated into German, Russian and Hungarian, and he made his English-language debut in the first volume of the Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Flavius has a master of arts in publishing from the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, with a dissertation on the horror book industry, and has translated fiction from English and German into Romanian, most notably the cult classic The Other Side by Alfred Kubin. He lives in…

World of Horror: Interview with Daria Pietrzak

Daria Pietrzak is a writer of Polish origin, and has been settled in Spain since childhood. She has studied artistic photography with the intention of going into the world of cinema, although it is a dream that has never materialized. It was not until a few years later when she found another way to tell her stories, and since then, she strives to draw with words the images that populate her imagination. She is a lover of horror, to which she devotes most of her stories and novels, and of her free time, a fan of fantasy worlds and an…

World of Horror: Interview with Rosemary Thorne

Rosemary Thorne (she/her) is a bilingual Spanish writer, researcher, and translator living in Madrid, Spain. Born in 1968, she became an HWA member in 2019, choosing English as the most welcoming language for her horror fiction. Her first novel, El Pacto de las 12 uvas, was published in December 2021. She has also translated Edward Lee's The Bighead into Spanish for Dimensiones Ocultas Press. Her goal for the years to come is to populate the English market with her dreadful monsters. Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/Rosemary_thorne and Twitter at https://twitter.com/rosemarythorne_ What was it about the horror genre that drew you…

World of Horror: Interview with Kyla Lee Ward

Kyla Lee Ward is a Sydney-based creative whose work has garnered Australian Shadows and Aurealis awards. She has placed in the Rhyslings and received multiple Stoker and Ditmar nominations. Reviewers have accused her of being “gothic and esoteric,” “weird and exhilarating” and of “giving me a nightmare.” This Attraction Now Late (2022) was her first collection of short fiction, after two poetry collections and the co-written novel, Prismatic. Those That Pursue Us Yet, a dark fantasy novella set in Paris and . . . other places, is due for release in 2023. Delve deeper at http://www.kylaward.com/ or come chat at…