Halloween Haunts: Creepy Cat’s Guide to Entertaining By Katherine Kerestman

Halloween Haunts: Creepy Cat's Guide to Entertaining By Katherine Kerestman Whether one is an armchair traveler or is infected with the wanderlust, she will occasionally wish to enjoy the pleasures of darkness within her own home. Several festive seasons lend themselves to macabre celebrations and entertaining at home: the summer and winter solstices, All Hallows Eve, Walpurgis Night, and Creepy Kitty’s favorite St. George’s Eve. Creepy Kitty offers her suggestions for an evening of creeping out one’s friends: St. George’s Eve is the night preceding St. George’s Day. St. George’s Day is May 6 in the Gregorian calendar, although some…
Halloween Haunts: SETTING THE STAGE & THE BROWN COUNTY JACK-O-LANTERN

Halloween Haunts: SETTING THE STAGE & THE BROWN COUNTY JACK-O-LANTERN

Halloween Haunts: Setting the Stage & the Brown County Jack-o-Lantern by K.A. Schultz   It is not terribly late, but the sun is about to set, its last lighted dregs trickling out from beneath the gathering wall of clouds. The rays tint the air a pinkish gray, imbuing the autumnal dusk, the wet leaves, and the shiny sidewalks with a quick-fading warmth. From my second-floor apartment, I see costumed children making their way down the block; the youngest ones have already finished with their rounds. I see patches of candle glow on porches and in windows below, lopsided grins and sinister…
Halloween Haunts: THE PERSONAL NATURE OF HORROR

Halloween Haunts: THE PERSONAL NATURE OF HORROR

Halloween Haunts: The Personal Nature of Horror Eugen Bacon   As writers of horror, there are many motivations that spur us to write this kind of fiction. Some, perhaps like Eric LaRocca, there’s a certain glee in unsettling the reader. But in an interview on their book This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances, he shares that horror is, to him, a form of healing. There’s blood and brutality, the Lovecraftian in cosmic horror. In the horrific is a certain truth: ‘awful things happen to everyone’. This is one reason I write horror—it reflects reality. You have only to…

The Seers’ Table October 2025

The Seers’ Table, August 2025   Kari J. Wolfe, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Committee You can see any of The Seers' Table posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selecting the menu item “HWA Publications / Blogs / Seers’ Table”. Nicole D. Sconiers recommends: Lucy Rose is an author and award-winning writer/director with an interest in the gothic, girlhood, and horror. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in Dread Central, Mslexia, and other publications. Rose’s films have visited BAFTA- and Oscar-qualifying film festivals internationally. She is also a Forbes 30 Under…
Halloween Haunts: HAVE A BLUETOOTH HALLOWEEN

Halloween Haunts: HAVE A BLUETOOTH HALLOWEEN

Halloween Haunts: Have a Bluetooth Halloween By Lisa Morton   Bluetooth. Who could’ve predicted ten years ago that Bluetooth technology would be one of the major future advances in the art of the Halloween haunt? But it’s happened, and it’s fantastic. Bluetooth, that nearly-magical energy that allows us to connect our phones to other devices, first entered the Halloween haunt arena a few years ago by allowing haunters to use Bluetooth speakers throughout their mazes. The speakers, which are surprisingly powerful but may be no bigger than a hockey puck or a box of crackers, are controlled by phone apps,…
Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2025: An Interview with Carmen Baca

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2025: An Interview with Carmen Baca

    What is your novel about? My next book will be a collection of short stories and poetry of the supernatural horror variety. My Chicano roots are deep in the New Mexico soil where my ancestors planted them centuries ago. Living in the Land of Enchantment means opening our minds to possibilities that the supernatural exists, and the creatures, cryptids, monsters, and spirits our abuelas told us they encountered weren’t figments of their imagination. They were real then, and they’re just as real today. En las montañas, placitas, y llanos de Nuevo Mejico, they never left, and they always…
Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2025: An Interview with Clara Elena García

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2025: An Interview with Clara Elena García

  What is your novel about? “What are monsters but men made wrong?” An age-old question brought to life through the lens of Paraguayan mythology, Seven Legendary Monsters is an epic poem retelling of Guaraní lore and legend. Steeped in indigenous horror and told from the perspective of the monsters themselves, this novel-in-verse explores the duality of good and evil, the weight of curses, and the enduring power of sacrifice. From the cruel pranks of the feathered serpent trickster, Moñai, to the self-loathing of the hideous lizard dog, Teju Jagua, to the feminist musings of Keraná, the Mother of Monsters…
An Introduction to Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2025: Cynthia Pelayo

An Introduction to Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2025: Cynthia Pelayo

    Writing is an isolated activity. Yet, there’s a quiet comfort in knowing that there are others out there who are too, staring at their screens, tapping away at keys, and scribbling in their journals.   We are not alone at this.   When you are writing, know that there is someone else, somewhere, wrestling with a scene, structure, or outline, at the very same hour as you.   Writers come to the horror genre for a number of reasons, nostalgia, the aesthetics, and the ability to explore spiritual, philosophical, and sociological questions, and so on. Each day, the…

Hearts & Wallpaper: Writing Short-Form Madness & Horror

Click the image or watch this video here. “Hearts & Wallpaper: Writing Short-Form Madness & Horror” brings together moderator L. E. Daniels with Lee Murray, Emily Ruth Verona, Kaylee Dobbs (Happy Goat Horror), and Stephanie M. Wytovich for intimate readings and a craft conversation on how short stories and poems hold lived experience. The panel explores using metaphor, humor, voice, and white space to approach topics like postpartum depression, OCD, body dysmorphia, rejection sensitivity, and stuttering while touching on Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Tied to the Flame Tree Press anthology This Way Lies Madness and the…
Nuts & Bolts: Actor, Writer, Director Nyasha Hatendi

Nuts & Bolts: Actor, Writer, Director Nyasha Hatendi

By Tom Joyce -- Accomplished actor Nyasha Hatendi knew that Black narratives had a place in the mainstream. He also knew he could craft a tale specifically for Black audiences that would have universal appeal, because a good story is a good story. It was a matter of finding the right medium. The result is “Sacrilege: Curse of the Mbirwi,” an original audio horror/drama that Nyasha created for Audible. Caleb McLaughlin of “Stranger Things” stars in the Afrocentric deconstruction of a classic horror set-up, where family members return to their ancestral homeland and awaken something evil – a monster emerging…

The Seers’ Table August 2025

Kari J. Wolfe, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community   You can see any of The Seers' Table posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selecting the menu item “HWA Publications / Blogs / Seers’ Table”.   Kari J. Wolfe recommends:   Katherine Silva is an ace Maine horror author, a connoisseur of coffee, and victim of cat shenanigans. Her favorite flavors of the genre mix grief and existentialism which she combines with her love of the New England wilderness in her works. She is a three-time Maine Literary Award finalist for speculative…

The Seers’ Table July 2025

Linda D. Addison, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community   You can see any of The Seers' Table posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selecting the menu item “HWA Publications / Blogs / Seers’ Table”.   Kate Maruyama recommends:   Catherine Kuo is an Asian American writer who lived and worked in Taiwan and Japan for several years before returning to the United States. She graduated from the University of California, Davis, where she was selected as one of the winners of the university’s 2010-2011 “Prized Writing” competition. She is an HWA member…
HWA 2025 Election Candidates

HWA 2025 Election Candidates

  The HWA’s annual elections will soon be upon us. Up this year are four Trustee positions, as well as the offices of Vice President and Treasurer. Please read the statements of the following candidates carefully. Links to the ballot will be sent out on or around September 9th, 2025 to our Active and Lifetime members, with a due date of September 16th, 2025.  The elected officers shall hold their respective offices for terms of two years, beginning on November 1 and ending on October 31.   Candidates for 2025 Elections All candidates have been verified as active members and eligible…
HWA Mourns the Loss of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

HWA Mourns the Loss of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  The Horror Writers Association mourns the loss of a foundational pillar not only for her contributions to the organization, but for her legacy. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro served as the HWA’s third president, and in the words of former HWA President, Lisa Morton, “as HWA's first female President - at a time when women were still scarce in the genre - she blazed the trail that all of us who came later would follow, a trail she made clear with authority, wisdom, and grace. Like her character Saint Germain, she is a true immortal." Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (September 15, 1942…
HWA Update on the LibGen AI Litigation

HWA Update on the LibGen AI Litigation

  We have an important update on the ongoing copyright class-action lawsuit involving the exploitation of authors’ works. The court has found that Anthropic infringed on authors’ and publishers’ copyrights by downloading millions of books from the pirate websites Library Genesis (“LibGen”) and Pirate Library Mirror (“PiLiMi”) to train its AI model. A certified class has been established, made up of rights holders whose copyright-registered books were downloaded from these sites by Anthropic. Here is a link to a searchable database of titles in the LibGen collection. This database includes both traditionally published and independently published works. The plaintiffs’ attorneys are…
Nuts & Bolts: Grady Hendrix, Chris Poggiali on the Martial Arts Film Boom, Lessons for Horror Writers

Nuts & Bolts: Grady Hendrix, Chris Poggiali on the Martial Arts Film Boom, Lessons for Horror Writers

By Tom Joyce -- Martial arts, like horror, was one of the genres that grabbed the film industry by the grindhouses in the 1970s and changed pop culture history forever. In their lavishly illustrated new book These Fists Break Bricks, Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali tell the story of the martial arts film boom, and the international coalition of performers, filmmakers, distributors, theater owners, and promoters who made it happen. In his foreword, rapper, producer, and filmmaker RZA describes how the movies inspired young people like him in those troubled years, and brought them a multicultural and gender-inclusive perspective. According…
API/AANHPI Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Jessica Gleason

API/AANHPI Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Jessica Gleason

    What is your novel about?  Easy Bake Covenant is personal for me. I poured a lot of myself into the MC, Laura. At its heart, Easy Bake Covenant is a story about a little girl working through her demons, both literal and metaphorical. She’s gifted a peculiar Easy Bake Oven and, through it, she unwittingly makes a deal with the devil. She’s lost and angry, but grabs her power back and uses it to become strong and independent. To be clear, it’s not a fairy tale. Laura is fierce and funny, and her happy ending may not be…
API/AANHPI Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Kelsea Yu

API/AANHPI Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Kelsea Yu

  What is your novella about? My next book, Demon Song (out from Titan Books on September 30), is a modern gothic horror novella inspired by The Phantom of the Opera. The main character, Megan, is a Chinese American teenager who—along with her mom—is on the run from an abusive man. They seek refuge in an ancient Beijing opera house. There, Megan finds a Chinese mythology book and begins reading the tale of Baigujing, the White Bone Demon. Soon, myths begin to bleed into her life as dreams and reality blur, and Megan must discover the true, horrifying secret of…
API/AANHPI Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Geneve Flynn

API/AANHPI Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Geneve Flynn

  What is your story about? “If I Am to Earn My Tether” is a horror short story about sand piracy, colonialism, and living with the choices our ancestors made. It features the Malaysian myth of the polong, a tiny homunculus born from the blood of a murder victim, and her pet grasshopper, the pelesit. It was published in Silk and Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora by Bad Hand Books in May this year. The collection is edited by Kristy Park Kulski and includes short fiction and poetry by Ai Jiang, Nadia Bulkin, Christina Sng,…
An Introduction to API/AANHPI Month by Frances Lu Pai Ippolito

An Introduction to API/AANHPI Month by Frances Lu Pai Ippolito

  The first thing I think of when I sit down to write this introduction is a well. It’s a deep one, made of chipped stone blocks in the courtyard of an abandoned house somewhere between Anhui and Guangdong in the late 1930s. My 7-year-old grandmother is hiding in an empty residence with the women of her family – her mother, Popo, Nai Nai, and her 5-year-old sister. Her brother and father are missing, and the oldest sisters fled their Anhui home weeks ago with neighbors. The well is important because that is where my grandmother encounters her first ghost.…