A Point of Pride: Interview with Hailey Piper

Hailey Piper is the author of novellas The Worm and His Kings, winner of the 2020 Lesfic Award for Best Horror; Benny Rose, the Cannibal King, and her collection Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy. Her debut novel, Queen of Teeth, releases from Strangehouse Books in summer 2021. She's an active member of the HWA, with short stories appearing in Year's Best Hardcore Horror, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, The Arcanist, and elsewhere. A trans woman hailing from New York's haunted woods, she now lives with her wife in Maryland. Find her on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays or at www.haileypiper.com. What…

A Point of Pride: Interview with Polly Schattel

Polly Schattel has been a film writer/director, a teacher, a journalist and a videographer. She is proudly and passionately transgender. Her first novel, The Occultists, was published by JournalStone in July 2020. Her next book, Shadowdays, will be released in January, 2022. She loves the American South and doesn’t want to hear your complaints about it. She can be found at www.pollyschattel.com. What inspired you to start writing? I’m not sure I can determine what got me started. It just always seemed to be. My first “book” was a story I wrote and drew (and bound together with yarn) in…

A Point of Pride: Interview with Robert P. Ottone

Robert P. Ottone is an author, teacher, and cigar enthusiast from East Islip, NY. He delights in the creepy. He can be found online at SpookyHousePress.com , or on Instagram / Twitter (@RobertOttone). His collections Her Infernal Name & Other Nightmares and People: A Horror Anthology about Love, Loss, Life & Things That Go Bump in the Night are available now wherever books are sold. What inspired you to start writing? Heartache. Writing was one of the few things that has helped me deal with losing my dad two years back. Trying to process and deal with loss and the…

A Point of Pride: Interview with Jewelle Gomez

Jewelle Gomez, (Cape Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway) is a novelist, essayist, poet, and playwright. Her eight books include the first Black Lesbian vampire novel, The Gilda Stories (in print more than 30 years); which was recently optioned by Cheryl Dunye for a TV mini-series. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies including: Luminescent Threads: Tribute to Octavia Butler, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, No Police Know Police, and Red Indian Road West. Her plays about James Baldwin and Alberta Hunter have been produced in San Francisco and New York. Her new collection of poetry, Still Water, will…

The Seers’ Table June 2021

  Linda D. Addison, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community You can see any of The Seers’ Table posts since inception (March 2016) from the menu item “Diverse Works’ on the top of the HWA main page.   Jan Holden introduces: Erin A. Craig and her latest book Small Favors. New York Times-bestselling author Erin A. Craig has always loved telling stories. After getting her B.F.A. from the University of Michigan in Theatre Design and Production, she stage managed tragic operas with hunchbacks, séances, and murderous clowns, then decided she wanted to write books that were just as spooky. An avid reader, a decent…

A Point of Pride: Interview with Greg Herren

Greg Herren is an award winning author and editor who lives in New Orleans. He has published over thirty novels and about fifty short stories, give or take, and edited over twenty anthologies. His next novel, Bury Me in Shadows, will be released in October 2021. He is also working on a short story collection about things that go bump in the night--both human and otherwise-- tentatively titled Monsters of Louisiana which he hopes to finish before he is buried in shadows. What inspired you to start writing? I used to joke that I became a writer because I was…
The HWA Celebrates Pride Month

The HWA Celebrates Pride Month

The Horror Writers Association (HWA), the premier organization of writers and publishers of horror and dark fantasy, announces that they will be celebrating PRIDE in memory of the Stonewall riots and all of our LGBTQ+ creators and allies across the globe. “We are so excited to celebrate Pride this year,” said John Palisano, HWA President. “Although we can’t have a real parade and party, we’ll do so online.” With a remake of the HWA logo done up in Pride colors by Gabrielle Faust, the HWA will celebrate PRIDE with a series of short, fun and insightful interviews by Elis Aaron,…

Final Frame Film Festival Winners

The Horror Writers Association is proud to announce the winners of our Final Frame Film Festival that took place during our first virtual StokerCon. The Final Frame Film Festival is chaired by Jonathan Lees, Final Frame Director and our Director of Film Programming, StokerCon. This year our judges were ALEJANDRO BRUGUES, GRADY HENDRIX, BECK KITSIS, CARLEN MAY-MANN, LISA MORTON, and ED POLGARDY. The GRAND PRIZE goes to Tony Morales for Abracitos. 1st Runner-Up to Brian Sacca for Joanne Is Dead. 2nd Runner-Up is to Trish Harnetiaux for You Wouldn't Understand. Best Writing in a Short Film is a tie! Brian…

Update – #DisneyMustPlay Task Force

BOOM! Studios Begins Work with #DisneyMustPay Task Force The HWA is a part of the #DisneyMustPay Task Force and offers the following update. LOS ANGELES (May 25) – The #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force is pleased to announce that BOOM! Studios have begun to work with them to achieve the Task Force’s goals to ensure that all writers who are owed royalties and/or statements for their media-tie in work are identified and that Disney and other companies honor their contractual obligations to those writers after acquiring the companies that originally hired the writers. “BOOM! Studios strongly support all creators receiving any…

2020 Bram Stoker Awards® Winners Announced

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Bram Stoker Awards®. The HWA is the premier writers' organization in the horror and dark fiction genre, with more than 1,700 members. We have presented the Bram Stoker Awards in various categories since 1987. The HWA Board and the Bram Stoker Awards® Committee congratulate the winners and all the nominees. To see the recipients of the other awards presented at the ceremony, visit The Bram Stoker Awards®.

The Seers’ Table May 2021

Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Linda Addison recommends: Jean Nicole Rivers is a National Black Book Festival award-winner and author of three psychological horror novels, Black Water Tales: To the Moon and Back, Black Water Tales: The Unwanted, and Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers. All books in the series stand alone. She has also garnered awards for her screenplay, If I Die, from multiple film festivals, including the Shivers International Film Festival (Canada). She is the owner of a novel-writing software, Simply Stylus, and she teaches an online beginner writing course titled, “Simply Writing: An…

Horror University Online

HORROR UNIVERSITY is one of the most successful and popular aspects of StokerCon™. We are proud to now offer Horror University online for anyone who wishes to attend. Horror University furthers the Horror Writers Association’s focus on education with a curriculum run by some of the best and brightest in the horror field. HORROR UNIVERSITY ONLINE offers a series of 90-minute to two-hour workshops. They are not your typical workshop experiences—they are hands-on, intensive classes that include interactive activities and exercises. Workshops will initially be live events, but many will be offered as recordings year-round for students who register after the live session. To see…

HWA ‘Other Terrors’ Anthology Update

Dear HWA Membership, We’d like to provide a few updates regarding the status of the HWA’s forthcoming OTHER TERRORS: AN INCLUSIVE ANTHOLOGY. First, you’ll notice the title change. Formerly OTHER FEARS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF DIVERSE TERRORS, the editorial team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt worked with us to fashion a stronger, more marketable title. We are thrilled with the new title and feel that it better encapsulates our theme and positions us better in the marketplace. In addition, in conjunction with our HMH editors, we have narrowed our choices for cover artist down to two—and either will be amazing! Second, as…

Haunted Library Series at Bookshop.org!

The Haunted Library series now has a page at BOOKSHOP that gathers each edition in one convenient place. There's even a discount on each title. Please do consider diving in and exploring some of these titles. If you have? Help us spread the word! (#HauntedLibrary #Horror #HorrorWritersAssociation) Head over to Bookshop to see what we've got.

The Seers’ Table April 2021

The Seers Table! March 27, 2021 by HWAWeb Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community Linda Addison recommends: Jacqueline Dyre is the editor and publisher of Novel Noctule. You can find them in the sunshine state, drinking poorly-made coffee and consuming psychological horror in lieu of meals. They are one of the recipients of the 2020 HWA Diversity Grants. Novel Noctule is an online, monthly independent fiction magazine dedicated to intellectual and new weird horror; they use horror to shed light on the human condition. Issues contain two or three original stories, poetry, artwork, creator spotlights, and related works of terror. Their stories…

Academics Welcome

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is committed to recognizing and proliferating non-fiction and academic writing that seeks to expand the understanding of all facets of the horror genre. From horror film studies to close textual analysis of gothic poetry and all mediums in between, expanding horror discourse is a critical element to the genre as a whole. HWA contributes to the horror scholar discourse in a variety of ways. Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference Debuting at the 2017 StokerCon in Long Beach, the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference (AnnRadCon) was created by Michele Brittany and Nicholas Diak to provide a venue for…

Announcing JG Faherty as Our New Mentorshp Program Manager

After four years at the helm, Brian J. Hatcher is stepping down as Program Manager for the HWA’s Mentorship Program. Under Brian’s leadership, the Mentor Program experienced tremendous growth and saw major improvements in scheduling and quality despite the increase in participants each year. Brian will be focusing once more on his own creative endeavors, including writing and editing, and the Board wishes him continued success. JG Faherty, who has served as the Assistant Manager of the Mentorship Program since 2019, will be taking over management of the program. JG has been a mentor since 2011, and received the Mentor…