Message from the Board of Trustees regarding the Preliminary Ballot

The Horror Writers Association has been made aware of issues surrounding the receipt of the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot. While many subscribed to our mailing list have reported email notification of the Preliminary Ballot this morning between 11 and 12 Eastern Standard Time, some still have not received the ballot. Officers of the organization are looking into the matter with our administrators to ensure equal distribution of vital information, such as Bram Stoker Awards® Ballots, in the future. You can help us with the investigation into what happened by: • checking your inbox and your junk mail, •…

The 2022 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot Announced

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce the Preliminary Ballot for the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards®. The HWA (see https://horror.org/) is the premier writers organization in the horror and dark fiction genre, with more than 1,800 members. We have presented the Bram Stoker Awards in various categories since 1987 (see http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/)  Works on this ballot are not referred to as “nominees” or “finalists.” Only works appearing on the Final Ballot may be referred to as “nominated works” and their authors as “finalists.”  The HWA Board and the Bram Stoker Awards® Committee congratulate all those appearing on the Preliminary…

OLD WIVES’ TALE

Trigger Warning: This article addresses mental health.   Cindy O’Quinn is a four-time HWA Bram Stoker Award-nominated writer. Born and raised in the mountains of West Virginia, now living and writing on the old Tessier Homestead in northern Maine.
HWA Members New Releases – 2023

HWA Members New Releases – 2023

Welcome to the showcase of new releases! Select a book cover to purchase or learn more about it or the author. You can view the wall of amazing cover art from past years by using the dropdown in the menu above. And members, please sign into the members-only area to submit upcoming releases. Thank you! 2022-2023 Archives

Complete List of 2022 Black Heritage Series Interviewees

As we prepare to roll out the 2023 Black Heritage Month Interview, let's stop and take a look back at our first year of interviews from 2022. Introduction by Linda Addison Click Here to Read the Introduction Linda Addison Click Here to Read Linda's Interview Linda D. Addison is an award-winning author of five collections, including The Place of Broken Things written with Alessandro Manzetti, & How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend, and the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award®. She is a recipient of the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award, HWA Mentor of the Year and SFPA Grand…

Media Kit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE [City, State] – [Date] Horror Writers Association: Celebrating and Elevating the Art of Horror Storytelling The Horror Writers Association (HWA), the premier organization of writers and publishers of horror and dark fiction, today announces its continued commitment to fostering a greater appreciation of the horror genre in literature and media. The HWA serves as a rallying point for writers who confront the unknown, challenge the status quo, and explore the depths of human fear. Founded in 1985, the HWA has been instrumental in promoting the interests of horror writers and has played a key role in expanding…

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE RAIN? │ Tim Waggoner

Trigger Warning: This article discusses mental health. Written by Tim Waggoner In addition to being a writer, I teach composition and creative writing at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio. In my composition courses, I tell students to avoid beginning their essays with “According to Webster’s Dictionary . . .” and then defining a term that readers are already familiar with. “We don’t need to know what a dictionary says,” I tell them. “We need to know what you say.” So guess what I’m about to do? According to John Hopkins Medicine website, “Dysthymia is a milder, but long-lasting form of…

The Seers’ Table January 2023

Linda D. Addison, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community You can see any of The Seers’ Table posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selection menu item “Our Blogs / Diverse Works.” Rob Costello recommends: Headshot Photo Credit: Adrienne Giles Lamar Giles is the author of a wide range of books for young readers, as well as a founding member of We Need Diverse Books, which advocates for essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people. He is a two-time…

Recommendations Sought for 2023 HWA Black Heritage Interview Series

Planning is underway for the 2023 HWA Black Heritage Interview Series. This will be our second year for the groundbreaking series, and as with all of our interview showcases, we like to interview fresh voices every year. With that in mind, we’d like to ask members to nominate (self-nomination is acceptable and encouraged) authors of African heritage who write horror, dark fantasy, horror poetry, or any of the horror-related genres (including non-fiction) who were not interviewed in 2022. To nominate (or self-nominate) please send an email to me, Sumiko Saulson, HWA Social Media Manager, at sumikoska@yahoo.com The email should include…

Carina Bissett reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Carina Bissett joins us today with a reading of their poem, "A Lacing of Lavender" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmw0QL5oNIk Carina Bissett is a writer and poet working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple journals and anthologies including What Remains, Upon a Twice Time, Bitter Distillations: An Anthology of Poisonous Tales, Arterial Bloom, Gorgon: Stories of Emergence, Weird…

SERPENT’S WAKE: ADDRESSING TRAUMA AND RECOVERY

Trigger Warning: This article addresses mental health An interview with L.E Daniels This month on Holistic Horrors, the Wellness Committee is pleased to welcome author-editor L.E. Daniels (Lauren Elise) to talk about her novel Serpent’s Wake: A Tale for the Bitten, a beautiful and powerful novel which addresses themes of mental illness and recovery. A Rhode Islander living in Australia, Lauren Elise Daniels earned her MFA in Creative Writing with Emerson College in the 1990s. Her novel, Serpent’s Wake: A Tale for the Bitten was published in 2018. With Geneve Flynn, she co-edited Aiki Flinthart’s legacy anthology, Relics, Wrecks and…

Madison McSweeney reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Madison McSweeney joins us today with a reading of their poem, "Cannibal Mutant Maneating Spider" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IGkcyHYjXQ Madison McSweeney is the author of The Doom That Came to Mellonville (Filthy Loot), The Forest Dreams With Teeth (Demain Publishing), and the poetry collection Fringewood (Alien Buddha Press). Her short fiction has appeared in American Gothic Short Stories and Zombie Punks F*ck Off. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, blogs at…

Corinne Hughes reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Corinne Hughes joins us today with a reading of their poem, "Meadows" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIXBEUR6b_8 Corinne Hughes is a queer poet and fiction writer. Her work has been supported by Tin House and the National Book Foundation. Her poetry can be found in Passengers Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, Cirque Journal, Grim and Gilded, and is forthcoming in the next SMEOP anthology by Black Sunflowers Poetry Press. She currently serves…

Rook Riley reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Rook Riley joins us today with a reading of their poem, "Strange Geometry" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OWxGKNuEUw Rook Riley is a horror author, game enthusiast, and all-around linguistic badass trained in Krav Maga and spoon warfare.  Hobbies include binge-watching Netflix and collecting tattoos.

Say hi to Tom Joyce, the force behind “Nuts and Bolts”

Hey, everyone! My name is Tom Joyce, and I’m really excited to be part of the social media team! I’m doing a monthly feature for the HWA blog called “Nuts and Bolts.” It’s still very much in the beginning stages, but I’m hoping to keep the focus on features and interviews that will be of practical use to horror writers. Don’t get me wrong -- I’m no expert. Far from it. I’m an affiliate member, and new to all this. But I’m eager to learn all I can about the craft and business of writing, and what makes for good…

Colleen Anderson reads from POETRY SHOWCASE IX

Colleen Anderson joins us today with a reading of their poem, "Our Lady of Holy Death" from Poetry Showcase IX. If you haven't purchased your copy yet of the newest Poetry Showcase, it's just one click away. Better yet, collect the whole series! Reviews and shares are always welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYEZ_3YE0kI Colleen Anderson is a multiple award nominee, with poetry widely published in many venues, including Andromeda Spaceways, Lucent Dreaming, Shadow Atlas and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Colleen lives in Vancouver, BC and is a Canada Council and BC Arts Council grant recipient for writing and has performed her work before audiences…
MESSAGE FROM THE BRAM STOKER AWARDS® COMMITTEE

MESSAGE FROM THE BRAM STOKER AWARDS® COMMITTEE

The Bram Stoker Awards® Committee thanks all Horror Writers Association members who engaged in the Awards process for the 2022 season by recommending Works and sharing their Work, as well as horror authors, editors, producers, and publishers for submitting Works to the juries. This has been a very active and energized season, and as we move into its final weeks, the Committee would like to share some important reminders and an important request for HWA members’ cooperation in ensuring the integrity of the Awards (see “Important Request” below). IMPORTANT DATES November 30, 2022 is the deadline to submit to the…

The Seers’ Table December 2022

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Linda Addison introduces: Beatrice Winifred Iker (eye-kerr) grew up in the picturesque (and undoubtedly haunted) valley of the Great Smoky Mountains. As a child, they spent an incalculable time in their grandmother’s living room staring at the unending ridges and peaks; eventually, they decided to write about this bewitching place. A great passion of theirs is genealogy and ancestry. As a result, much of their writing lives in the southern gothic genre, where they grapple with the American South’s history, which is both terrifying and entrancing. Their stories feature characters and…

HWA Scholarship from Hell

The submission window for The Scholarship from Hell is now open! The SFH puts the recipient right into the intensive, hands-on workshop environment of Horror University that takes place during HWA’s annual StokerCon. Deadline: January 31, 2023 More information here: http://horrorscholarships.com/the-scholarship-from-hell/

Nuts and Bolts Interview with John Gray

Brooklyn-born John Gray is an award-winning writer-director-producer of films and television, and the creator of the long-running TV series, GHOST WHISPERER. He has written and directed many feature films and movies for television, including WHITE IRISH DRINKERS, starring Stephen Lang and Karen Allen; MARTIN AND LEWIS, starring Sean Hayes and Jeremy Northam; the Emmy® nominated A PLACE FOR ANNIE, with Sissy Spacek; the Emmy® nominated mini-series Haven with Natasha Richardson and Anne Bancroft; HELTER SKELTER, and many others. Gray has directed numerous episodes of broadcast and cable series, including multiple episodes of the NBC series GRIMM and was also the…