What inspired you to start writing?
Working in the ER during the COVID pandemic was difficult, seeing all the suffering and death. My spirit was broken. I was so burned out/anxious/depressed and needed something to work towards to put a spark back in me. While cleaning our basement, I came across a bucket list I wrote in college. On that list? Write a novel. I decided to go for it.
What inspired you to start writing?
I began writing in a diary at age ten. Exploring my thoughts at length without the pressure of interacting with someone else appealed to me. Writing gave me a safe medium for exploring my thoughts and interests. In eighth grade, I wrote fiction in English class and found it intensely absorbing.
What inspired you to start writing?
I was someone who always wrote fiction and poetry from an early age as an emotional outlet. I was always ‘different’ as a child and bullied. So, the very act of transporting my mind into another story, character, and events was - and still is - a way to deal with emotions at the end of each day. It is escapism as its heart and telling a story that is uniquely mine.
What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer, from the moment I first learned to read. After I realized I could (and then did, all the time, voraciously), I decided I wanted to write my own stories. I started reading Stephen King at an obscenely young age—it was the 80s; I think there are lots more kids like me who cut our fangs on It and The Tommyknockers—and when he sent me an autographed copy of the Cycle of the Werewolf/Silver Bullet screenplay when I was eight, that was it. I had to be a writer.
What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?
About myself? I really like scaring people, heh. I’ve had a few people tell me my work gave them nightmares, and I’m probably prouder of that than I should be. About the world? The world is full of scary things, but it’s possible to get through those things, to process them, to move past them. Sometimes it takes a lot of creativity, and maybe a dark sense of humor, but it can be done.
What inspired you to start writing?
I have cerebral palsy, so when I was ten and everyone else was playing pretend outside, in their bodies, I realized that I was more comfortable playing pretend in my mind, sitting still. When we got a computer at home, Microsoft Word was a gaming application for me: an open-world simulator where I had complete control of everything that happened.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
For years, I avoided horror because my life was horror enough as a child and young adult. I was that teenager in the movie theater who stuck my fingers in my ears and sang la-la-la with my eyes shut, desperately trying not to tip into hyper-vigilance as my friends laughed at the jumpscares.
What inspired you to start writing?
I grew up in Appalachia in a family where storytelling was highly prized. I can’t count the number of hours I spent hearing relatives and neighbors tell stories, some true, some maybe not so true but entertaining all the same. From a very early age, I wanted to participate in creating and telling stories, and books were the form that I could practice in private.
SAN DIEGO, CA--The 2023 Bram Stoker Awards® took place on June 1, during the Annual Bram Stoker Awards® Banquet at StokerCon™ 2024. Winners received awards for superior achievement in the following categories:
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
I have really bad OCD. Most people misunderstand OCD. It’s commonly portrayed as an obsession with cleanliness, but that’s not how it manifests for me. My OCD is complicated, but to put it simply: I’m scared of everything all the time.
Linda D. Addison, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community
Rebecca Cuthbert is a dark fiction and poetry writer living in Western New York. She loves ghost stories, folklore, witchy women, and anything that involves nature getting revenge.
What inspired you to start writing?
When I was a kid, I loved episodic fantasy adventures like Dungeons and Dragons (which I still play to this day) and the Deltora Quest book series. These experiences inspired me to write my own fantasy novel—something I never finished but had a great time working on. Nowadays, I’m not as interested in fantasy, but my love of writing carries into the present.
What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?
To be brave, ask questions, and trust my gut, particularly about people. People are hugely problematic almost by nature, and horror gives us this wonderful license to explore that and find out how we really feel about certain types of people or behavior. There’s an honesty to it because fear is incredibly honest. I suppose it helped me learn how to cut through bullshit.
What inspired you to start writing?
I was a lover of horror at a very young age (we’re talking like two years old and I was already obsessed with monsters). I was reading by age three, and by about year seven or eight, I found Stephen King, which led to eventually discovering Cabal by Clive Barker at age 11 or 12 (a very queer book not only because of its author, and still my favorite novel to this day).
LGBTQ+ — B Stands for Bisexual
By Angel Leigh McCoy
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.
Short-Story Review by Lee Murray
"Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell" (a short story by Christa Carmen, published in In Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror, edited by Mark Matthews.
What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve been writing stories since I could write and never stopped, basically. I just got around to actually learning how to revise and submit things to publishing places eventually, but it’s one of those things I think I’d be doing all my life regardless. Just for me.
What inspired you to start writing?
I started to write fiction in 2018. I had moved to a small town. My first drafts of the Nanowrimo novel experiment were cathartic and healing. I wrote my maternal grandmother back to life, and together we got through a hard part of life, a toxic work environment, and becoming a new mother. In 2022, I took an inspiring online writing class called The Art of Fiery Prose with Giulietta Nardone. One of the assignments was submitting short stories to online journals. And I did! And mags published things!
What inspired you to start writing?
Drawing gives me carpal tunnel, so I must externalize my thoughts through other mediums. More importantly, I was first inspired by great stories that kept me reading till the sun came up. I wanted to write like those authors and create exciting worlds and loveable characters.
Think it’s difficult to self-edit, or to create characters? Try writing a satisfying narrative that clocks in at three minutes. Or standing in front of a roomful of strangers and convincing them you’re somebody else. Those are the kinds of challenges facing songwriters and actors.
