Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview With Errick Nunnally

What inspired you to start writing? It was a short journey from comic books to science fiction novels. My mother used to read comics to me along with Dr. Seuss and all the rest. Spinner racks for comics at local drug stores eventually led to bookstores and the sci-fi/fantasy/horror sections. Crazy covers!   What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I’ve always enjoyed monster stories. For folks my age, the gateway was probably Creature Double Feature, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and various late-night movie showings. I didn’t grow up in a neighborhood of readers which,…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Sylvester Barzey

What inspired you to start writing?  I’ve always been interested in telling stories, be it verbally or through poems, I even wanted to do comic books at one point. I wasn’t huge on reading outside of comics when I was growing up, so a lot of my horror and storytelling intake came from movies and TV shows. I never really thought of books as a medium for me to tell my stories, until like 2010, I was kind of overwriting poems and I thought about writing a book, but that intimidated me so I just told myself I’d treat each…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview With P. Djèlí Clark

What inspired you to start writing? Reading. I read a lot. And eventually, I started wondering if I could recreate the things I loved so much about reading. My earliest writing was just for fun—meant for myself, friends, and family. I didn’t start thinking about writing for a broader audience until well after college. Turns out, I had things to say.   What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? I find that horror speaks to something primal in us.   Do you make a conscious effort to include African diaspora characters and themes in your…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Ness Brown

  What inspired you to start writing?  I started writing as a kid. While there was no single catalyst, I was largely inspired by online writers posting their stories to personal blogs (all the way back in the Angelfire era). I was a voracious reader but only gained the courage to try writing after seeing other passionate story-lovers sharing theirs without expectation of money or exposure. I subjected my parents to my first terrible attempts and with their encouragement have spent the last two decades honing my craft and trying to remember to write without expectation. What was it about…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview With Lamar Giles

What inspired you to start writing? It was simply fun. I was young when I first started making up stories, maybe 7 or 8 years old and when I won a writing contest in 4th grade and was encouraged to keep going. It just felt like something I could do well the same way other kids might be good at shooting a basketball or science. I loved stories and consistently oscillated between reading them and trying to make up ones that were as good as what I was reading. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Justina Ireland

    What inspired you to start writing?  When I was pregnant with my kiddo I was terrified of losing my identity as a person and being reduced to little more than an incubator for the next generation. So I decided to do something I was afraid of trying to do: writing a book. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?  To be honest, for a long time, I resisted the title of being a horror writer, mostly because the genre classification tends to be a little reductive. Also, I’m not a straight white guy.…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview With Johnny Compton

  What inspired you to start writing? I got started in fourth or fifth grade and had some teachers encourage me as I got older, letting me know in one way or another that I was good enough to get better at it and that I just wasn’t trying hard enough. I didn’t pursue it in earnest until my largely fruitless first year of college when I spent more time in the computer lab working on a fantasy script idea than studying.   What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? When I was five-years-old my…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Eden Royce

  What inspired you to start writing? I’m from a storytelling family and culture. Exchanging stories at family gatherings, as we go about our chores, as we’re spending time together at the end of the day. We’ve always shared stories this way, and it’s a deep part of me. Also, I’ve always loved reading. It’s been one of my favorite pastimes for as long as I can remember. The desire to write my own stories grew naturally out of that. Sometimes it was because I wanted a different ending for a book I otherwise loved, and other times because I…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Jeff Carroll

  What inspired you to start writing?  I was inspired to start writing by seeing the 1999 movie The Mummy. I had made two horror movies but, they were low-budget and nowhere near the scope of the story in The Mummy. I decided that I could only afford to tell a story that big in a book. So, I wrote my first book Thug Angel Rebirth of a Gargoyle.   What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?  I love campy films like Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I liked the simple aggression. I…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview With Kenya Moss-Dyme

What inspired you to start writing?  Probably my love for reading! I’ve always loved books and learned to read at age four. I was one of the kids who read every book in the classroom library and got special permission to read at advanced levels. So, when my elementary school held a writing contest, I was eager to enter a story that I’d handwritten about a cricket astronaut who wanted to go to the moon (I’ll never forget that!). I won the contest and went on to enter each year – usually winning at least 1st or 2nd place throughout…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Nicole D. Sconiers

What inspired you to start writing? When I was a kid, I used to sit at the feet of my great-grandmother, Sallie, and listen to her tell stories. She had a way of captivating the listener with her tales of growing up down South, protecting her property from the Klan with a nine-shooter Winchester rifle she called Ole Betsy. I developed a love for storytelling by osmosis, just absorbing the colorful language and the joys and horrors of everyday life she shared with me. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?  I’ve always been drawn…

Black Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Kai Leakes

What inspired you to start writing? My inspiration to write came from just growing up and aching to see myself reflected in the stories that I loved. I used to have to do a cognitive dissonance as a child where I’d replace the white characters with BIPOC and myself because I became over-saturated with being given stories about children who did not look like me. It also didn’t help that I loved books so much that I was reading out of my grade level. This led to me developing my own stories In my mind. As I grew up, I…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Nisi Shawl

Nisi Shawl’s debut novel Everfair, an alternate history of Africa’s Congo region, was a Nebula Award finalist. They’re the author of the Otherwise Award-winning story collection Filter House. They edited both volumes of the acclaimed New Suns anthology series, winner of the World Fantasy, Locus, and Ignyte awards. With Cynthia Ward they co-wrote Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, a standard text on inclusivity for over a decade. Recent publications include the horror collections Our Fruiting Bodies and Exploring Dark Short Fiction 3: A Primer to Nisi Shawl, as well as Speculation, a middle grade fantasy novel about redeeming a…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Paula Ashe

Paula D. Ashe (she/her) is an author of dark fiction. Her debut collection — We Are Here to Hurt Each Other — was released in early ‘22 by Nictitating Books. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association and an Associate Editor for Vastarien: A Literary Journal. She lives in the Midwest (which is best) with her family. What inspired you to start writing? I’ve had the compulsion since childhood. I never wanted to do anything else. What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? Since childhood I’ve been drawn to things that have a…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Tracy Cross

Tracy Cross’s work has been featured in several podcasts and mass market anthologies. Her first book, Rootwork, was published by Dark Hart Publishing in 2022. She lives in Washington, DC, and is an active member of the HWA. She loves disco and shares her latest exploits and information on my blog: tracycwritesonline.com. She is on instagram as tracycrosswrites and twitter as tracycwrites. What inspired you to start writing? Subconsciously, it was a lack of representation and a lack of finding the books I wanted. I grew up in the 80's and there were hardly any black writers, outside of academia.…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Candace Nola

Candace Nola is an award-winning horror & dark fiction author. Her work includes Breach, Beyond the Breach (2021 novel of the year from the Horror Authors Guild), Hank Flynn, Bishop, and Earth vs The Lava Spiders. She curated and edited The Baker’s Dozen, the Splatterpunk award-winning, extreme horror anthology, in Dec. 2021. She has various poems and short stories published in several magazines and anthologies with more set to release in the next year. She owns and operates the horror website UncomfortablyDark.com which showcases her work and supports the indie horror community as a whole. The website features weekly author…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Ashon Ruffins

Ashon Ruffins is a native New Orleanian and a military Veteran. He earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, while also holding certifications for several other pro-fessions. He loves the art of storytelling in all genres and believes the best lessons in life can be told through fiction. Descent of a Broken Man is his debut novel. Ashon is also a huge mental health advocate. Ashon is married and the father of two beautiful children. He also has a passion for the culinary arts. He has to go now—his kids are waiting for him to cook. Social Media: Twitter: @lifethrufiction…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Tonia Ransom

Tonia Ransom is the creator and executive producer of NIGHTLIGHT, an award-winning horror podcast featuring creepy tales written by Black writers, and Afflicted, a horror thriller best described as Lovecraft Country meets True Blood. Tonia has been scaring people since the second grade, when she wrote her first story based on Michael Myers. She’s a World Fantasy Award Winner, and This is Horror Award runner-up. She lives in Austin, Texas. You can follow Tonia @missdefying on all the socials. Risen is her debut book. What inspired you to start writing? I honestly can’t remember exactly. At night, I used to…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with John Edward Lawson

While John Edward Lawson has been called “The forgotten black man of horror” he also regularly publishes science fiction, nonfiction, and literary fiction. His work has been nominated for the Dwarf Stars, Rhysling, Stoker, and Wonderland Awards in addition to the Pushcart Prize. For his work as an editor John received the 2018 HWA Specialty Press Award. He currently serves as President of the Horror Writers Association. What inspired you to start writing? Growing up in the 1970s with parents who had severe mental and physical illness I sort of had to raise myself while being their caretaker. We were…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Kirk A. Johnson

Born in Trinidad in 1971, he credits his love for Sword & Sorcery and Heroic Fantasy from watching old movies with his dad. The very first novel he read was The Hobbit at age 8, and is an avid fan of Conan the Barbarian Marvel comic series. In 2005, he began writing his own fantasy adventure short stories, and in 2014, he sold his first short story to MVmedia LLC for its first anthology Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology. In 2022 he released The Obanaax and Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors. His very first collection of short stories…