Member News

Biography Gaby Triana is the bestselling author of 18 novels for adults and teens, including Moon Child, the Haunted Florida series (Island of Bones, River of Ghosts, City of Spells), Cakespell, Wake the Hollow, Summer of Yesterday, and Paradise Island: A Sam and Colby Story. Her short stories have appeared in the Classic Monsters Unleashed Anthology, Don't Turn Out the Lights: A Tribute Anthology to Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and Weird Tales Magazine (Issue #365). Also the host of a YouTube channel, The Witch Haunt, Gaby writes about witchy powers, ghosts, haunted places, and abandoned…

Biography David Bowles is a Mexican American author and translator from the US-Mexico border, where he teaches at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Among his award-winning books are Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky: Myths of Mexico, Lords of the Earth, and the graphic novel series Clockwork Curandera. His work has also been published in multiple anthologies, plus venues such as The New York Times, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, and Rattle. Find him online at www.davidbowles.us. What inspired you to start writing? My Mexican American family (and our larger community) has longstanding, rich oral traditions. And in my…

Charlie Vázquez is the author of the novel Contraband (2010, Rebel Satori), the collection Fantasmas: Puerto Rican Tales of the Dead (CV Publishing, 2020), and other books. He’s the former New York City coordinator for Puerto Rico’s Festival de la Palabra and was awarded a Commendation from the City of New York in 2014 for his contributions to Latino literary heritage. Charlie is a founding member of Latino Rebels and a certified mindfulness meditation instructor in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, as taught by David Nichtern. Find him online at www.charlievazquez.com What inspired you to start writing? My maternal…

Biography Cynthia “Cina” Pelayo is a two-time Bram Stoker Awards® nominated poet and author. She is the author of LOTERIA, CHILDREN OF CHICAGO was released by Agora / Polis Books in 2021. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Columbia College, a Master of Science in Marketing from Roosevelt University, a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is a Doctoral Candidate in Business Psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Find her online at www.CinaPelayo.com or on Twitter @cinapelayo. What inspired you to start writing? Ultimately, when…

E. Reyes is the author of the novel The House on Moon Creek Avenue, and the anthologies Devil’s Hill, Strange Tales of the Macabre, and The Halloween Grindhouse. His works are included in Pulp Harvest (edited by Nick Harper), Latinx Screams (edited by Cina Pelayo and V. Castro), and Trump: Utopia or Dystopia? (edited by JF Garrard and Jen Frankel). Reyes lives in the city Devil’s Hill is based on with his wife and three kids, keeping it spooky. What inspired you to start writing? I was inspired by the Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine. As soon as I started…

Maafa Day is a Pan-African observance. It is a day of remembrance where we hold space for the millions of Africans who lost their lives due to the TransAtlantic slave trade. That includes those who died on slave ships while being forcibly transferred to the Americas, those who died during escape attempts, and those who died in captivity. Maafa comes from the Kiswahili (Swahili) term for "disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy".and is used to refer to the African Holocaust. Maafa Day also serves the purpose of making sure that we never forget Maafa - the African Holocaust. This year…

Jacqueline Dyre (they/them) is the editor and publisher of Novel Noctule, as well as a 2020 HWA Diversity Grant recipient. You can find them in the sunshine state, drinking poorly made coffee and consuming psychological horror in lieu of meals. What inspired you to start publishing and editing? When I founded Novel Noctule, I was recovering from acute myeloid leukemia and an allogeneic stem cell transplant. In my estimation, second chances are much better motivators than first chances: If you’re on your second chance, chances are that you’ve almost lost something, and you’re now being forced to consider the possibility…

Norman Prentiss is the author of Odd Adventures with your Other Father, Life in a Haunted House, and The Apocalypse-a-Day Desk Calendar. He won a Bram Stoker Award for his first book, Invisible Fences. Other publications include Four Legs in the Morning, The Halloween Children (with The Narrator (with Dark Screams, normanprentiss.com. What inspired you to start publishing and editing? I was reading Edgar Allan Poe in grade school, and I got there through my love of horror movies broadcast on TV. I was reading horror comics at the same time, like House of Mystery and House of Secrets, then…

Thommy Hutson is an award-winning screenwriter, producer, director, and best-selling author. A graduate of UCLA, he has written or produced critically acclaimed film and television projects—horror, thriller, holiday, animation, and documentary—that have aired on Netflix, Hulu, Shudder, Hallmark, Lifetime, Syfy, Bio Channel, and more. His award-winning debut novel is the teen thriller Jinxed. A member of the Producers Guild of America, Horror Writers Association, and a Saturn and Home Media Magazine award-winner, Thommy is an aficionado of horror and teen movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s, as well as a lover of Christmas films. He continues to develop unique and…

Elaine Cuyegkeng is a Chinese Filipino writer. She grew up in Manila where there are many, many creaky old houses with ghosts inside them. She loves eldritch creatures both real and imaginary, ’80s pop stars, and caffeinated drinks with far too much sugar. She now lives in Melbourne with her partner, and their two small cat children. She has been published in the Bram Stoker winning anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, Lackington’s, The Dark, and Rocket Kapre. You can find her on @layangabi on Twitter and on Facebook. What inspired you to start writing? I’ve…

Kristen Arnett is the author of With Teeth (Riverhead Books, 2021) and the NYT bestselling debut novel Mostly Dead Things (Tin House, 2019) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction. She is a queer fiction and essay writer. She was awarded Ninth Letter's Literary Award in Fiction, has been a columnist for Literary Hub, and was a Spring 2020 Shearing Fellow at Black Mountain Institute. Her work has appeared at The New York Times, The Cut, Oprah Magazine, North American Review, The Normal School, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, Guernica, Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, McSweeneys, PBS Newshour, Bennington Review,…

Daniel M. Lavery is the author of Something That May Shock and Discredit You. He also writes The Chatner, a weekly newsletter about literature, humor, and pop culture. What inspired you to start writing? I really do think it's as simple as I've always wanted to, and I've always enjoyed it. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I think it might have been mass-market covers, honestly – I remember being really struck by the often really lurid covers for everything from Christopher Pike to Shirley Jackson when I was a kid browsing the library…

Larissa Glasser is a librarian-archivist from New England. She writes dark fiction centered on the lives of trans women, library science, and heavy metal. Her work is available in Transcendent 3: The Year's Best Transgender Themed Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press) and Tragedy Queens: stories inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath (Clash Books). Her debut novella F4 is available from Eraserhead Press. She is on Twitter @larissaeglasser What inspired you to start writing? I was more of a TV baby than a reader when I was little. The year after my dad died, I saw the original cartoon version…

Ally Wilkes is a queer writer living in Greenwich, London. Ally’s debut novel, All the White Spaces – a supernatural survival horror set in the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration – will be out in March 2022. Ally is also Book Reviews Editor for Horrified, the British horror website, and you can follow her on Twitter @UnheimlichManvr. The t-shirt in her photo can be found at HorrorOasis.com. All proceeds will go to Trans Lifeline, available at 877-565-8860 in the US and 877-330-6366 in Canada. The organization describes itself as "a grassroots hotline and microgrants 501(c)(3) non-profit organization offering direct emotional…

Proud Blerd, Nikki Woolfolk sculpts decadent desserts and fantastical fiction with equal skill and flair. When they're not playing a never-ending game of “what if” in a writing space that’s part DieselPunk, part Willy Wonka, they are drawing on their former STEM career and collection of quirky experiences to work up new recipes in the kitchen (tasting encouraged), designing a Goth-inspired garden (tasting decidedly DISCOURAGED), and mashing up real and fictional worlds on social media (virtual kitchen table is always open). Join their cogged-and-geared world at NikkiWoolfolk.com What inspired you to start writing? Culturally I grew up in a household…