Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Tish Jackson

What inspired you to start writing? —Many many moons ago, I entered a contest in elementary school on why an amusement park should relocate to our town and won! I won the essay contest and our town won the amusement park. It made me feel like my words had power. I started writing short stories right after that and finished a murder mystery in junior high and showed it to everyone I could get to read it. I was hooked and wrote everything! But scary stories reminiscent of the movies I watched with my Mom as a child came bubbling…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Chanel Harry

What inspired you to start writing?  I have drawn inspiration from many facets of my life. I have always been reading horror novels and watching horror movies since I was about four years old thanks to my mom. She used to read a lot of Stephen King and Anne Rice books which, of course, I picked up and read. So, I would say that my mother was the main inspiration, and I thank her every day for instilling literature in my life.   What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?  One thing that drew me…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview With Erin E. Adams

What inspired you to start writing? I’ve been writing since my childhood. There are still boxes of my old notebooks in my mother’s house. So writing has been a part of my life at nearly every step of the way. I think it started out of a need to make things and to engage with my imagination. I’ve also been a lifelong reader and for as long as I can remember, I always wanted to write stories of my own.   What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I love all things dark and hidden.…

Indigenous Heritage in Horror Month: Interview with Stephen Graham Jones

Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of some thirty novels and collections, and there’s some novellas and comic books in there as well. Most recent are Don’t Fear the Reaper and the ongoing Earthdivers. Up before too long are The Angel of Indian Lake and I Was a Teenage Slasher. Stephen lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado. What inspired you to start writing? I’ve been a storyteller ever since the first time I spilled kool-aid on the couch and had to explain to mom how my little brother had maliciously done this, and was probably setting me up…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Jonathan Reddoch

Jonathan Reddoch is co-owner of Collective Tales Publishing. He is a father, writer, editor, and publisher. He writes sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and especially horror. He has been working on his enormous sci-fi novel for over a decade and would like to finish it in this lifetime if possible. Find him on Instagram: @Allusions_of_Grandeur_ What inspired you to start writing? I have always been a writer; ever since I learned how to write I was making stories and inventing crazy aliens and monsters. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? The funny thing is growing up…

World of Horror: Interview with Marko Hautala

Marko Hautala is a Finnish horror writer whose novels and short stories have appeared in eight different languages. In 2020, his novelette "Pale Toes" (in Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories Vol. 1) was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. Hautala’s novel The Dark Architect is currently being developed into a movie by Matila & Rohr Productions: https://matilarohr.com/en/ What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I was seven or eight when I read a comic book version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Descent into the Maelström.” It gave me nightmares, yet I had to read…

World of Horror: Interview with Paolo Di Orazio

  Paolo Di Orazio has authored horror novels and comic books in Italian since 1987, and in English since 2015. He appeared in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year 2015. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I was hopelessly fascinated by horror during my childhood. Movies on TV during the early ’70s captured my heart forever. I love monsters, I love drama since I can remember. I was just a little child, so I really didn’t know what has drew me inside of it and why. I only believed that monsters were real.…

World of Horror: Interview with Kev Harrison

Kev Harrison is a writer of dark fiction and English language teacher from the UK, living and working in Lisbon, Portugal where he resides with his partner in crime Ana and their two cat overlords. He’s previously lived in various cities in the United Kingdom, as well as Turkey and Poland. His subterranean horror novella, Below, is out now from Brigids Gate Press, while his debut novella, The Balance, is also available through Lycan Valley Press. His short fiction collection, Paths Best Left Untrodden is available through Northern Republic. His debut novel, Shadow of the Hidden, arrives in March 2024…

World of Horror: Interview with Johann Thorsson

Johann Thorsson is an Icelandic author whose short stories have appeared in publications both in Icelandic and English, such as Fireside Fiction and The Apex Book of World SF series.  His first novel, the crime-horror novel Whitesands, will be out from Canelo UK's new horror imprint in early 2024 and blends Nordic noir with the supernatural. He grew up partly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe but now lives in Reykjavik with his wife, two kids and ever-decreasing space on his bookshelves. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I think maybe it was…

World of Horror: Interview with Tonya Liburd

Tonya Liburd is an Apex Magazine Reader’s Choice 2022 Fiction Winner, and is a 2017 and 2018 Rhysling Award nominee. Her fiction is used in Nisi Shawl's Writing the Other course and Tananarive Due’s Black Horror course at UCLA (which has featured Jordan Peele as guest lecturer) as an example of "code switching.” She is also the recipient of a 2020 Ontario Arts Council writer’s grant, a 2021 Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant, and a 2023 Recommender’s Grant for writing. She is an editor at The Expanse Magazine. You can find her blogging at https://www.Tonya.ca, on Twitter at @somesillywowzer, or…

World of Horror: Interview with Marty Young

  Marty Young is a Bram Stoker nominated and multiple Australian Shadows award-winning writer and editor, and sometimes ghost hunter. His fiction and anthologies have been nominated for and won numerous awards, while his essays on horror literature have been published in journals and university textbooks across the world.  Marty was also the founding president of the Australian Horror Writers Association from 2005-2010, and one of the creative minds behind the internationally acclaimed Midnight Echo Magazine, for which he also served as executive editor until mid-2013. As of 2023, Marty is the co-chair of Asylumfest, an all-new annual Australian horror…

World of Horror: Interview with Steve Stred

A two-time Splatterpunk-nominated author, Steve Stred lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, with his wife, son and their Staffy, Cocoa. His work has been described as haunting, bleak and is frequently set in the woods near where he grew up. He’s been fortunate to appear in numerous anthologies with some truly amazing authors. He is an Active Member of the HWA. Website: stevestredauthor.ca, Twitter: @stevestred, Instagram: @stevestred, Tik Tok: @stevestredauthor, Universal Book Link: author.to/stevestred What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? Honestly, I’ve always been drawn toward the horror/dark fiction world because it’s a genre that…

World of Horror: Interview with Neil D’Silva

  Neil D’Silva is an Indian author known for his books such as Maya’s New Husband, Yakshini, and Playthings among others, all of which have hit the #1 spot on Amazon India charts in multiple categories. His work includes co-authored works such as Haunted and The Spirits Talk to Me with noted paranormal investigators Jay Alani and Sarbajeet Mohanty respectively. He is widely published with over 12 books with publishers such as Penguin Random House, Hachette, Rupa, and HarperCollins among others. He writes predominantly in the horror genre.  Along with his writing work, Neil is also a TEDx speaker and…

World of Horror: Interview with J. Ashley Smith

J. Ashley Smith is a British-Australian author of dark fiction and co-host of the Let The Cat In podcast. His first book, The Attic Tragedy, won the Shirley Jackson Award. Other stories have won the Ditmar Australian Shadows and Aurealis awards. He lives with his wife and two sons beneath an ominous mountain in the suburbs of North Canberra, gathering moth dust, tormented by the desolation of telegraph wires. You can find him at spooktapes.net, performing amazing experiments in electronic communication with the dead. His debut collection, The Measure of Sorrow, is out now from Meerkat Press. What was it…

World of Horror: Interview with Santiago Eximeno

Santiago Eximeno (Madrid, Spain, 1973) is a Spanish-genre writer who has published several novellas and collections, mainly horror literature. His work has been translated to English, Japanese, French and Bulgarian. His last book published in English is Umbría (Independent Legions Publishing, 2020). His short story, “Noverim Te,” was included in the 2019 Full recommended list (Best Horror of the Year volume Eleven) by Ellen Datlow.  What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? Its power. Horror allows us to show the social reality of our world without limits. We can extrapolate real, everyday problems, playing with…

World of Horror: Interview with Flavius Ardelean-Bachmann

Flavius Ardelean-Bachmann is a Romanian award-winning writer of dark fiction, the author of nine novels and three short story collections for adults and children. His work has been translated into German, Russian and Hungarian, and he made his English-language debut in the first volume of the Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories. Flavius has a master of arts in publishing from the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, with a dissertation on the horror book industry, and has translated fiction from English and German into Romanian, most notably the cult classic The Other Side by Alfred Kubin. He lives in…

World of Horror: Interview with Daria Pietrzak

Daria Pietrzak is a writer of Polish origin, and has been settled in Spain since childhood. She has studied artistic photography with the intention of going into the world of cinema, although it is a dream that has never materialized. It was not until a few years later when she found another way to tell her stories, and since then, she strives to draw with words the images that populate her imagination. She is a lover of horror, to which she devotes most of her stories and novels, and of her free time, a fan of fantasy worlds and an…

World of Horror: Interview with Rosemary Thorne

Rosemary Thorne (she/her) is a bilingual Spanish writer, researcher, and translator living in Madrid, Spain. Born in 1968, she became an HWA member in 2019, choosing English as the most welcoming language for her horror fiction. Her first novel, El Pacto de las 12 uvas, was published in December 2021. She has also translated Edward Lee's The Bighead into Spanish for Dimensiones Ocultas Press. Her goal for the years to come is to populate the English market with her dreadful monsters. Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/Rosemary_thorne and Twitter at https://twitter.com/rosemarythorne_ What was it about the horror genre that drew you…

World of Horror: Interview with Kyla Lee Ward

Kyla Lee Ward is a Sydney-based creative whose work has garnered Australian Shadows and Aurealis awards. She has placed in the Rhyslings and received multiple Stoker and Ditmar nominations. Reviewers have accused her of being “gothic and esoteric,” “weird and exhilarating” and of “giving me a nightmare.” This Attraction Now Late (2022) was her first collection of short fiction, after two poetry collections and the co-written novel, Prismatic. Those That Pursue Us Yet, a dark fantasy novella set in Paris and . . . other places, is due for release in 2023. Delve deeper at http://www.kylaward.com/ or come chat at…

World of Horror: Interview with Somto Ihezue

  Somto Ihezue is a Nigerian-Igbo editor, writer and filmmaker. He was awarded the 2021 African Youth Network Movement Fiction Prize. A British Science Fiction Award, Nommo Award and 2022 Afritondo Prize nominee, his works have appeared in Tor: Africa Risen Anthology, Fireside Magazine, Podcastle, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, Nightmare Magazine, POETRY Magazine, Cossmass Infinities, Flash Fiction Online, Flame Tree Press, OnSpec, Africa In Dialogue, and others. Somto is Original Fiction Manager at Escape Artists. He is an acquiring editor with Android Press and an associate editor with Cast of Wonders. He is an alumnus of the Milford SF Writers ’22, and Voodoonauts ’22, and…