Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Yvette Tan

Yvette Tan is one of the Philippines’ most celebrated horror writers. She’s written two collections, one in English and one in Tagalog, a feature film, and a ballet libretto, among others. Waking the Dead, her English collection, has just been reissued with a new cover and an extra story. Her story “The Last Moon” was part of the Philippine pavilion’s design in the 2021 Frankfurt Book Fair. She is currently a creative consultant to a game that highlights Filipino mythological creatures. Her works have been translated into Spanish, Czech, and Hungarian. What inspired you to start writing? I love reading,…

Jewish Heritage in Horror: An Interview with John Baltisberger

The author of War of Dictates, Abhorrent Faith, and Stabberger, John Baltisberger is a Splatterpunk nominee who writes speculative and genre fiction that often focuses on Jewish elements. Through his writing, he has explored themes of mysticism, faith, sin, and personal responsibility. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife and his daughter. Though mostly known for his bizarre blend of Jewish mysticism and splatter, John defies being labeled under any one genre. His work has spanned extreme horror, urban fantasy, science fiction, cosmic horror, epic verse, and he has even written a guide for mindful meditation. You can see…

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Rin Chupeco

Rin Chupeco is a nonbinary Chinese-Filipino writer born and raised in the Philippines. They are the author of several speculative young adult series, including The Bone Witch, The Girl from the Well, The Never-Tilting World, Wicked as You Wish, and the adult vampire fantasy series Silver Under Nightfall. Formerly a 9-to-5 grunt, they now write fiction full-time and live with their partner and two children in Manila. Find them and their upcoming works at rinchupeco.com. What inspired you to start writing? I have always wanted ever since I was seven years old and it’s been a lifelong dream since. I…

Jewish Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Elana Gomel

Elana Gomel was born in a country that no longer exists, and since then has lived in several others, including Israel, Hong Kong, Italy, and the US. She currently resides in California. She is an academic with a long list of books and articles, specializing in science fiction, Victorian literature, and serial killers. She is also a fiction writer and the author of more than a hundred short stories, several novellas, and four novels. Her story “Where the Streets Have No Name” was the winner of the 2020 Gravity Award, and her story “Mine Seven” is included in The Best…

Asian Heritage in Horror: Introduction by Lee Murray

Lee Murray is an author, editor, screenwriter, and poet from Aotearoa-New Zealand. A USA Today Bestselling author, double Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson Award winner, her work includes military thrillers, the Taine McKenna Adventures, supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra (with Dan Rabarts), and short fiction collection, Grotesque: Monster Stories. Lee is the curator-editor of eighteen volumes of dark fiction, among them Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (with Geneve Flynn). Lee’s first poetry collection, Tortured Willows, a collaboration with Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng and Geneve Flynn was released in October 2021. Read more at https://www.leemurray.info/ Introduction The…

Jewish Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Nicholas Kaufmann

Nicholas Kaufmann is the author of seven novels, including the bestsellers 100 Fathoms Below (with Steven L. Kent) and The Hungry Earth. His work has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Thriller Award, and the Dragon Award. His short fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, Interzone, and others. In addition to his own original work, he has written for such properties as Zombies vs. Robots, The Rocketeer, and Warhammer. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. What inspired you to start writing? I was always a creative child, preferring imaginative play and…

Jewish Heritage in Horror Introduction by Maxwell I. Gold

Maxwell I. Gold is a multiple award nominated author who writes prose poetry and short stories in weird and cosmic fiction. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines including Weirdbook Magazine, Space and Time Magazine, Startling Stories, Strange Horizons, Tales from OmniPArk Anthology, Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas and more. He’s the author of Oblivion in Flux: A Collection of Cyber Prose from Crystal Lake Publishing. He's a proud Columbus, Ohio native and currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Horror Writers Association as the organization's Treasurer. My Kehilla, My Community Not everyone has…

Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Horror: Interview with Kris Ringman

Kris Ringman (she/they) is a deaf queer author, artist, and wanderer. Her multicultural, lyrical fiction plays along the boundaries of magical realism, fantasy, and horror. She is the author of two Lambda Literary finalist books: I Stole You: Stories from the Fae (Handtype Press, 2017) and Makara: a novel (Handtype Press, 2012), and the upcoming Sail Skin: poems (Handtype Press, 2022). They received their MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. http://krisringman.com What attracted you to the horror genre, and what do you think the genre has taught you about yourself and the world? My fascination with horror started probably too young, but has never abated. At…

Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Horror: Interview with Michael R. Collings

Michael R. Collings, named Grand Master by the 2016 World Horror Conference, is an educator, literary scholar and critic, poet, novelist, essayist, columnist, reviewer, and editor whose work over three decades—more than one hundred published books and chapbooks, along with thousands of chapters, essays, reviews, and poems—has concentrated on science fiction, fantasy, and horror, emphasizing the works of Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, C.S. Lewis, and others. His books for Starmont House, beginning in 1984, were among the earliest serious scholarly appraisals of King. His 1990 study of Card was the first book-length exploration of Card's fictions. His wide-ranging publications…

Introduction to the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Horror Author Interview Series by Christopher Jon Heuer

Christopher Jon Heuer is the author of Bug: Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution as well as All Your Parts Intact: Poems.  He is the editor of Tripping the Tale Fantastic: Weird Fiction by Deaf and Hard of Hearing Writers.  He is a professor of English at Gallaudet University in Washington DC. Is Deaf Horror fiction a genre or a sub-subgenre? There is no misspelling above.  I’m inventing a new term for a weird situation.  When we label something a genre, such as Horror Science Fiction, or Fantasy, we are saying “This is what it is.  This is its definition.”  Horror…

Women in Horror: Interview with Tina Pavlik

Tina Pavlik is a lifelong fan of horror and working on her first book series in the genre. She publishes dark fantasy and erotica in another life for Red Sage Publishing and Changeling Press. Her horror stories sometimes draw on her experiences as a historian, tour guide, and paranormal investigator of one of the most haunted locations in the U.S. She currently works in extras casting in television and film on projects like Amazon’s upcoming show The Peripheral and HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones. As an extra, she worked on Cinemax’s Banshee and Robert Kirkman’s Outcast and on films like Masterminds,…

Women in Horror: Interview with Emma J. Gibbon

Emma J. Gibbon is originally from Yorkshire in the U.K. and now lives in Midcoast Maine. She is an award-winning horror writer, Rhysling-nominated speculative poet, and librarian. Her debut fiction collection, Dark Blood Comes from the Feet, from Trepidatio Publishing, was one of NPR’s best books of 2020 and won the Maine Literary Book Award for Speculative Fiction. Her stories have appeared in The Dark Tome and Toasted Cake podcasts, and the anthologies, The Muse & The Flame, Wicked Haunted, Wicked Weird and is upcoming in 13 Haunted Houses. Her poetry has been published in the HWA Poetry Showcase Volume VIII, Strange Horizons, Liminality, Pedestal Magazine,…

Women in Horror: Interview with Christina Sng

Christina Sng is the two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A Collection of Dreamscapes (2020) and A Collection of Nightmares (2017). Her poetry, fiction, essays, and art have appeared in numerous venues worldwide, including Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Interstellar Flight Magazine, Penumbric, Southwest Review, and The Washington Post. Christina’s most recent title, Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken (2021), is the Bram Stoker nominated collaborative poetry collection with Lee Murray, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Geneve Flynn. Visit her at christinasng.com and connect @christinasng. What inspired you to start writing? It feels like I’ve always been writing. I always had a pen and…

Women in Horror: Interview with Cindy O’Quinn

Cindy O’Quinn is a four-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated writer. Author of “Lydia”, from the Shirley Jackson Award-winning anthology: The Twisted Book of Shadows,  “The Thing I Found Along a Dirt Patch Road”, “A Gathering on the Mountain”, and “One and Done”. She is an Appalachian writer from the mountains of West Virginia. Steeped in folklore at an early age. Cindy now lives in the woods of northern Maine, on the old Tessier Homestead, which makes the ideal backdrop for writing her dark stories and poetry. Her work has been published or forthcoming in The Bad Book, HWA Poetry Showcase Vol…

Women in Horror: Interview for Jennifer McMahon

Jennifer McMahon is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including Promise Not to Tell and The Winter People. Her latest, The Children on the Hill, will be out in April. She lives in Vermont with her partner, Drea, and their daughter, Zella. What inspired you to start writing? I wrote my first short story in third grade, “The Haunted Meatball.” I still remember that rush I got when I realized I could sit down and create a world on paper where anything could happen – even a little boy being chased through the woods by a glowing meatball. I was hooked. I have been…

Women in Horror: Interview with Becky Spratford

Becky Spratford trains library staff all over the world on how to match books with readers through the local public library. She writes book reviews for Booklist and a horror review column for Library Journal. Known for her work with horror readers, Becky is the author of three books, most recently, The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror, Third Edition [ALA Editions, 2021]. She is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association and currently serves as the Association’s Secretary and organizer of their annual Librarians’ Day. You can follow Becky on Twitter @RAforAll. What inspired you to start writing? As long as I can remember…

Women in Horror: Interview with EV Knight

EV Knight is the author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning debut novel The Fourth Whore. She released her sophomore novel Children of Demeter as well as a novella, Partum in 2021. EV lives in one of America’s most haunted cities—Savannah, Ga. She is a huge fan of the Savannah Bananas and the beauty of Bonaventure Cemetery. When not out and about searching for the ghosts of the past, EV can be found at home with her husband Matt, her beloved Chinese Crested Gozer Augustus, and their three naughty sphynx cats. What inspired you to start writing? I found horror as…

Women in Horror: Interview with Geneve Flynn

Geneve Flynn is an award-winning fiction editor and author. Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, which she co-edited with Lee Murray, won the 2020 Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson awards and shortlisted for the British Fantasy, Aurealis, and Australian Shadows awards. Geneve’s short stories have been published in various markets, including Flame Tree Publishing, PseudoPod, Crystal Lake Publishing & Black Spot Books, and Things in the Well. Her poetry appears in Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, a Bram Stoker Award-nominated collaboration with Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Lee Murray, and she has been nominated for both the Rhysling and…

Women in Horror: Interview with Jessica McHugh

Jessica McHugh is a novelist, poet, and internationally-produced playwright running amok in the fields of horror, sci-fi, young adult, and wherever else her peculiar mind leads. She's had twenty-five books published in thirteen years, including her bizarro romp, "The Green Kangaroos," her YA series, "The Darla Decker Diaries," and her Bram Stoker Award-Nominated blackout poetry collection, "A Complex Accident of Life." For more info about publications and blackout poetry commissions, please visit McHughniverse.com. Strange Nests at Apokrupha: https://apokrupha.com/product/strange-nests/ Strange Nests ebook/print at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Nests-Jessica-McHugh-ebook/dp/B09BBKQZSH IG/Twitter/TikTok: theJessMcHugh What inspired you to start writing? Reading! As a voracious reader of pretty much every genre since I…