NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “Moira” by Jamie Flanagan

While mental illness is conventionally seen as emanating from the mind—the brain malfunctioning— and expressed through the body—physical responses such as insomnia or nausea, Jaimie Flanagan’s short story “Moira” identifies the true locus of mental illness—the soul—and names this state “soul-sick,” emphasizing how mental illness affects the very core of our being, our identity and sense of self. Review written by E.S. Magill.

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Aleco Julius

What inspired you to start writing?

I’ve been a longtime collector of magazines, zines, and journals about all kinds of art, music, folklore--you name it. The more obscure and the strange, the better. I had written a little about books and literature previously, but about six years ago I realized I could be a contributor to many of these magazines and journals. So, I was inspired by all the passionate authors out there writing essays and articles on topics such as folk horror, metal music, phenomenology, and weird studies. So, I put my pen to paper and soon found my work among the pages of the publications I collected! These include Vastarien, Hellebore, Myth & Lore, Dark Matter Magazine, anthologies by Anathema Publishing, and more.

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Alberto Ávila Salazar

What inspired you to start writing?

I could tell you that every time I write I start from scratch, it’s like a leap into the void. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. I wish I could tell you about an epiphany or a moment of enlightenment, but that wasn’t the case. It’s something that’s always been with me.

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, novel by Shirley Jackson

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, novel by Shirley Jackson First published by Viking Press, 1962. Reviewed by Rosemary Thorne TRIGGER WARNING: This review addresses mental health. Synopsis: Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. My beloved Shirley Jackson passed away when she was 48 years old. It means I am currently six years her senior, which shocks me weirdly as an…

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Adrianna Cuevas

What inspired you to start writing?

My fourth-grade teacher recognized my ADHD tendencies to constantly daydream and make up stories and encouraged me to write them down. While it took me a while to claim the professional title of author, I have been writing ever since then as storytelling seems to be what my brain is wired to do.

Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: Introduction by Sandra Becerril

Welcome to Latin American horror! Latin American horror literature reflects human darkness. Beyond ghosts, what scares us the most is what we carry inside. It is not the monsters or the ghosts that add the disturbing component to our literature. It is the deep exploration of the human condition and its possibilities that leave readers with a dry throat. It is the ability of Latin writers with their stories that allow us to feel loneliness, hatred, abandonment, and resignation. The supernatural feels smaller than the narratives of what we Latin Americans can carry inside. Horror in contemporary Latin American literature is fueled by domestic and everyday events.

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reviewed by Brooklyn Ann Butler. New England Magazine, National Library of Medicine, and now public domain. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf Trigger Warning: This review addresses mental health. Synopsis: A woman with postpartum depression is diagnosed with hysteria by her physician husband. He takes her to a house in the country and locks her in the attic as part of “the rest cure" a popular, traumatic treatment for women in the late 19th and early 20th century. Having no other stimulus, the author tries to “read” the wallpaper in the room and spirals into…

NUTS & BOLTS: Interview With Writer, Filmmaker, Playwright John Patrick Higgins

As a novelist, short-story writer, filmmaker, playwright, and theater director, John Patrick Higgins has explored the art of story-telling from many different perspectives. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, he discusses the counterintuitive similarities between horror and humor, and gives advice for authors who’d like to try writing for the stage.

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: EV Knight’s “The Flannigan Cure” from American Cannibal

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: EV Knight’s “The Flannigan Cure” from American Cannibal Reviewed by L. E. Daniels Disclaimer: An author and editor, I am not a mental health professional. Trigger warning: Addiction, grief, loss, animal death. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, alcohol-related cirrhosis claimed a member of my family in Australia. Johnny was so deep in the trenches in his final years, that when he stopped drinking, he experienced seizures, so he didn’t stop anymore. No conversations or bargaining or pleading altered the pattern bleeding the life from him and the slow, torturous death by cirrhosis was something I never wanted…

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “Dream’s End” by Henry Kuttner and Catherine Moore

NOTABLE WORKS  REVIEW: “Dream’s End” by Henry Kuttner and Catherine Moore Reviewed by Kyla Lee Ward Short story first published in Startling Stories magazine, July 1947. Variously anthologised. Story link: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/68170/pg68170-images.html TRIGGER WARNING: This review addresses mental health.  In this collaboration by two of the 1940’s most notable weird writers, Dr Robert Bruno is connected by wires to his patient and sedated, offering himself as an “empathy surrogate” in an experimental treatment for psychiatric disorders (in this case, severe, clinical manic depression) that have not responded to other therapies. He awakens to accolades, his patient already showing signs of improvement…

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: The Grief Hole by Kaaron Warren

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: The Grief Hole by Kaaron Warren Reviewed bv E.F. Schraeder Trigger Warning: This review addresses grief and trauma. A universal of all life, death touches everyone sooner or later. With inevitable losses follow forms of grief and depression that can range from manageable to complicated, and in Kaaron Warren’s The Grief Hole we find a mesmerizing supernatural lens to consider how loss, even the deepest pain, connects us all. In The Grief Hole readers meet Theresa, a woman who has an unusual gift for seeing people’s clinging ghosts, each hinting at how they will die. This ability…

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: Shards: A Mental Health Charity Anthology edited by Kara Hawkers and Emery Blake

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: Shards: A Mental Health Charity Anthology edited by Kara Hawkers and Emery Blake, RavensQuoth Press 2024. Reviewed by Stevie Morley Trigger Warning: This review addresses mental health. Edited by Kara Hawkers and Emery Blake with poetry by Dale Parnell, Marie C Lecrivain, Michele Mikel, Alison Bainbridge, Catherine A. Mackenzie, Rebecca Kolodziej, Lisa Reynolds, Shikhandin, Jose Ángel Conde, Jodi Jensen, Engelbert Egill Stefánsson, B.A. O’Connell, Nerisha Kemraj, Francis H. Powell, Courtney Glover, Maggie D. Brace, Christine Fowler, Henry Corrigan, Pauline Yates, Gabriella Balcom, Sharmon Gazaway, Dawn Debraal, Brianna Malotke, Renee Cronley, Max Bindi, Kay Hanifen, Norbert Góra, Gerald…

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “I’ll Be Gone By Then” by Eric LaRocca

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “I’ll Be Gone By Then” by Eric LaRocca  Iin The Strange Thing We Become and Other Dark Tales, published by Off Limits Press; also reprinted in The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories, published by Titan Books Reviewed by Geneve Flynn Trigger Warning: This review addresses mental health. After leaving behind her home and identity to seek a new life in America, a woman is plunged back into a difficult relationship when her aging, ailing mother arrives from Italy and she must become her carer. As the failed Miss Vecoli settles her mother into her…

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “Survival Ritual” by John Edward Lawson

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: “Survival Ritual” by John Edward Lawson In SuiPsalms, Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2012 Reviewed by E.F. Schraeder Trigger Warning: This review addresses mental health and grief.   At the midsection and heart of John Edward Lawson’s provocative poetry collection SuiPsalms, readers find a potent two-page poem called “Survival Ritual.” With a striking concise narrative repetition of the anchoring end of stanza lines, “This is life, and you survive / You survive” the poem constructs a poignant portrait of the insidious and incapacitating nature of grief and yes how to survive it. Lawson moves readers through experiences and…

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: Welcome to the Black Parade

NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: Welcome to the Black Parade Song/Poem by My Chemical Romance (musical group) Reviewed by Kevin Kennel Trigger Warning: This review addresses mental illness and trauma.  “Welcome to the Black Parade” is about death, memory, and transcendence as one grieves his life in a hospital. It’s about a character known as “The Patient” who is dying and, as he does, remembers his most precious memory of his father and how his father asked him to defeat his demons. As The Patient descends into the afterlife, shadowy figures of “The Black Parade” come for him. The Patient is a…

Holistic Horrors: EV Knight’s “The Flannigan Cure” from American Cannibal by L. E. Daniels

Disclaimer: An author and editor, I am not a mental health professional. Trigger warning: Addiction, grief, loss, animal death. Holistic Horrors: EV Knight’s “The Flannigan Cure” from American Cannibal by L. E. Daniels Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, alcohol-related cirrhosis claimed a member of my family in Australia. Johnny was so deep in the trenches in his final years, that when he stopped drinking, he experienced seizures, so he didn’t stop anymore. No conversations or bargaining or pleading altered the pattern bleeding the life from him and the slow, torturous death by cirrhosis was something I never wanted to witness…

Halloween Haunts Blog: Call for Submissions

From October 1 through October 31, the Horror Writers Association will host an online event to celebrate the month of Halloween and help horror readers and horror writers connect at the eeriest time of the year.

All HWA members are invited to participate in this series of daily blog posts, book excerpts, and more. Halloween Haunts offers HWA members a place to share Halloween anecdotes and stories to connect with new readers, spread the word about members’ new works, and raise the profile of the horror genre and the HWA.

Interview with Pete Kelly, Poet-in-residence for the Dracula Society

Pete Kelly is a poet and one time voice of the band Gothamistic. He has been a horror fan since birth, so he says. He works as a shipwright when not puddle watching. A Pushcart nominee for his poem "Walk in the woods," published in Space and Time Spring #140 and an Elgin award nominee for his first collection, What Appears In The Dark. Find him on Instagram as splatz007. Can you tell us about the Dracula Society and what your responsibilities as a poet-in-residence will be like? Pete Kelly: The Society was founded in October 1973 by two London-based…

Extended Request for Latinx Heritage Recommendations

Dear HWA Members and Horror Fans, Because we didn’t get as many suggestions as we would have liked for the 2024 Latinx Heritage interview series, we would like to extend our reach beyond nominations by HWA Members (who we always go to first for nominations). We are looking for authors to interview for the 2023 HWA Latinx Heritage in Horror interview series. We are interested in interviewing people who have not been interviewed in our past three annual series. Here is a list of the people who have already been interviewed: 2023 - Ashley Dioses, Leticia Urieta, Pedro Iniguez, Michael…

Nuts & Bolts: Author Todd Keisling on Self-Advocacy for Writers

Nobody becomes a writer because they had childhood dreams of negotiating contracts. Like it or not, according to author Todd Keisling, it’s part of the job for authors without an agent. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, Todd talks about what authors – particularly beginners – should know about self-advocacy.