Black Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Steven Van Patten

Steven Van Patten is the author of the celebrated Brookwater’s Curse vampire trilogy, and the Killer Genius serial killer series. He’s also co-author of Hell at The Way Station, which won Best Anthology and Best in Science Fiction at the 2019 African American Literary Awards. Numerous short stories have been published in over a dozen anthologies and he’s a contributing writer/consultant for the YouTube channel Extra History as well as the Viral Vignettes series. He’s a member of the New York Chapter of The Horror Writer’s Association, The Director’s Guild of America, and professional arts fraternity Gamma Xi Phi Incorporated.…

Summer Scares Reading List 2022

In celebration of National Library Lover’s Day, the Horror Writers Association (HWA), in partnership with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Booklist, is delighted to announce the fourth annual Summer Scares reading list, which includes titles selected by a panel of authors and librarians and is designed to promote Horror as a great reading option for all ages and during any time of the year. Every year, three titles are selected in each of three categories: Adult, Young Adult, and Middle Grade. For 2022 the selected titles are: ADULT Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias [Broken River Books, 2018] My Favorite…

Black Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Tananarive Due

TANANARIVE DUE (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is an award-winning author who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She is an executive producer on Shudder's groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. She and her husband/collaborator, Steven Barnes, wrote "A Small Town" for Season 2 of Jordan Peele’s "The Twilight Zone" on Paramount Plus, and two segments of Shudder’s anthology film Horror Noire. A leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies.…
Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Nicole Givens Kurtz

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Nicole Givens Kurtz

Nicole Givens Kurtz, Publisher. Educator. Author. Mom. Nicole loves reading, writing, and anime. She enjoys reading works that promote women of color and futuristic settings. She also loves a good mystery. She started Mocha Memoirs Press to provide more diversity in speculative fiction. She’s also a scribbler of tales. She's the recipient of the Ladies of Horror Grant (2021), the Horror Writers Association's Diversity Grant (2020) and the Atomacon Palmetto Scribe Award-Best Short Story 2021. She's been named as one of Book Riot's 6 Best Black Indie SFF Writers and editor of Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire. What inspired…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Jim Potts

Jim Potts, JD is a lawyer and author with a B.A. and Juris Doctorate Degree. He is a former Reserve Captain, a P.O.S.T. Certified Terrorist Investigator, a member of the Open Source Intelligence Team, and was with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for twenty years, achieving the rank of Captain. Potts is a certified Mediator through the Los Angeles County Bar Association and a former Master Teacher for the University of Phoenix (Southern California Campus), having taught undergraduate and graduate levels. His course curriculums included United States Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Ethics, Business Law, and Employment Law.…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Tenea D. Johnson

Tenea D. Johnson is a multimedia storyteller, musician, editor, arts & empowerment entrepreneur, and award-winning author of 7 speculative fiction works, including 2021’s releases, Frequencies, a Fiction Album and Broken Fevers, of which Publisher’s Weekly wrote “the 14 hard-hitting, memorable short stories and prose vignettes in this powerhouse collection … are astounding in their originality” (starred review). Her debut novel Smoketown won the Parallax Award for excellence in a speculative fiction work by a person of color while R/evolution earned an honorable mention that year as well. What inspired you to start writing? I don’t know that I was ever…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Nzondi

Nzondi (Ace Antonio Hall) is an American science fiction and horror author. His novel Oware Mosaic won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Young Adult fiction. His latest novel, Lipstick Asylum, won Book of the Year and Thriller of the Year awards from SW Book Reviews. It also received a 5-star rating from Readers’ Favorite. Among his many short stories that were published in anthologies and print magazines, Hall’s short story, “Raising Mary: Frankenstein”, was nominated for the 2016 horror story of the year for the 19th Annual Editors and Preditors Readers Poll. Additionally, three of his short…

StokerCon Pre-Party

The Stanley Hotel is proud to partner with TheNecronomi.Com and The Horror Writers Association to host the official StokerCon pre-party on Tuesday, May 10, 2022, and will feature a lineup of acclaimed horror writers in an intimate setting, featuring author readings and Q&A sessions about the genre. The NoSleep Podcast will perform a one-hour live performance of their award-winning horror fiction podcast. All ticket proceeds will go to the Glen Haven Area Volunteer Fire Department in an effort to repay our firefighters for all their hard work in saving the iconic hotel from the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Michelle Renee Lane

Michelle Renee Lane holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and recently joined the faculty of the Speculative Fiction Academy. She writes dark speculative fiction about identity politics and women of color battling their inner demons while fighting/falling in love with monsters. Her work includes elements of fantasy, horror, romance, and erotica. Her short fiction appears in several anthologies and has been featured on The Wicked Library podcast. Her Bram Stoker Award nominated debut novel, Invisible Chains, is available from Haverhill House Publishing. Her nonfiction can be found at Medium, Speculative Chic, and in Writers Workshop…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Marc L Abbott

Marc L Abbott is the award-winning author of Hell at the Way Station and Hell at Brooklyn Tea. He resides in Brooklyn, NY. What inspired you to start writing? It goes back to grade school. One of the things I always loved was creative writing. A lot of times our teachers would have us take weekly vocabulary or spelling words and as a homework assignment, write a short story using them. It was the one assignment I always excelled in. I remember in 4th grade we had a teacher who would read us a chapter each week from a Hardy…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with L. Marie Wood

L. Marie Wood is an award-winning psychological horror author and screenwriter. She won the Golden Stake Award for her novel The Promise Keeper. Her screenplays have won Best Horror, Best Afrofuturism/Horror/Sci-Fi, and Best Short Screenplay awards at several film festivals. Wood’s short fiction has been published in groundbreaking works, including the Bram Stoker Award Finalist anthology, Sycorax's Daughters. She is also the founder of the Speculative Fiction Academy, a professor, and horror scholar. What inspired you to start writing? I have always wanted to write. My earliest memories are of me thinking about a story and writing it down. As…

The Seers’ Table February 2022

The Seers Table! January 28, 2022 by HWAWeb 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 selection menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works.”   Linda D. Addison introduces: Rob Costello is a queer man who writes contemporary and dark speculative fiction with a queer bent for and about young people. His work has appeared in The Dark, Hunger Mountain, Stone Canoe, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Narrative, and Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America (Candlewick, 2020). He holds an MFA in…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Penelope Flynn

Penelope Flynn creates mixed genre adult-targeted speculative fiction and illustrations featuring elements of dark fiction, horror, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, and erotica and erotic romance. Her works are included in the Dark Universe anthologies, Steamfunk, Scierogenous II, and SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire. She authors the Sci-Fi/Horror/Erotica mash-up series, the Chronicles of Renfields, and co-edits and contributes to the Blerdrotica, Black erotica anthology series. She is a member of the Horror Writer’s Association and has joined the faculty of the Speculative Fiction Academy. She has appeared on panels for World Fantasy Con, WorldCon, MultiverseCon, Blacktasticon and the FAMU Literary…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, which was published by One World Random House in August 2021. It is a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and one of Electric Lit’s Best Books of the Year. His first book, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. It was longlisted for the 2021 DUBLIN Literary Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary…

Black Heritage HWA interview series: Introduction by Linda D. Addison

Black History Month is the annual recognition of African-Americans and their role in U.S. past and present history. As our country celebrates the achievements of Black Americans other countries are also devoting a month to shining light on Black history. Our part in every area of America now and in the past is still being discovered, still expanding. This country is built by a wide variety of people from different cultures, and just as horror fiction has many sub-genres, Black horror writers are not defined by one type of writing. From gothic through paranormal, supernatural, weird and so on, Black…

HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES INAUGURAL PUBLISHERS COUNCIL

February 1, 2022 – In an effort to build stronger relationships between the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and horror publishers, editors, and industry professionals, the HWA announced the launch the first ever HWA Publishers Council. This council will be comprised of an elected cohort of individuals who represent a diverse spectrum of genres and outlets across the publishing industry—from traditional small and mid-size presses, niche publishers, and indie micro-presses to magazines and other horror publishing industry professionals. The inaugural council will be overseen by HWA President John Palisano and co-chaired by HWA Board of Trustees Treasurer Maxwell Gold and Black…

HWA Statement on Maus and Other Banned Books

The Horror Writers Association condemns banning books in no uncertain terms. We believe authors need to be able to tell their stories without fear of reprisal. The banning of “Maus” in a Tennessee school district, which was done on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is nothing less than censorship and anti-Semitism. "Maus'' is not the first text to be excluded from school libraries. Recently, LGBTQ+ texts have been banned in a Washington state school district, and many other books by authors of color have been censored in districts across America. These are chilling examples of censorship, racism, anti-Semitism,…

The 2021 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot Announced

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce the Preliminary Ballot for the 2021 Bram Stoker Awards®. The HWA (see https://horror.org/) is the premier writers organization in the horror and dark fiction genre, with more than 1,800 members. We have presented the Bram Stoker Awards in various categories since 1987 (see http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/). Works on this ballot are not referred to as “nominees” or “finalists.” Only works appearing on the Final Ballot may be referred to as “nominated works” and their authors as “finalists.” The HWA Board and the Bram Stoker Awards® Committee congratulate all those appearing on the Preliminary Ballot. Notes…