Halloween Haunts 2013: Why Do You Write That Stuff? by Thomas Smith

Halloween Haunts 2013: Why Do You Write That Stuff? by Thomas Smith

Why do we do it? Why do folks like Mike Dellosso, Brian Keene, Elizabeth Massie, Kevin Lucia, me, and any number of other writers look at the dark side of the literature spectrum? Why write horror novels when there are so many other kinds of things to write? Maybe the first line from this Associated Press story will give you a better idea. “A Louisiana man is accused of decapitating and dismembering his disabled 7-year-old son and leaving the boy’s head near the street so the child’s mother would see it – a killing that brought seasoned police officers to…
Halloween Haunts 2013: Anti-Christ Devil Children by J. Thorn

Halloween Haunts 2013: Anti-Christ Devil Children by J. Thorn

Fans of horror and dark fantasy love Halloween. There’s a reason people watch frightening films or walk through “haunted houses” to be terrorized by college students dressed as zombies: There is something incredibly exciting and entertaining about being scared. Not “being chased by a crazy man with a knife” type of scared, but rather, the kind of fear that you know is artificial but COULD be real. Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft are often cited influences of many authors and that is true for me as well. However, the biggest name in the history of horror is not lost…
Halloween Haunts 2013: That’s My Boy by Matthew Warner

Halloween Haunts 2013: That’s My Boy by Matthew Warner

Every day when he comes home from preschool, my four-year-old son, Owen, proceeds to creep us out with his artistic creations. Here are some of my favorites (with appropriate captions):                   “Follow me,” the cat said as it led me through the house of mirrors. After a while, I looked down and realized my legs were attached directly to my head. Worse, I was bald.                   Despite the warnings, I gazed directly into the creature’s eyes. Its forbidden name appeared on the wall and…
Halloween Haunts 2013: The Ghosts in My House by Cat Winters

Halloween Haunts 2013: The Ghosts in My House by Cat Winters

As with most authors of horror stories and ghost tales, one of my favorite times of the year is the Halloween season. My fondness for the spooky holiday stems back to early childhood, when my fellow elementary school students and I sang eerie tunes like “The Ghost of John,” and neighborhood kids spread rumors about a stuffed witch down the street coming to life at midnight on Halloween night. I grew up in a shiny, brand-new suburb in Orange County, California. Despite the nearness of the atmospheric Mission San Juan Capistrano and Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride, nothing about the area…

The Lurkers in the Abyss and other Tales of Terror by HWA Member David A. Riley

Author: David A. Riley David A. Riley began writing horror stories while still at school and had his first professional sale to Pan Books 1969, which was The Lurkers in the Abyss, published in the The Eleventh Pan Book of Horror Stories. This story was chosen by John Pelan for inclusion in The Century's Best Horror Fiction, published by Cemetery Dance in 2012. Over the years he has had numerous stories published in Britain and the United States, plus translations into German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. Publishers include Pan, Sphere, Doubleday, Corgi, ROC, Cemetery Dance, DAW, Robinson, Vintage, Skyhorse, and…
Halloween Haunts 2013: Stoker Spotlight on L.L. Soares

Halloween Haunts 2013: Stoker Spotlight on L.L. Soares

L.L. Soares is the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award® for Superior Achievement in a First Novel for Life Rage. 1. How would you describe Life Rage? Life Rage is, at its core, the story of psychologist who specializes in anger management, who learns that he himself is a rage demon that feeds on anger.  But it is also about so much more than that. There are several main characters, whose lives eventually interconnect, some human, some possibly demonic. 2. Tell us about what inspired you to write Life Rage. I remember I came up with the title first. At the…
Halloween Haunts 2013: Personal Experience in Halloween Fiction; Or, Why I Wrote a Halloween Novella Featuring a Protagonist Named Lisa Morton by Lisa Morton

Halloween Haunts 2013: Personal Experience in Halloween Fiction; Or, Why I Wrote a Halloween Novella Featuring a Protagonist Named Lisa Morton by Lisa Morton

There are a lot of wonderful reasons to use Halloween in fiction. It’s an extraordinarily rich holiday, offering a variety of experiences. For some, it’s about the autumn season, with the sights and smells and sensations that accompany longer nights and turning leaves; for others, it’s about candy and the empowerment derived from costuming; and for many of us, it’s a chance to test our fears in safe, playful environments (movie theaters or haunted attractions). It’s also experienced by virtually everyone in North America at this point (and is rapidly spreading all around the globe). In horror fiction, many of…
Halloween Haunts 2013: The Old Stories Return by James Chambers

Halloween Haunts 2013: The Old Stories Return by James Chambers

October raises dark dreams of chill breezes and the aroma of dead leaves. Dreams of streets and houses, dead black in silhouette against sunset’s orange and indigo skies. Twilight dreams. Memories of things that never existed. Things we obsessed over in childhood when the ritual of donning a Halloween costume and trick-or-treating meant more than simply harvesting candy because it still seemed possible when we were young that on Halloween the supernatural might reveal itself. Ghosts might drift through the air and shadows come alive. Lights might appear in abandoned houses. Black, driverless cars might cruise down the road beside…

DARK ROADS: SELECTED LONG POEMS 1971-2012 by HWA Member Bruce Boston

Author: Bruce Boston DARK ROADS: SELECTED LONG POEMS 1971-2012 Long_Synopsis: Considered one of the leading genre/speculative poets for more than a quarter century, Bruce Boston has received the Bram Stoker Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Asimovâ s Readers Award, the Rhysling Award, and the first Grandmaster Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Dark Roads collects the best of his long dark poems from more than forty years of publishing. Strikingly illustrated by acclaimed artist M. Wayne Miller, these poems range from direct narratives to surreal explorations of time, memory, obsession and transformation. Includes two Rhysling Winners and three Rhysling…

Three Chords of Chaos by HWA Member James Chambers

Author: James Chambers No greater musician than Gorge ever lived in the realm of the sidhe. No faerie musician ever delved so deeply into the taboo songs and the forbidden music&emdash;the Way of the Bone. Yet, Gorge refused to deny himself their temptations. In reward his true love betrayed him, and the faerie kings and queens who once praised him stripped him of his magic and exiled him to the mortal world. Left to go mad and die, Gorge discovered new life in the arms of a mortal woman, Delilah, and new magic in the music that sings in the…

The Power of Nothing by HWA Member Richard Farren Barber

Author: Richard Farren Barber Steve Granger immediately realizes there is something wrong about the gray man. When he starts to follow him Steve knows he is right. When Steve cannot get rid of the gray man he erupts. Walking across the park one night he turns on the gray man and kills him. The next morning as Steve leaves his flat to get rid of his blood-splattered clothes he walks out to discover the gray man standing on his doorstep. Steve learns that killing the man a second time is easier. And still the man comes back. Publisher: Damnation Books…

GRAVE DANCER’S CLUB by HWA Member James Gurley

Author: James Gurley GRAVE DANCER'S CLUB Sleepy little Corinth, Mississippi has its share of ghosts. The bloody battle of Shiloh and the Battle of Corinth during the Civil War left thousands in their graves. Cemeteries and battlefields dot the surrounding area like drops of blood on the map. When fourteen-year old Jeff Mason and his fellow Grave Dancer Club members decided to forgo their usual ghost story and spy on a reported real ghost, they do not foresee becoming mice in a deadly cat-and-mouse game between them and a two-hundred year old Strigoi vampire named Albert Whitney. Whitney, buried one…
An Interview with Richard Christy

An Interview with Richard Christy

Interviewed by JG Faherty Richard Christy is known to millions of fans as a drummer extraordinaire in the heavy/death/progressive dark metal categories for his work with Death, Iced Earth, Leash Law, Acheron, and his latest band, Charred Walls of the Damned. But there's a lot more to him than just providing people with music to bang their heads (and write) to. He is also a huge fan of the horror genre, not just music but films and books as well. He has written and starred in movies, is an avid reader of novels, is something of an expert on the…
An Interview with Amber Benson

An Interview with Amber Benson

interview by JG Faherty Amber Benson is known to millions of fans for her portrayal of Tara Maclay on the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE TV series. But there's a lot more to Amber than just playing a TV witch. Besides acting in TV and movies, she's written or co-written nine novels, several comic books, some short stories, and several scripts for movies, animated films, and Webisodes/Internet films. She's also produced and directed films and Webisodes, sung on a soundtrack, acted in audio dramas, and provided prose for picture books. On top of all this, she's a huge horror fan with a…
Scary Out There! A Blog on Horror in Young Adult Fiction: A Chat with Kami Garcia

Scary Out There! A Blog on Horror in Young Adult Fiction: A Chat with Kami Garcia

Welcome back to SCARY OUT THERE! This week I sit down to have a chat with Kami Garcia, the #1 New York Times & international bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures Series and the author of Unbreakable, the first book in the Legion Series, releasing on October 1, 2013. Kami is fascinated by the paranormal, and she's very superstitious. When she isn't writing, she can usually be found watching disaster movies, listening to Soundgarden, or drinking Diet Coke. She lives in Maryland with her family, and their dogs Spike and Oz (named after characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). JONATHAN MABERRY: Let’s jump in with the…

DAMAGED SOULS by HWA Member David Bernstein

Author: David Bernstein DAMAGED SOULS John Crawford wasn’t able to deal with the pain and took the easy way out. At least he thought he did. Instead, he’s been offered a deal by a nightmarish creature and given a second chance at life. But he’s no longer human. And he’s been assigned an impossible task. He must kill a demon before it opens the gates of Hell and brings about the apocalypse. If John succeeds, the human race will be safe and he can become human again. If he fails, mankind will perish and he will be lost for all…

September in Poetry: Conlon, MacAllister, McWhorter, Sutter, Schwader, Marshall, and Giron

This month we have an eclectic group of poems from some bright stars poetry-- Greg McWhorter, D.G. Sutter, Ann K. Schwader, Amy K. Marshall, S. J. Giron and Carol MacAllister. We also have another treat in store for you this time! Our guest is none other than Christopher Conlon. One of the brightest stars of contemporary literature, Chris is now delving into genre poetry and prose.

Horror Roundtable 12 – The Nuts and Bolts of Self-Publishing

When: 12 September, 2013 Time: 3pm EST (use the Time Zone Converter to find your local time) The Nuts and Bolts of Self-publishing This is not another discussion (= argument) on the merits or otherwise of self-publishing vs traditional publishing, but an actual nuts and bolts chat covering how you go about self-publishing. What things should you look at, what needs to be done, to ensure your book is as good as it can be, and available in all the right places? What mistakes do some self-published writers make that hurt their careers and turn others off going down this route? We will…
Scary Out There! A Blog on Horror in Young Adult Fiction: A Chat with Rachel Caine

Scary Out There! A Blog on Horror in Young Adult Fiction: A Chat with Rachel Caine

Welcome back to SCARY OUT THERE, the Horror Writers Association’s new blog on scary fiction for teens. This week I sit down for a chat with Rachel Caine the #1 internationally bestselling author of more than forty novels, including the bestselling Morganville Vampires series, the Weather Warden series, the Outcast Season series, and the new upcoming Revivalist series. She was born at White Sands Missile Range, which people who know her say explains a lot. She has been an accountant, a professional musician, and an insurance investigator, and until very recently continued to carry on a secret identity in the…

THE BELL WITCH by HWA Member John F.D. Taff

Author: John F.D. Taff THE BELL WITCH The Bell Witch by John F.D. Taff is an historical horror novel/ghost story based on what is perhaps the most well-documented poltergeist case to occur in the United States. It tells the story of the Bells, an early 19th-century Tennessee farm family who begin to notice strange occurrences—odd noises, bangings, gurglings. Eventually, an entity reveals itself to the family, calling itself, simply, the Witch, and makes it clear from the outset that it was sent to kill the patriarch of the family, John Bell, for a reason it never makes quite clear. The Witch’s…