Women in Horror: Interview with Mercedes M. Yardley

Mercedes M. Yardley is a dark fantasist who wears red lipstick and poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of Beautiful Sorrows, the Stabby Award-winning Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, Pretty Little Dead Girls, and Nameless. She won the Bram Stoker Award for her story Little Dead Red and was a Bram Stoker Award nominee for her short story “Loving You Darkly” and the Arterial Bloom anthology. Mercedes lives and works in Las Vegas with her family and strange menagerie. You can find her at mercedesmyardley.com. What inspired you to start writing? I always wrote, but I needed to give myself permission to…

Women in Horror: Interview with Cynthia Pelayo

Cynthia “Cina” Pelayo is an International Latino Book Award-winning and two-time Bram Stoker Awards® nominated poet and author. She is the author of LOTERIA, SANTA MUERTE, THE MISSING, and POEMS OF MY NIGHT, all of which have been nominated for International Latino Book Awards. POEMS OF MY NIGHT was also nominated for an Elgin Award. Her recent collection of poetry, INTO THE FOREST AND ALL THE WAY THROUGH explores true crime, that of the epidemic of missing and murdered women in the United States, and was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award and Elgin Award. Her modern-day horror retelling of…

Women in Horror: Interview with Ellen Datlow

Ellen Datlow has been editing sf/f/h short fiction for four decades. She was fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and SCIFICTION and currently acquires short stories and novellas for Tor.com and Nightfire. She has edited numerous anthologies for adults, young adults, and children, including The Best Horror of the Year annual series, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles. Forthcoming are When Things Get Dark: Stories inspired by Shirley Jackson and the reprint anthology Body Shocks. Her next original anthology is Screams From the Dark: 19 Tales of Monsters and the…

Women in Horror: Interview with Rhonda Jackson Garcia

Rhonda Jackson Garcia, AKA RJ Joseph, is a Stoker Award™ nominated, Texas based academic and creative writer/professor whose writing regularly focuses on the intersections of gender and race in the horror and romance genres and popular culture. She has had works published in various applauded venues, including the 2020 Halloween issue of Southwest Review and The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Series. Rhonda is also an instructor at the Speculative Fiction academy. She occasionally peeks out on Twitter @rjacksonjoseph or at www.rhondajacksonjoseph.com Thank you so much for chatting with me today!  What inspired you to start writing? I think I sprang…
StokerCon® 2022 Update

StokerCon® 2022 Update

Hello! We are roughly sixty days out from StokerCon. The entire con committee is working hard to produce a convention experience we hope everyone will enjoy. Three eventful years have passed since our last in-person StokerCon in 2019, and we could not be more thrilled at the opportunity to finally gather together with our many friends and colleagues in the beautiful city of Denver. Aside from what we anticipate will be a joyful reunion, we have some exciting updates to share. We have released a major programming update, consisting of more than 30 panels, and more are in the works…

Women in Horror: Interview with Angela Yuriko Smith

Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Uchinanchu-American and an award-winning poet, author, and publisher with over 20 years of experience in newspaper journalism. Publisher of Space & Time magazine (est. 1966), a Bram Stoker Awards® Finalist and HWA Mentor of the Year for 2020, she offers free classes for writers at angelaysmith.com. What inspired you to start writing? This is always a hard question for me. I don’t remember a time when words weren’t really important to me. My mom taught me to read before Kindergarten. I loved Ranger Rick magazine and any other thing with words. This included pieces…

Women in Horror: Interview with Patricia Gomes

Poet Laureate of New Bedford, Massachusetts from 2014 to 2021, author and playwright Patricia Gomes is published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including the New England Horror Writers Anthologies, Wicked Women and Wicked Creatures. A Pushcart Prize nominee in 2008, 2018 and 2021, and twice nominated for a Rhysling Science Fiction award, Gomes is the author of four chapbooks. Ms. Gomes recent publications include Tidings, Star*Line, Muddy River Review, Motif Magazine, Alien Buddha Press, and Apex and Abyss. Ms. Gomes is the co-founder of the GNB Writers Block as well a member of the Massachusetts Poetry Society, the SciFi Poetry Association, New England Horror Writers, the Horror Writers…

Women in Horror: Interview with Carina Bissett

Carina Bissett is a writer, poet, and educator working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple journals and anthologies including Upon a Twice Time, Bitter Distillations: An Anthology of Poisonous Tales, Arterial Bloom, Gorgon: Stories of Emergence, Weird Dream Society, Hath No Fury, and the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. V, VI, and VIII. She has also written stories set in shared worlds for RPGs at Green Ronin Publishing and Onyx Path Publishing. In addition to writing, she has edited several projects; the most recent is in the role as co-editor for Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas. Bissett…

Women in Horror: Interview with Alexandrea Weis

Alexandrea Weis, RN-CS, PhD, is a multi-award-winning author, screenwriter, advanced practice registered nurse, and historian who was born and raised in the French Quarter of New Orleans. She has taught at major universities and worked in nursing for thirty years, dealing with victims of sexual assault, abuse, and mental illness in a clinical setting at many New Orleans area hospitals. Having grown up in the motion picture industry as the daughter of a director, she learned to tell stories from a different perspective. Infusing the rich tapestry of her hometown into her novels, she believes that creating vivid characters makes…

HWA Please Welcome!

Please Welcome Michelle Lane and Tina Pavlik to the HWA Social Media Team We are very proud to announce the latest members to join our Social Media Team, Michelle Renee Lane and Tina Pavlik. In the short period of time that they have been here, have already made themselves indispensable members of this team, working behind the scenes to code, schedule, and upload the Black Heritage in Horror series in February, and the Women in Horror Month series in March. Michelle Renee Lane Michelle Renee Lane holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. She writes dark speculative fiction about…

Women in Horror: Interview with Donna Lynch

Donna Lynch is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated dark fiction writer, designer, spoken word artist, and the singer and co-founder—along with her husband, artist and musician Steven Archer—of the dark electro-rock band Ego Likeness (Metropolis Records). Her written works include Isabel Burning, Red Horses, Driving Through the Desert; and the poetry collections In My Mouth, Ladies & Other Vicious Creatures, Daughters of Lilith, Witches, and Choking Back the Devil, among others. She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and the winner of the 2019 Ladies of Horror Fiction Awards for Best Poetry Collection—Choking Back the Devil (Raw…

Women in Horror: Interview with Sara Tantlinger

Sara Tantlinger is the author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes, and the Stoker-nominated works To Be Devoured, Cradleland of Parasites, and Not All Monsters. Along with being a mentor for the HWA Mentorship Program, she is also a co-organizer for the HWA Pittsburgh Chapter. She embraces all things macabre and can be found lurking in graveyards or on Twitter @SaraTantlinger, at saratantlinger.com, and on Instagram @inkychaotics What inspired you to start writing? Poetry! I loved writing lyrics and poetry for as long as I can remember. Luckily, I think I burned all…

Women in Horror: Interview with Lisa Morton

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, and prose writer whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.” She is a six-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, the author of four novels and over 150 short stories, and a world-class Halloween and paranormal expert. Her recent releases include Night Terrors & Other Tales, Weird Women 2 (co-edited with Leslie S. Klinger), and Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances; her latest short stories appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2020, Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, and In League with…

Women in Horror: Interview with Monique Snyman

Monique Snyman’s mind is a confusing bedlam of glitter and death, where candy-coated gore is found in abundance and homicidal unicorns thrive. Sorting out the mess in her head is particularly irksome before she’s ingested a specific amount of coffee, which is equal to half the recommended intake of water for humans per day. When she’s not playing referee to her imaginary friends or trying to overdose on caffeine, she’s doing something with words—be it writing, reading, or editing. Monique Snyman lives in Pretoria, South Africa, with her husband, daughter, and an adorable Chihuahua. She’s the author of the Bram…

Women in Horror: Interview with Hailey Piper

Hailey Piper is the author of The Worm and His Kings, Queen of Teeth, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, and Benny Rose the Cannibal King. She is an active member of the HWA, with short stories appearing in Pseudopod, Vastarien, Cast of Wonders, Daily Science Fiction, and other publications. She lives with her wife in Maryland, where their paranormal research is classified. Find Hailey at www.haileypiper.com or on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays. What inspired you to start writing? I've gravitated to telling stories since I was little, going on and on about all kinds of strange ideas, and eventually, early books…

On the Conflict in Ukraine

The HWA condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We stand for democracy. We stand for truth. We stand for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We support the people of Ukraine, including authors, editors, and journalists, as well as the people of Russia who are bravely protesting this attack. We hope to see a swift end to this senseless act of war. Signed, HWA Board of Trustees

Women in Horror: Interview with Nancy Holder

Nancy Holder is a New York Times bestselling author and recipient of six Bram Stoker Awards. In 2019 she was named a Grand Master by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. She has served HWA as vice president and a member of the board of trustees. She and her co-writer Alan Philipson are writing comic book series for Moonstone and IFG, as well as a short story for the 50th-anniversary celebration of Kolchak the Night Stalker. Her most recent solo publication is “Chickens for Chompy,” a short story in the forthcoming Diablo House anthology from Clover Press. What inspired you to start writing? My…

Women in Horror: Interview with Marge Simon

Marge Simon lives in Ocala, FL, City of Trees with her husband, poet/writer Bruce Boston and the ghosts of two cats. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side. Marge’s works have appeared in Pedestal Magazine, Asimov’s, Crannog, Silver Blade. New Myths, Daily Science Fiction, more. She attends the ICFA annually as a guest poet/writer and is a founding member of the Speculative Literary Foundation. A multiple Bram Stoker award winner, Marge is the second woman to be acknowledged by the SF &F Poetry Association with a Grand Master Award. She received…

Women in Horror: Interview with Lee Murray

Lee Murray is an author, editor, screenwriter, and poet from Aotearoa-New Zealand. A USA Today Bestselling author, double Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson Award winner, her work includes military thrillers, the Taine McKenna Adventures, supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra (with Dan Rabarts), and debut collection, Grotesque: Monster Stories. Lee is the curator-editor of eighteen volumes of dark fiction, among them Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (with Geneve Flynn). Lee’s first poetry collection, Tortured Willows, a collaboration with Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng, and Geneve Flynn was released in October 2021.   What inspired you to start writing?…