Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: Ray Zacek

Ray Zacek is a retired federal officer living in Tampa, Florida, with his wife, artist Theresa Beck. A flaneur and inveterate scribbler, Ray writes horror, dark fiction, and crime/noir. His work has been published by Critical Blast, Denver Horror Collective, Tule Fog, Allegory Online, All Due Respect, Shotgun Honey, among other venues. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association.

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: C.C. Winchester

C.C. Winchester Biography C.C. Winchester’s love of horror began at the tender age of five, when she started sneaking into the living room late at night to watch zombie movies with her parents. Her mother said that though her infiltration was discovered, and she was promptly removed, she would return in what she thought was stealth mode, only to be removed again. She currently writes in Dallas, Texas. Book Recommendation: Don’t Break the Oath, the fourth Women of Horror anthology published by Kandisha Press The following is part of a blog post I did about my first officially published story:…

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: David Rose

David Rose Biography David Rose served in the United States Marine Corps from 2002 to 2006, during which deploying to Iraq to participate in the second battle of Fallujah. Since trading the sword for the almighty pen, he’s crafted multiple collections and composite novels: Forsaken Fantastic and Amden Bog being fine examples. A forthcoming work is Monsters in the Bush, a collection of Lovecraftian military tales, soon brought to the world by Screaming Banshee Press. He lives in Orlando, Florida. He is a founder and co-chair of the HWA committee Veterans in Horror. Book Recommendation: The Scrolls of Sin I…

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: Luciano Marano

Luciano Marano Biography Luciano Marano is an award-winning writer, journalist, and photographer, the author of a trilogy of werewolf novellas, The Ambush Moon Cycle, and many short stories which have appeared in anthologies such as Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, The Best New Weird Horror, Monsters, Movies & Mayhem, and Crash Code, as well as Nightscript, PseudoPod, and Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. His written and photographic reporting has earned a number of industry accolades, and he was twice named a Feature Writer of the Year by the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association. A U.S. Navy veteran originally from rural western Pennsylvania,…

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: Pamela K. Kinney

Pamela K. Kinney Biography Pamela K. Kinney gave up long ago ignoring the demanding voices in her head and has written been writing ever since. Her horror short story, “Bottled Spirits,” was runner-up for the 2013 WSFA Small Press Award and considered one of the seven best genre short fiction for that year. She has various short stories and poems published in fiction and nonfiction anthologies, magazines, and online zines, a science fiction novella, an urban fantasy novel, five nonfiction ghost books, and a nonfiction cryptid book. Her horror poem, “Dementia,” got her mentioned in Best Horror of the Year,…

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 Pedro Iniguez

Pedro Iniguez is a Mexican-American horror and science-fiction writer from Los Angeles, California. He is a Rhysling Award finalist and has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Award for his speculative poetry. His fiction and poetry has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Never Wake: An Anthology of Dream Horror, Shadows Over Main Street 3, A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories, Worlds of Possibility, Tiny Nightmares, Star*Line, Speculative Fiction for Dreamers, and Infinite Constellations, among others. He can be found online at www.pedroiniguezauthor.com What inspired you to start writing? Growing up sheltered and overprotected as…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Carlos E. Rivera

Carlos E. Rivera is a Costa Rican queer writer and former English teacher. His debut novel The Local Truth: White Harbor Book 1, peaked at #4 in Amazon's new releases in horror by LGBTQ+ authors. As an anxious, introverted kid growing up in Costa Rica during the 80s and 90s, he always felt like something of an outsider. His refuge was escaping into and devouring sci-fi, fantasy, drama, crime thrillers, and above all things, HORROR. For years, these books, movies, comics, and even video games became his life. He plunged into the horror-next-door of Stephen King, the ineffable cosmic abominations…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Luisa Colón

Born and raised in New York City, Luisa began her career as a journalist in the late 90s; her work has appeared in numerous print and online publications such as New York, Latina, USA Today, The New York Times, and many more. Her other creative work includes illustration and two murals currently displayed at the World Trade Center. Inspired by her fascination with the cinema, Luisa also made a brief but successful foray into acting, starring in the award-winning 2006 indie film Day Night Day Night as well as the titular role in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2007 short film Anna.…

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…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Vincent Tirado

Vincent Tirado is a non-binary Afro-Latine Bronx native. They ventured out to Pennsylvania and Ohio to get their Bachelor’s degree in biology and Master’s degree in bioethics. Their first novel, Burn Down, Rise Up (2022) was recognized with the Pura Belpré Award, and nominated for both the Bram Stoker and Lambda Literary Award. We Don’t Swim Here (2023) is their newest novel. When they're not writing, you can catch them playing video games or making digital art. Find them on Twitter @v_e_tirado or visit them on their website www.v-e-tirado.com for more information. What inspired you to start writing? I feel…

A point of Pride: An Interview with Wendy N. Wagner

Wendy N. Wagner is a writer and Hugo award-winning editor. Her books include the forthcoming cosmic horror novel The Creek Girl (Tor Nightfire, 2025), The Deer Kings, The Secret Skin, and the Locus best-selling An Oath of Dogs. Her short stories, essays, and poems have appeared in seventy-some publications, running the gamut from horror to environmental literature. She is also the editor-in-chief of Nightmare Magazine and the managing/senior editor of Lightspeed. She lives in Oregon with her very understanding family, two large cats, and a Muppet disguised as a dog. You can find her at winniewoohoo.com. What inspired you to…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Koji Suzuki

Koji Suzuki is a Japanese writer, who was born in Hamamatsu and lives in Tokyo. Suzuki is the author of the Ring novels, which have been adapted into other formats, including films, manga, TV series and video games.  Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror? My first novel Paradise was a love story in the South Pacific during the Age of Discovery (my second novel was Ring) and my third novel was also situated in the South…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro started writing stories at age six; she's still at it. Did you start out writing or working in the horror field, and if so why? If not, what were you writing initially and what compelled you to move into horror? I started out just writing stories of the kind that I like to read, and most of those were genre fiction. I began mainly with fantasy—not entirely fantasy, but for the most part fantasy—and since I’d read an awful lot of science fiction in my late youth and early teens, I decided I'd try my hand at…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Nancy Holder

Nancy Holder is the former vice president and former board member of HWA. She is New York Times bestselling author of over a hundred book-length projects and hundreds of short stories, essays, and articles. She has received 7 Bram Stoker Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association and was named Faust Grand Master from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. She is known for writing material for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other intellectual properties, as well as novelizing movies such as Wonder Woman and Crimson Peak. She taught in the Stonecoast MFA in Creative…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Paula Guran

Editor, anthologist, and reviewer Paula Guran has edited more than fifty science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies and more than fifty novels and collections featuring the same. She was senior editor for Prime Books for seven years. Previously, she edited the Juno fantasy imprint from its small press inception through its incarnation as an imprint of Pocket Books. Guran edits the annual Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series (first ten volumes with Prime; now published by Pyr). In an earlier life, she produced the weekly email newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Stokers, an IHG award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Kathryn Ptacek

Kathryn Ptacek is the editor of the landmark Women of Darkness I and Women of Darkness II, published at a time when most anthologies included few or no women writers. She knew they were out there, though. She has published numerous novels, short stories, articles, reviews, and poetry in various genres. She edits the monthly HWA Newsletter. She is also the recipient of three of HWA’s awards: The Silver Hammer Award, the Mentor of the Year Award, and the Richard Laymon President’s Award. Her books are available on Amazon and from Crossroad Press as e-books. She also sells extra copies…

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…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Stephen Gallagher

Stoker and World Fantasy Award nominee, winner of British Fantasy and International Horror Guild Awards for his short fiction, Stephen Gallagher has built a career both as a novelist and as a creator of primetime miniseries and episodic television. In the US he was lead writer on NBC's Crusoe and creator of CBS Television's Eleventh Hour. His fifteen novels include Chimera, Oktober, and Valley of Lights. He's the creator of Sebastian Becker, Special Investigator to the Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy, in a series of novels that includes The Kingdom of Bones, The Bedlam Detective, and The Authentic William James.…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Terry Dowling

Terry Dowling is author of Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (International Horror Guild Award winner for Best Collection 2007), An Intimate Knowledge of the Night, Blackwater Days, Amberjack: Tales of Fear & Wonder and The Night Shop: Tales for the Lonely Hours. He has been called “Australia’s finest writer of horror” by Locus magazine, its “premier writer of dark fantasy” by All Hallows and its “most acclaimed writer of the dark fantastic” by Cemetery Dance magazine. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series featured more horror stories by Terry in its twenty-one year run than any other writer. Terry’s…