Horror Roundtable 10 – The Long Hard Road

When: July 17, 2013 Time: 8.30pm EST (use the Time Zone Converter to find your local time) The Long Hard Road One thousand and one (or perhaps a few less) lessons learned along the long hard road to publication. Tips and suggestions that might help other writers get published, things you've discovered the hard way through trial and error--or should these mistakes be withheld from new writers so they can 'earn their stripes?' Let's cover the gambit, from writing classes and critique groups, submitting via the top down approach or to 'exposure' markets first, replying to rejections, hounding editors and other writers at cons--the…
2012 Bram Stoker Award® Winners

2012 Bram Stoker Award® Winners

The Horror Writers Association chose a historic hotel in the haunted city of New Orleans to announce the winners of the 2012 Bram Stoker Awards® tonight. The presentations were made at a banquet held as the highlight of the Bram Stoker Awards Weekend, which this year incorporated the World Horror Convention. Fifteen new bronze haunted-house statuettes were handed over to the writers responsible for creating superior works of horror last year. This year’s winners are: Superior Achievement in a NOVEL The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc) Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL Life Rage by L.L. Soares (Nightscape…

SPECIAL DEAD by HWA Member Patrick Freivald

Author: Patrick Freivald SPECIAL DEAD Shackled to her desk, Ani Romero has a hard time concentrating on her studies. One of eight zombie survivors of the Prompocalypse, she’s back at school, but this time it’s no secret. Locked in their room, flamethrower-toting soldiers watching their every move, they’re tasked with homework and classes during the week, and macabre experiments on the weekend. When the courts rule they’re not human, only an appeal keeps them alive long enough to discover a cure. College applications and SATs pale under the threat of incineration, and desperation turns them into lab rats… …but the…

WISH YOU WERE HERE: ADVENTURES IN CEMETERY TRAVEL by HWA member Loren Rhoads

Author: Loren Rhoads WISH YOU WERE HERE: ADVENTURES IN CEMETERY TRAVEL Over the past two decades, Loren Rhoads has visited literally hundreds of graveyards. She’s traveled to London’s Highgate Cemetery, strolled through the Paris Catacombs, seen Hollywood Forever pulled back from the brink of destruction, studied Native American graveyards in Michigan, explored a circuit minister’s churchyard on Maui, delved into the Protestant Cemetery of Rome and Zoshigaya Reien in Tokyo, and made stops in Prague, Boston, Los Angeles, Hiroshima, Yosemite, Sleepy Hollow, Gettysburg, and New Orleans along the way. Come along on her adventures in cemeteries around the world. “Lovingly…

SUMMER’S END by HWA Member Lisa Morton

Author: Lisa Morton SUMMER'S END When Lisa Morton, author of The Halloween Encyclopedia, is called in to consult on the recent discovery of a fifteen-hundred-year-old Celtic manuscript, she’s at first excited about the light this monumental find might shed on Samhain, the mysterious Celtic precursor to Halloween. Conor ó Cuinn, the Irish archaeologist who excavated the manuscript, thinks it reveals ancient magic. Lisa is skeptical…until people around her begin dying. Dr. Wilson Armitage, the university professor who was translating the manuscript, is found torn apart by wild animals…or was he actually attacked by vicious sidh, malicious Celtic spirits that wreak…

SMOG / BAGGAGE OF ETERNAL NIGHT (Double Down #2) by HWA Members Lisa Morton and Eric J. Guignard

Authors: Lisa Morton and Eric J. Guignard In Smog, tomboy Joey thinks she’s got the perfect life: It’s 1965 and she lives in an idyllic Southern California suburb where everyone works for the aerospace industry. But when something goes wrong with a rocket test, the smog thickens and the teenagers change into rampaging killers. Can Joey survive long enough to escape the neighborhood before she joins their ranks? BAGGAGE OF ETERNAL NIGHT: 1963 Detroit is a hotbed of gambling, and the weekly baggage auctions keep a busy trade. Regulars, Charlie Stewart and Joey Third, are skilled in the methods of…

Scary Out There: A Blog on Horror in Young Adult Fiction – A Chat with Melissa de la Cruz

Welcome back to SCARY OUT THERE, the Horror Writers Association’s new blog on scary fiction for teens. My guest this week is Melissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of a slew of critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including the BLUE BLOODS series, The AU PAIR series, The ASHLEYS series, Angels on Sunset Boulevard, Girl Stays in the Picture, and the Witches of East End series. She has worked as a fashion and beauty editor and has written for dozens of publications including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar,…
July in Poetry: Dorr, Deininger, Faherty, Bilof

July in Poetry: Dorr, Deininger, Faherty, Bilof

This time we have the poetry of Keith Deininger, J G Faherty and Vincenzo Bilof. We also are including an archived Blood & Spades column by James Dorr. *** Art copyright Sandy DeLuca 2013 * "Memento of Truth" by Vincenzo Bilof   You can die this way, cry this way, hide this day, burn this fate. Nobody has to unravel the mystery behind my eyes, the natural and super-mystical way I carve into your thighs. Slightly, (one gash) a sordid, artistically-placed em-dash. Is that a tear I see fall from those bright white orbs?   (Can't you see)   this…
2014 Bram Stoker Award® banquet site is now live!

2014 Bram Stoker Award® banquet site is now live!

Our new website promoting the Bram Stoker Award® Banquet at World Horror Convention in Portland next May is now live. No word yet from the organizers about when banquet tickets will go on sale. Thanks go to our Platinum Sponsor, Samhain Horror (renewing for a third year and allowing us to once again webcast the event) and Supporting Sponsor JournalStone: www.stokers2014.org
Stephen King on Richard Matheson’s Passing

Stephen King on Richard Matheson’s Passing

We've lost one of the giants of the fantasy and horror genres. From THE BEARDLESS WARRIORS, his brilliant (and largely unread) World War II novel, to THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN and all the wonderful TWILIGHT ZONE scripts and stories, Matheson fired the imaginations of three generations of writers. Without his I AM LEGEND, there would have been no NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD; without NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, there would have been no WALKING DEAD, 28 DAYS LATER, or WORLD WAR Z. Matheson wrote the script for Steven Spielberg's extraordinary film, DUEL, and created one of the most brain-freezingly…
Bram Stoker Award® Winners Photo

Bram Stoker Award® Winners Photo

The 2012 Bram Stoker Award® winners: Top row (left to right): Mort Castle, L.L. Soares, Jerad Walters, Rocky Wood, Jonathan Maberry. Lower row/middle: Sam Weller, James Chambers, Lucy Snyder, Marge Simon, Robert McCammon, Caitlin R. Kiernan (seated), Charles Day, Lisa Morton (Photo by Stacy Scranton) (Not pictured: Gene O'Neill, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, Joyce Carol Oates, and Clive Barker)
Live webcast on the Bram Stoker Awards®

Live webcast on the Bram Stoker Awards®

For the third year running, the Bram Stoker Awards® will be webcast live, this time direct from the Queen Anne Ballroom in the Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans. We thank our Platinum Sponsor, Samhain Publishing, without whose generous support this would not be possible. Tune in from 10pm US Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday 15 June! Live Webcast Link

Scary Out There: A Blog on Horror in Young Adult Fiction: A Chat with Kendare Blake

Welcome back to SCARY OUT THERE, the Horror Writers Association’s new blog on scary fiction for teens. My guest this week is Kendare Blake, author of the critically acclaimed ANN DRESSED IN BLOOD. Kendare lives and writes in Lynnwood, Washington. She writes books, enjoys scary movies, digs trying new food, goes hiking and plays (she insists) really bad tennis. JONATHAN MABERRY: Welcome aboard, Kendare. Let’s jump right to the big question upon which Scary Out There is built. What scares you? KENDARE BLAKE: Uncertainty scares me. The unknown. JONATHAN MABERRY: How so--? KENDARE BLAKE: It's a fairly universal human fear, and it scared me…

Horror Roundtable 9 – The Future of Agents

When: June 10, 2013 Time: 3pm EST (use the Time Zone Converter to find your local time) The Future of Agents Do you think all the recent technological advances in publishing are sounding the death knell for the literary agent? Agents used to be the gatekeepers in the classical publishing model, deciding who gets through and who remains in obscurity, but that barrier seems full of holes now. If literary agents are to remain part of the publishing process, how will they need to adapt? * * * * * You can follow the Roundtable discussion in the comments section of this post. Note:…
Interview with Ramsey Campbell at Darkeva’s Dark Delights

Interview with Ramsey Campbell at Darkeva’s Dark Delights

Darkeva interviews World Horror Convention’s Guest of Honor, Ramsey Campbell. Darkeva: To quote the Oxford Companion to English Literature, you’re “Britain’s most respected living horror writer,” which is a great esteem. What do you feel have been some of the great honors of your writing career so far? RC: Well, that was certainly one. The Lifetime Achievement awards from HWA and WHC were two spectacular ones, and some years ago I was honoured in Rome at the Fantafestival with a similar career award, together with the great Ennio Morricone, no less. But having my own issue of Weird Tales –…

Scary Out There: A Blog on Horror in Young Adult Fiction: A Chat with Ilsa Bick

Welcome back to SCARY OUT THERE, the Horror Writers Association’s new blog on scary fiction for teens. My guest this week is Ilsa J. Bick. Ilsa’s bio reads like it belongs to ten other people. She’s a child psychiatrist, a film scholar, a surgeon wannabe, a former Air Force major, and an award-winning author of dozens of short stories and novels, including the critically acclaimed Draw the Dark (Carolrhoda Lab, 2010); Drowning Instinct (Carolrhoda Lab, 2012); Ashes, the first book in her YA apocalyptic thriller trilogy (Egmont USA, 2011) and Shadows (2012); and the just-released The Sin-Eater’s Confession (Carolrhoda Lab, 2013). Forthcoming:  Monsters, the final volume of the ASHES Trilogy, (Egmont USA,…
The Future of Agents to be decided on Monday

The Future of Agents to be decided on Monday

The HWA’s ninth Horror Roundtable will take place on Monday the 10th of June at 3pm EST. It’s a topic a lot of folks have asked about, and one very relevant to the current state of the publishing industry. The topic this round is The Future of Agents (thanks for the idea, Joe McKinney!). Please join our special guest Joe McKinney, Robert Fleck, Doug Grad, and Richard Curtis, as they discuss the following: “Do you think all the recent technological advances in publishing are sounding the death knell for the literary agent? Agents used to be the gatekeepers in the classical publishing…

HORROR! UNDER THE TOMBSTONE by HWA Member David A. Sutton (Editor)

Author: David A. Sutton (Editor) IMAGINE THE SIXTIES and Seventies... Hammer films and American International Pictures... The time of Plague of the Zombies, Lust for a Vampire, Quatermass and the Pit, Tales of Terror, The Haunted Palace and The Masque of the Red Death. Imagine we're back there now. No mobile phones, no videotapes or DVDs, no personal computers. And iPads and Kindles are decades away. Where we are now, music is played on vinyl records with a stylus picking up the recorded sound on an old fashioned "radiogram" or a "portable" record player. Horror stories had their emphasis on…