Halloween Haunts: Why Write Horror? by Megan Bledsoe

Halloween Haunts: Why Write Horror? by Megan Bledsoe   My mom remembers sitting side-by-side with me in a vinyl green recliner back when I was two years old. She had her arm around me, was cuddling me close, when I suddenly gasped and twisted to look behind me. "What? What is it?" Mom asked. "Scary man pinch me." Mom says that I said those words in earnest as I rubbed my backside, that I was dead serious.  I don’t remember doing any of this, but Mom says that she twisted around in that squeaky recliner herself and looked around the…

Halloween Haunts: Pangangululuwa by Victory Witherkeigh

Halloween Haunts: Pangangululuwa by Victory Witherkeigh   “Did you bring the crispy pata? It was your Tito’s favorite pork dish.” The woman sitting on the gravesite in front of me said. I turn my head, realizing that there’s a teenage boy behind me holding a silver tray covered in aluminum foil. “Yes, of course, Ate!” he said, yelling back as he maneuvered his feet to avoid stepping on the metal grave markers littered through the grass. It must be getting closer to starting time… Car horns and the smell of dark grey clouds of fuel exhaust caused my nose to…

Halloween Haunts – HWA and Halloween-Inspired Horrorky by Paul Lonardo

Halloween Haunts – HWA and Halloween-Inspired Horrorky by Paul Lonardo As a writer whose focus has always been prose, I had never even considered attempting writing in verse. The thought of composing a poem had always been intimidating to me. Just the mention of iambic pentameter makes me break out in a cold sweat. I was of the belief that poetry was something for deep-thinking, brooding, scholarly types who possessed some arcane ability to plumb the depths of the human soul and mortal existence with strings of words that held meaning I did not understand, nor even capable of comprehending.…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE RURAL HEART OF DARKNESS AND ITS MONSTERS by Nicole M. Wolverton

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE RURAL HEART OF DARKNESS AND ITS MONSTERS   by Nicole M. Wolverton The rural Pennsylvania hinterlands beg for monsters. It’s more than just the setting—sprawling cornfields, more than a few reputedly haunted covered bridges, dark forests, desolate mountains, and sparsely populated towns—it’s that there isn’t very much to do. Boredom breeds imagination. It sure did in my case. I grew up in a tiny northeastern PA town called Berwick, and that is where my monsters were born. That was never more evident than at Halloween. My mom can sew—and one of my grandmothers was a factory seamstress.…

Halloween Haunts: What the Drive-In Means to Me by David Sharp

The drive-in has always held a special place for me in regards to horror. It was an awesome place to hang out and watch a double feature with friends. I would go no matter the weather; being in the car with an outside screen and FM radio frequency was cool as hell. And as fall came into effect, as much as Houston, Texas would let it, it was a definitive Halloween season destination, especially around the full moon. My early experiences with the drive-in were as a child at The Gulf-Way. When my grandmother wouldn’t babysit me, my mom would…

Halloween Haunts: The Lighthouse by Elizabeth Mitchell

Halloween Haunts: The Lighthouse by Elizabeth Mitchell   I love St. Augustine. It’s a part of Florida that feels unlike Florida—or it did when I went there as a child. It was a slice of Europe with a splash of American tourism dusted in pirates. When my grandparents rented a condo there one year, I had a laundry list of things I wanted to do. Visiting the beach was at the bottom of the list. Museums, old homes, the lighthouse, and the ghost tour were at the top. Given that St. Augustine, FL is one of the most haunted cities…

Halloween Haunts: Helen Creighton: The Ghost Lady by Heddy Johannesen

Halloween Haunts: Helen Creighton: The Ghost Lady by Heddy Johannesen   Helen Creighton was a celebrated folklorist, author, and pioneer researcher. She is best known for her book Bluenose Ghosts about firsthand accounts of spine-chilling tales. Creighton excelled at collecting local folk ballads, folk tales and ghost stories. She is also known for her skill at collecting local dances, games, cures and proverbs. She was born with a caul. A person born with a caul will have a warning before danger. This proved true when Creighton explored the province in search of folk tales. One night she stayed at an…

Halloween Haunts: Rekindling My Love for Halloween by Sheri White

Halloween Haunts: Rekindling My Love for Halloween by Sheri White     I have a confession to make. I don’t enjoy Halloween as much as I used to. The holiday has changed so much for me over the past several years. When my kids were little, Halloween was an event. The day started with a breakfast of pumpkin pancakes before they were off to school. I was always the “room mom” for my youngest daughter’s class, so it was up to me to plan the class party—the games, the prizes, the snacks, and sending out the dreaded volunteer sign-up sheet…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE GHOST OF YOUNGER ME, STILL LAUGHING BY MY SIDE by Ronald J. Murray

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: THE GHOST OF YOUNGER ME, STILL LAUGHING BY MY SIDE by Ronald J. Murray   My earliest taste of bringing others frightful fun came on Halloween during my twelfth year. Almost annually, Halloweens were spent at my grandmother’s when I was a kid. I could see downtown Pittsburgh from her front porch, so the trick-or-treater traffic was abundant. This particular year, I wore one of those faceless, hooded ghost costumes, and instead of trick-or-treating, I decided to hang back and have a different kind of fun. I reclined along the space next to the concrete stairs that led…

The Seers’ Table October 2023

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Linda Addison recommends: London native C.C. Adams is the horror/dark fiction author behind books such as But Worse Will Come, Misery And Other Lines, and Downwind, Alice. A member of the HWA, he still lives in the capital. This is where he lifts weights, cooks—and looks for the perfect quote to set off the next dark delicacy. Adams has a story in The Black Beacon Book of Horror anthology releasing Friday, October 13, 2023 (yes, you read that right, Friday the 13th). The anthology features dark and disturbing tales of psychological,…

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A KIWI KALEIDOSCOPE by Lee Murray (and friends)

HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A KIWI KALEIDOSCOPE by Lee Murray (and friends) Recently, I asked the contributors of Kiwi horror anthology Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa (Clan Destine Press, 1 October 2023) what they thought about Halloween in New Zealand. Is it a thing? Yes, or no? What’s your take? My colleagues’ responses were both varied and insightful. Bryce Stevens, co-editor of the acclaimed Cthulhu Deep Down Under anthology series from IFWG, said no, “It’s not an important date” and Wellington poet Tim Jones agreed. “Not a huge fan,” he said. Although, in Tim’s case, location might be part…

Halloween Haunts: A Marie Kondo Halloween by JG Faherty

Halloween Haunts: A Marie Kondo Halloween by JG Faherty   Life is funny, and not always in the ha-ha way. We spend most of it moving forward into the future. Growing up. Getting jobs. A place of our own. Cars. The world advances, technology advances, life gets busier and more complicated every year. Things change over time, and not always for the better. This same transformation (some might say mutation!) has happened with our holidays. Traditions evolve or get lost completely. The simple things in life become commercialized and lose their meaning. Charles Schultz depicted this magnificently in “A Charlie…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Ashley Dioses

Ashley Dioses is a writer of dark poetry and fiction from southern California.  She is the author of Diary of a Sorceress, a collection of dark fantasy and horror poetry, and The Withering, a collection of psychological horror and supernatural horror poetry.  Her third and latest collection, Darkest Days and Haunted Ways was just released from Jackanapes Press.  Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Cemetery Dance Publications, Weirdbook, Black Wings VI: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, and others.  Her poem “Cobwebs,” was mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s recommended Best Horror of the Year Volume Twelve list. She has also appeared in the…

Halloween Haunts: Evans City Cemetery by Katherine Kerestman

Halloween Haunts: Evans City Cemetery by Katherine Kerestman   For this cat, The Night of the Living Dead is an essential component of the Halloween season, having its place of honor alongside the stories of Poe, Lovecraft, and Stoker; thus, it was a matter of destiny that on a chill and overcast October day I made my way to the Evans City Cemetery, which is every bit as atmospheric in real life as it is in the movie. The Evans City Cemetery is a macabre destination covered in my first book, Creepy Cat’s Macabre Travels: Prowling around Haunted Towers, Crumbling…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Leticia Urieta

Leticia Urieta (she/her/hers) is a Tejana writer from Austin, TX. She is a teaching artist in the greater Austin community and the Program Director of Austin Bat Cave, a literary community serving students in the Austin area, as well as the co-director of Barrio Writers Austin and Pflugerville, a free creative writing program for youth. Leticia is also a freelance writer. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Chicon Street Poets, Lumina, The Offing, Kweli Journal, Medium, Electric Lit and others.…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Pedro Iniguez

Pedro Iniguez is a Mexican-American horror and science-fiction writer from Los Angeles, California. He is a Rhysling Award finalist and has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Award for his speculative poetry. His fiction and poetry has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Never Wake: An Anthology of Dream Horror, Shadows Over Main Street 3, A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories, Worlds of Possibility, Tiny Nightmares, Star*Line, Speculative Fiction for Dreamers, and Infinite Constellations, among others. He can be found online at www.pedroiniguezauthor.com What inspired you to start writing? Growing up sheltered and overprotected as…

Halloween Haunts: The Amazing True Story of the Witch Who Wouldn’t Go Home by Nicole Willson

Halloween Haunts: The Amazing True Story of the Witch Who Wouldn’t Go Home by Nicole Willson I was nine years old on the night the witch came to our house for Halloween and refused to leave. The Princess Leia costume Mom made me was a big hit in my neighborhood, and when I returned home from trick-or-treating, my orange plastic pumpkin overflowed with candy bars, M&Ms, Jolly Ranchers, and other tooth-rotting delights. I dumped my haul on the dining room table, breathed in the happy scent of cheap, waxy chocolate, and began sorting all my treats into brightly-colored piles. Figuring…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Michael Paul Gonzalez

Michael Paul Gonzalez is the author of the novels BENEATH THE SALTON SEA, ANGEL FALLS, and MISS MASSACRE'S GUIDE TO MURDER AND VENGEANCE and creator of the serial horror audio drama podcast LARKSPUR UNDERGROUND.  An Active Member of the Horror Writers Association, his short stories have appeared in print and online, including the Chiral Mad 5, Qualia Nous vol. 2, Flame Tree Press Anthologies Endless Apocalypse and Gothic Fantasy: Chilling Horror Stories. He has also appeared in Tales from the Crust: A Pizza Horror Anthology, Where Nightmares Come From, Lost Signals, HeavyMetal.com, and Fantastic Tales of Terror. He resides in…

HWA Election Results 2023

HWA Election Results 2023 Los Angeles CA September 29, 2023 The Horror Writers Association (HWA) held its annual election in September. We had a number of amazing candidates for the four open positions of Trustee. Offices of Vice President and Treasurer ran unopposed. Our members have voted, and we are pleased to share the results. Please welcome our new Vice President, Lisa Wood, and our new Treasurer, Michael Knost. Congratulations to Lisa Kröger, Brian Matthews, and Angela Yuriko Smith on being re-elected as Trustees; and welcome to new Trustee, Brian Keene. The elected officers shall hold their respective offices for…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Fernanda Castro

Fernanda Castro is a Brazilian writer from Recife, also a freelance translator and copyeditor. Her work has appeared before in Strange Horizons and The Dark Magazine. You can find her on social media as @fernandaversa. What inspired you to start writing? I read a lot as a child, especially fantasy, under the influence of my older sister. Being always immersed in stories, writing was a natural development for me. I made fanfics where my school friends and I lived adventures in fictional worlds (Legolas, sorry to break your heart, sweetie, but I've grown up). However, the idea of writing professionally…