Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with LP Hernandez

LP Hernandez is an author of horror and speculative fiction. His stories have been featured in anthologies from Dark Matter Magazine, Cemetery Gates Media, and Sinister Smile Press among others. He is a regular contributor to The NoSleep Podcast and was privileged to helm the Season 16 finale. He has two short story collections including the recently released and fully illustrated The Rat King. His novella, Stargazers, was published under the My Dark Library banner with Cemetery Gates Media. When not writing, LP serves as a medical administrator in the U.S. Air Force. He is a husband, father, and a…

Latinx in Horror: Interview with A.P. Thayer

My name is A.P. Thayer and I'm a queer Xicano writer based out of Los Angeles. I write speculative fiction with a heavy horror bent, but try to blend genres as much as possible. My work has appeared in Space Fantasy Magazine, Dark Recesses Press, Uncharted Magazine, Los Suelos, Murder Park After Dark, and Glitter + Ashes, among others. I am also a staff member of Constelación Magazine. My heritage is a big part of not only what I write but my platform. I love talking about it, too! What inspired you to start writing? I jokingly tell people that my need for control is…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Manuel Arenas

Manuel Arenas is a writer of verse and prose in the Gothic Horror tradition. His work has appeared in various anthologies and journals including Spectral Realms, and Penumbra, both from Hippocampus Press. In 2021 he released his first collection of poetry and prose, Book of Shadows: Grim Tales and Gothic Fancies, from Jackanapes Press. He currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona, where he pens his dark ditties sheltered behind heavy curtains, as he shuns the oppressive orb which glares down on him from the cloudless, dust-filled sky. What inspired you to start writing? I was always into storytelling, even in grade…

Latinx in Horror: Interview with Ann Dávila Cardinal

Ann Dávila Cardinal is a writer and the Director of Recruitment for Vermont College of Fine Arts where she earned her MFA in Writing. She comes from a long line of Puerto Rican writers, including father and son poets Virgilio and José Antonio Dávila, and her cousin, award-winning fiction writer Tere Dávila. Her young adult horror novels include Five Midnights, Category Five, and the upcoming Breakup From Hell (1/3/23). The Storyteller’s Death, (10/4/22), a work of magical realism, is her first novel for adults. Ann lives with her husband in Vermont in a small house with a scary basement.  What inspired…
Introduction to Latinx Heritage in Horror 2022

Introduction to Latinx Heritage in Horror 2022

Intro to Latinx Heritage in Horror by Rosemary Thorne Things are looking great for the Latinx Horror community in 2022, and here is some proof of it. Apart from being nominated Bram Stoker Award for "Best Horror Novel for the second time," Cina Pelayo delivered a great edition of the "2022 Souvenir anthology," and will be Guest of Honor at StokerCon Pittsburgh 2023. Concurrently, Gabino Iglesias' last novel has made it to The New York Times, confirming Spanglish is trendy and "barrio noir" a valid subgenre. Many other Latinx authors are paving the road and accomplishing goals in the States…

Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islanders Heritage in Horror: Interview with Naching T. Kassa

Naching T. Kassa is a wife, mother, and horror writer. She serves as an assistant at Crystal Lake Publishing, as an interviewer at HorrorAddicts.net, and is a proud member of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Horror Writers Association. You can find her work on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Naching-T-Kassa/e/B005ZGHTI0 What inspired you to start writing? When I was in second grade, I realized I could write stories for my classmates. I wrote and illustrated stories about monsters and all kinds of fun, scary things. My friends really liked them, and this inspired me to write more. What was it about the…

Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islanders Heritage in Horror: Interview with Lehua Parker

LEHUA PARKER writes speculative fiction for kids and adults, often set in her native Hawai‘i. Her award-winning and best-selling series include the Niuhi Shark Saga trilogy, Lauele Fractured Folktales, and Chicken Skin Stories, along with many other plays, poems, short stories, novels, and essays. Her short stories have appeared in Va: Stories by Women of the Moana, Bamboo Ridge, and Sharks in an Inland Sea, and her plays performed by The Honolulu Theatre for Youth. A Kamehameha Schools graduate, Lehua is a passionate advocate of indigenous voices and authentic representation in media. She is a frequent speaker at conferences, schools, and symposiums, and mentors…

Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islanders Heritage in Horror: Interview with Lopaka Kapanui

Lopaka Kapanui is the author of four spooky story compilations about Hawaii and the people who live there; “Haunted Hawaiian Nights,” “The Legend of Morgan’s Corner,” “Mysteries of Honolulu,” and “Mysteries of Hawai‘i.” As a Master Storyteller, Lopaka has received a special citation from the Hawai‘i State Legislature in 2020 for perpetuating and celebrating local culture, history, language, and folklore through storytelling and knowledge of the Islands’ history and legends. In between scaring people and finishing his first novel, Lopaka enjoys spoiling his dog, Pi, and teaching his grandkids all about the classic horror stories and movies he grew up…

HWA Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Series

Tori Eldridge is the Honolulu-born national bestselling author of DANCE AMONG THE FLAMES and the Lily Wong mystery thriller series—THE NINJA DAUGHTER, THE NINJA’S BLADE, and THE NINJA BETRAYED—two-time Anthony Award finalist, nominated for the Lefty and Macavity Awards, and winner of the 2021 Crimson Scribe for Best Book of the Year. Her shorter works appear in the inaugural reboot of WEIRD TALES and numerous anthologies, including Missing on Kaua‘i in CRIME HITS HOME. Her screenplay THE GIFT was a semi-finalist for the Academy Nicholl Fellowship. Before writing, Tori performed as an actress, singer, dancer on Broadway, television, and film,…

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Usman T. Malik’s

Share

Usman T. Malik’s fiction has been published at Al-Jazeera, WIRED, Center for Science and Imagination (Arizona State University), in New Voices of Fantasy and several year’s best anthologies including The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy series. He has been nominated for the World Fantasy, Locus, and Eugie Foster awards, and has won the Bram Stoker and the British Fantasy awards. Usman’s debut book Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan won the 2022 Crawford Award from the International Association for the Fantastic in Arts (IAFA) and was on Washington Post’s 2021 list of best new science fiction and fantasy collections.

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Doungjai Gam

Share

doungjai gam is the author of glass slipper dreams, shattered  and watch the whole goddamned thing burn. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in LampLight, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Wicked Haunted, The Dystopian States of America, among other places. She’s co-written stories with her partner, author Ed Kurtz, that have appeared in Lost Highways and The Bad Book.

gam—a Thai-Lao-Eastern European blend—was born in Thailand and currently resides in southern New England.

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with K.P. Kulski

K.P. Kulski is the author of Fairest Flesh, from Strangehouse Books and House of Pungsu, from Bizarro Pulp Press. Her short fiction has appeared in various publications including Fantasy Magazine, and anthologies, Not All Monsters, from Strangehouse Books and The Dead Inside, from Dark Dispatch. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii to a Korean mother and American-military father, she spent her youth wandering many places both inside and outside the United States. She’s a veteran of the U.S. Navy and Air Force and as a former history professor, she often draws inspiration from the stories of the past. Find her at garnetonwinter.com and on Twitter @garnetonwinter. What inspired you to…

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Gabriela Lee

Gabriela Lee teaches creative writing and children's literature at the Department of English & Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines. Her fiction has been published in the Philippines and abroad, most recently in the Bram Stoker Award-winning anthology, Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (New Zealand, 2020). She received the 2019 PBBY-Salanga Grand Prize, which was published as the picture book Cely’s Crocodile: The Story and Art of Araceli Limcaco-Dans (Tahanan Books, 2020). She recently contributed the chapter "Digital Liminality and Identities in Philippine Young Adult Speculative Fiction" to Asian Children’s Literature and Film in a Global Age:…

The HWA Honors Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Horror Writers

Dear HWA Members and Horror Writing Community, May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States. Over the past several weeks, as I have engaged in conversations with friends, colleagues, and even relatives (as I grew up in Hawaii from age 11 onward and have cousins who are Native Hawaiian) I have come to realize that I have inadvertently contributed to the erasure of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders by not explicitly including them in the call for Asian & Asian Diaspora horror writers this May. Pacific Islandera, Pacificer, Pasifika, or Pasefika are the…

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Paul Loh

Paul Loh is a musician/actor/author. He has written around 100 songs. He has also appeared in several movies. He has written two novellas: 'The Nocent part 2: Advent of the Scathing' and 'The Greater Number' and edited a trilogy of horror anthologies of short horror stories called 'Possessions'. His story, 'Smart Phone' is in post-production to be made into a movie. He has a collection of his own short horror fiction out, called Solace In Solitude. A second collection of his stories called, Pockets Of Humanity will be out by the end of 2022. He is currently working on a…

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Kiyomi Appleton Gaines

Share

Kiyomi Appleton Gaines is a writer of fairy tales and other fantastical things. She was a 2018 Contributing Editor at Enchanted Conversation, and contributor to Mad Scientist Journal 2019 Spring Quarterly. Her work has also appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, and The Grimm Reaper. Find more of her writing at a work of heart and follow her on Twitter @ThatKiyomi. Kiyomi is an Asian-American of Japanese descent. She lives in New Orleans with her husband, two marmalade cats, and a snake.

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Lee Murray

Share

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 short fiction 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, is a collaboration with Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng and Geneve Flynn. Read more at https://www.leemurray.info/

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Nadia Bulkin

Share

Nadia Bulkin is the author of the short story collection She Said Destroy (Word Horde, 2017). She has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award five times. She grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia with her Javanese father and American mother, before relocating to Lincoln, Nebraska. She has two political science degrees and lives in Washington, D.C.

Asian Heritage in Horror: Interview with Grace Chan

Share

Grace Chan is an Aurealis and Norma K Hemming Award-nominated speculative fiction writer. She can’t seem to stop scribbling about brains, minds, space, technology, and identity. Her short fiction can be found in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Fireside, Aurealis, and many other places. Her debut novel, Every Version of You, will be published in August 2022.

Grace was born in Malaysia and lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her other interests include salt-and-vinegar anything and secretly filming her friends’ NYE karaoke highlights. In a decaffeinated state, she may cease to exist. You can find her online at www.gracechanwrites.com and on Twitter as @gracechanwrites.