Veterans in Horror: Interview with Michael Arnzen

Michael Arnzen holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award for his disturbing (and often funny) fiction, poetry and literary experiments. His books include Grave Markings, Play Dead, Proverbs for Monsters and 100 Jolts. He has been teaching as a Professor of English in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University since 1999. See what he's up to now at gorelets.com Tell us a bit about your military service. Years? Branch? Specialty? I joined the US Army shortly after high school, because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to afford college and the…
CASSONDRA WINDWALKER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

CASSONDRA WINDWALKER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Cassondra Windwalker reads a haunting poem "Conflagration," one of the featured poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCRTL-yza1E Cassondra Windwalker is the author of the gothic horror HOLD MY PLACE, as well as the upcoming work of dark magical realism LOVE LIKE A CEPHALOPOD. Presently writing full-time from the coast of southern Alaska, she pretends at the poetry of small things and the languages of birds, beasts, and things with roots. She enjoys connecting with generally…
HWA ANNOUNCES SUMMER SCARES READING PROGRAM 2023 Spokesperson and Timeline

HWA ANNOUNCES SUMMER SCARES READING PROGRAM 2023 Spokesperson and Timeline

The Horror Writers Association (HWA), in partnership with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Booklist, is proud to announce the fifth annual Summer Scares Reading Program. Summer Scares is a reading program that provides libraries and schools with an annual list of recommended horror titles for adult, young adult (teen), and middle grade readers. It introduces readers and librarians to new authors and helps start conversations extending beyond the books from each list and promote reading for years to come. Summer Scares is proud to announce the 2023 spokesperson as author Daniel Kraus: "Libraries were the space in which I…
M LOPES da SILVA READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

M LOPES da SILVA READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

M Lopes da Silva reads a frighteningly approriate poem "there’s a haunted pornographic magazine in the woods," one of the featured poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItTmiuF_OEw M Lopes da Silva (he/they/she) is a non-binary and bisexual author from Los Angeles. They write pulp and poetry, and sometimes the two get mixed up together. Their queer Californian horror fiction has been published or is forthcoming from In Somnio: A Collection of Modern Gothic Horror Fiction,…

Halloween Haunts: The Real Horror by Brian W. Matthews

In a few weeks, I will begin my sixtieth journey around the sun. Over those years, Halloween has changed for me. The meaning. How I enjoy it. With whom I enjoy it. But one thing hasn’t changed: I enjoy Halloween. All of it. The chill creeping into the night air. The rustle of leaves as the breeze sends them dancing across the cracked pavements. The movies—especially the old Hammer horror films—playing over the television (or streaming in today’s world). Pumpkins. Costumes. Candy. The change I experienced over the years may be best termed a maturing. As a child, I looked…
MEGHAN ARCURI READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

MEGHAN ARCURI READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Meghan Arcuri reads her heartbreaking and poignant poem "How Do I Tell Her?," one of the featured poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmiHfbxWuOo Meghan Arcuri is a Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author. Her work can be found in various anthologies, including Borderlands 7 (Borderlands Press), Madhouse (Dark Regions Press), Chiral Mad, and Chiral Mad 3 (Written Backwards). She is currently the Vice President of the Horror Writers Association. Prior to writing, she taught high school math,…

Halloween Haunts: Do Ghosts Respect International Borders? by Geneve Flynn

To an Asian Australian, Halloween is a delightful, albeit slightly bewildering, phenomenon. It isn’t widely celebrated in Malaysia (where I spent my early childhood) and is really only just starting to take hold in Australia. I love seeing my American friends share their excitement that fall has arrived and the spooky season is on its way. However, Halloween seems more celebration than haunting, and the ghosts in the States feel somewhat unreal or distant, like they belong to someone else. Someplace else. Somewhere along the way, I’d come to believe that supernatural beings were endemic to specific locations, and you…
TEEL JAMES GLENN READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

TEEL JAMES GLENN READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

A chilling reading of "Homebound" by Teel James Glenn from the recently released HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://youtu.be/7MpD9nOg6Rw Teel James Glenn has killed hundreds and been killed more times--on stage and screen as he has traveled the world as a stuntman, swordmaster, storyteller, actor, and haunted house barker. His poetry and short stories have been printed in over two hundred publications including Weird Tales, Horror & Hope, A Woman Unbecoming, Space & Time, Mystery Weekly, Pulp…

Halloween Haunts: That Halloween Feeling by Jo Kaplan

“Why do you write horror?” they ask (whoever they are—generally people who avoid horror at all costs, who don’t like to be scared). I’m never sure how to answer. Despite being a writer, there are some things I can’t quite articulate. Because I was obsessed with Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as a kid? Because I’ve always liked being a little creeped out? Because horror stories are just the ones I happen to want to tell? Not great answers. Not wrong—but incomplete, perhaps. Skirting the easy edges of the thing of it, which is intangible, possibly…
GENEVE FLYNN READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

GENEVE FLYNN READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Geneve Flynn gives a wonderful reading of her poem "spoon against bone," one of the featured poems in HWA Showcase volume IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://youtu.be/860m9ak8fOk Geneve Flynn is an award-winning speculative fiction editor, author, and poet. She is the co-editor of Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (with Lee Murray). The anthology won the 2020 Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards and shortlisted for the British Fantasy, Aurealis, and Australian Shadows Awards. Geneve was assistant editor for Relics,…

Halloween Haunts: A Fiend is Born by Gaby Triana

As a child born to Cuban exiles in 1971, Halloween wasn’t a major holiday in our household for a while, since it wasn’t celebrated in Cuba. Once my parents recognized they were never going home to Havana, however, that things were never “going back to normal” as long as Fidel Castro was in power, they figured they may as well settle into their new home and become full-blown Americans with full-blown American-born kids. We spoke mostly English in the house. This was different from other Cuban American households, where parents often insisted their kids speak only Spanish as a way…
GORDON LINZNER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

GORDON LINZNER READS FROM POETRY SHOWCASE IX

To kick of the HWA Poetry Showcase readings we have a genuine New Yorker! Gordon Linzner will be reading his series of haiku "Triptych of Terror." If you haven't purchased your copy yet, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://youtu.be/S2k_nVEitIM Gordon Linzner is founder and former editor of Space and Time Magazine, and author of three published novels and dozens of short stories in F&SF, Twilight Zone, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and numerous other magazines and anthologies, including Baker Street Irregulars II, Release the Virgins!, Footprints in the Stars,…

Halloween Haunts: We’re Still Playing, Forever and Ever in 2015 by Sarah Read

No one celebrates Halloween better than the Halloween People, and while every Halloween has been special in some way or another, the most memorable one, for me, was in 2015. If you love horror, and if you’re reading this, I assume you do, you know that there are few better places to spend the best holiday of the year than at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO. An old hotel renowned for its haunting and inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining is the perfect place to celebrate. What’s even better than the perfect place is the perfect people. A…
POETRY SHOWCASE HISTORY FROM AN EARLY ADOPTER

POETRY SHOWCASE HISTORY FROM AN EARLY ADOPTER

by Angela Yuriko Smith Were it not for Peter Adam Salomon and the HWA Showcase series he started, I might not be still poeting today. Our community is particularly kind to dark poets. From founding National Dark Poetry Day to be celebrated every October 7th (also a gift from Salomon, by the way) to getting the latest Poetry Showcase up in lights on Times Square NYC (thanks to current president John Palisano), the HWA brings the love to our scribblers of verse. Over the next few weeks the poets of HWA will be sharing their work from the Showcase in…

Halloween Haunts: Horror Hosts by David Sharp

One of my favorite parts of the Halloween season is watching horror films. Ever since I was a kid in the 80s scouring Fangoria magazine for October releases to find the newest spooky films and video tapes, I have been a hardcore fan. And the experience was always cooler with a horror host, someone to talk about the films and even make light of them. The ritual of a night with a host is something I have enjoyed over the years. Decorating for Halloween, lighting the candle inside the Jack-o-lantern, and settling in for a guided night of horror all…

Halloween Haunts: How writing horror is like dressing up for Halloween by Carol Gyzander

As many folks in the United States prepare for upcoming Halloween celebrations by choosing costumes—for themselves or perhaps for their children to go trick-or-treating—it’s intriguing to think about how dressing up in costume relates to writing horror. What are some of the common effects or benefits of each? The roots of Halloween lie in the early celebration of Samhain, where Celtic villagers disguised themselves in animal skins and as monsters to welcome in their new year, and chase away spirits or goblin infestations. They believed costumes could keep them from being kidnapped by fairies or spirits of their ancestors who…

STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH ON POETRY IN THE DARK

by Angela Yuriko Smith Today I'd like to welcome Stephanie M. Wytovich to the HWA Poetry Blog with an interview about her own work and Writing Poetry in the Dark, just released from Raw Dog Screaming Press. Writing Poetry in the Dark "brings together some of the most successful contemporary genre poets to discuss topics related to creating dark and fantastical poetry." Compiled specifically for and about speculative poetry, some of the best poets join forces to offer advice and insight in this guide. It's a pleasure to share this interview from one of the most respected names in dark…

ACTING WITH MALICE: Scare Techniques From Scare Actors

By Tom Joyce The setting sun cast a blood-red glow on the assembly of horrors. Maniacal clowns. Cleaver-toting cannibals. Wrathful ghosts. All gathered in a field, waiting for their victims. Stakes high, as always. It wouldn’t be enough to send shivers down spines. They’d need to make people shriek and recoil. Fill the night air with screams of terrified children. Failure to get those results could bring hellish consequences beyond the most twisted Cenobite’s imaginings. I’m talking, of course, about getting laughed at by a bunch of 14-year-olds. Fortunately, the “scare actors” at Bloodshed Farms in Columbus, New Jersey, proved…

Halloween Haunts: It’s Always Halloween in the Library by Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.

A lifelong “Halloween People” myself, I connect Halloween with libraries, and do so for several reasons.  Each year I have the great pleasure of writing and directing a Halloween Haunt in my university library, working with the librarians and student performers.  We’re in the tenth year of doing this.  As the exhibit is about “Difficult Fairies,” we have created Haunting of Hannon X: Widdershins.  We have Chinese fairies, Filippino fairies, Vietnamese fairies, Mexican fairies, Irish fairies, Welsh fairies, Scottish fairies, and all of them are terrifying. The audience walks through the library in groups of ten to twelve through fifteen…

Halloween Haunts: Beyond the Monster Mash: Five Spooky, Literary Bangers for Your Next House Party! By Brian Asman

“The Children of the Night—what music they make!” Why hello there, Halloween people. Brian Asman here, author of the viral hit Man, Fuck This House and the upcoming Christmas horror comedy Return of the Living Elves. When I sat down to write something for the HWA blog, I racked my brain for spooky topics on which I’d be particularly qualified to pontificate. After all, I already wrote an article about Garfield’s Halloween Adventure, which is basically my only artistic influence. What else could I possibly talk about? Luckily, I was listening to music at the time. I know, weird, right?…