Women in Horror: Interview with Ellen Datlow

Ellen Datlow has been editing sf/f/h short fiction for four decades. She was fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and SCIFICTION and currently acquires short stories and novellas for Tor.com and Nightfire. She has edited numerous anthologies for adults, young adults, and children, including The Best Horror of the Year annual series, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles. Forthcoming are When Things Get Dark: Stories inspired by Shirley Jackson and the reprint anthology Body Shocks. Her next original anthology is Screams From the Dark: 19 Tales of Monsters and the…

Women in Horror: Interview with Rhonda Jackson Garcia

Rhonda Jackson Garcia, AKA RJ Joseph, is a Stoker Award™ nominated, Texas based academic and creative writer/professor whose writing regularly focuses on the intersections of gender and race in the horror and romance genres and popular culture. She has had works published in various applauded venues, including the 2020 Halloween issue of Southwest Review and The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Series. Rhonda is also an instructor at the Speculative Fiction academy. She occasionally peeks out on Twitter @rjacksonjoseph or at www.rhondajacksonjoseph.com Thank you so much for chatting with me today!  What inspired you to start writing? I think I sprang…

Women in Horror: Interview with Angela Yuriko Smith

Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Uchinanchu-American and an award-winning poet, author, and publisher with over 20 years of experience in newspaper journalism. Publisher of Space & Time magazine (est. 1966), a Bram Stoker Awards® Finalist and HWA Mentor of the Year for 2020, she offers free classes for writers at angelaysmith.com. What inspired you to start writing? This is always a hard question for me. I don’t remember a time when words weren’t really important to me. My mom taught me to read before Kindergarten. I loved Ranger Rick magazine and any other thing with words. This included pieces…

Women in Horror: Interview with Patricia Gomes

Poet Laureate of New Bedford, Massachusetts from 2014 to 2021, author and playwright Patricia Gomes is published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including the New England Horror Writers Anthologies, Wicked Women and Wicked Creatures. A Pushcart Prize nominee in 2008, 2018 and 2021, and twice nominated for a Rhysling Science Fiction award, Gomes is the author of four chapbooks. Ms. Gomes recent publications include Tidings, Star*Line, Muddy River Review, Motif Magazine, Alien Buddha Press, and Apex and Abyss. Ms. Gomes is the co-founder of the GNB Writers Block as well a member of the Massachusetts Poetry Society, the SciFi Poetry Association, New England Horror Writers, the Horror Writers…

Women in Horror: Interview with Carina Bissett

Carina Bissett is a writer, poet, and educator working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism. Her short fiction and poetry have been published in multiple journals and anthologies including Upon a Twice Time, Bitter Distillations: An Anthology of Poisonous Tales, Arterial Bloom, Gorgon: Stories of Emergence, Weird Dream Society, Hath No Fury, and the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. V, VI, and VIII. She has also written stories set in shared worlds for RPGs at Green Ronin Publishing and Onyx Path Publishing. In addition to writing, she has edited several projects; the most recent is in the role as co-editor for Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas. Bissett…

Women in Horror: Interview with Alexandrea Weis

Alexandrea Weis, RN-CS, PhD, is a multi-award-winning author, screenwriter, advanced practice registered nurse, and historian who was born and raised in the French Quarter of New Orleans. She has taught at major universities and worked in nursing for thirty years, dealing with victims of sexual assault, abuse, and mental illness in a clinical setting at many New Orleans area hospitals. Having grown up in the motion picture industry as the daughter of a director, she learned to tell stories from a different perspective. Infusing the rich tapestry of her hometown into her novels, she believes that creating vivid characters makes…

Women in Horror: Interview with Donna Lynch

Donna Lynch is a two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated dark fiction writer, designer, spoken word artist, and the singer and co-founder—along with her husband, artist and musician Steven Archer—of the dark electro-rock band Ego Likeness (Metropolis Records). Her written works include Isabel Burning, Red Horses, Driving Through the Desert; and the poetry collections In My Mouth, Ladies & Other Vicious Creatures, Daughters of Lilith, Witches, and Choking Back the Devil, among others. She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and the winner of the 2019 Ladies of Horror Fiction Awards for Best Poetry Collection—Choking Back the Devil (Raw…

Women in Horror: Interview with Sara Tantlinger

Sara Tantlinger is the author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes, and the Stoker-nominated works To Be Devoured, Cradleland of Parasites, and Not All Monsters. Along with being a mentor for the HWA Mentorship Program, she is also a co-organizer for the HWA Pittsburgh Chapter. She embraces all things macabre and can be found lurking in graveyards or on Twitter @SaraTantlinger, at saratantlinger.com, and on Instagram @inkychaotics What inspired you to start writing? Poetry! I loved writing lyrics and poetry for as long as I can remember. Luckily, I think I burned all…

Women in Horror: Interview with Lisa Morton

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, and prose writer whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.” She is a six-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, the author of four novels and over 150 short stories, and a world-class Halloween and paranormal expert. Her recent releases include Night Terrors & Other Tales, Weird Women 2 (co-edited with Leslie S. Klinger), and Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances; her latest short stories appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2020, Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, and In League with…

Women in Horror: Interview with Monique Snyman

Monique Snyman’s mind is a confusing bedlam of glitter and death, where candy-coated gore is found in abundance and homicidal unicorns thrive. Sorting out the mess in her head is particularly irksome before she’s ingested a specific amount of coffee, which is equal to half the recommended intake of water for humans per day. When she’s not playing referee to her imaginary friends or trying to overdose on caffeine, she’s doing something with words—be it writing, reading, or editing. Monique Snyman lives in Pretoria, South Africa, with her husband, daughter, and an adorable Chihuahua. She’s the author of the Bram…

Women in Horror: Interview with Hailey Piper

Hailey Piper is the author of The Worm and His Kings, Queen of Teeth, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, and Benny Rose the Cannibal King. She is an active member of the HWA, with short stories appearing in Pseudopod, Vastarien, Cast of Wonders, Daily Science Fiction, and other publications. She lives with her wife in Maryland, where their paranormal research is classified. Find Hailey at www.haileypiper.com or on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays. What inspired you to start writing? I've gravitated to telling stories since I was little, going on and on about all kinds of strange ideas, and eventually, early books…

Women in Horror: Interview with Nancy Holder

Nancy Holder is a New York Times bestselling author and recipient of six Bram Stoker Awards. In 2019 she was named a Grand Master by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. She has served HWA as vice president and a member of the board of trustees. She and her co-writer Alan Philipson are writing comic book series for Moonstone and IFG, as well as a short story for the 50th-anniversary celebration of Kolchak the Night Stalker. Her most recent solo publication is “Chickens for Chompy,” a short story in the forthcoming Diablo House anthology from Clover Press. What inspired you to start writing? My…

Women in Horror: Interview with Marge Simon

Marge Simon lives in Ocala, FL, City of Trees with her husband, poet/writer Bruce Boston and the ghosts of two cats. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side. Marge’s works have appeared in Pedestal Magazine, Asimov’s, Crannog, Silver Blade. New Myths, Daily Science Fiction, more. She attends the ICFA annually as a guest poet/writer and is a founding member of the Speculative Literary Foundation. A multiple Bram Stoker award winner, Marge is the second woman to be acknowledged by the SF &F Poetry Association with a Grand Master Award. She received…

Women in Horror: Interview with Lee Murray

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 debut 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, a collaboration with Angela Yuriko Smith, Christina Sng, and Geneve Flynn was released in October 2021.   What inspired you to start writing?…

Women in Horror: Interview with Cassondra Windwalker

Cassondra Windwalker is the author of the new gothic horror Hold My Place. She has three other published novels, two full-length poetry collections, and a melange of short-form works in literary magazines, anthologies, and art books. She's lived in the South, the Midwest, and the West, and presently writes full-time from the Frozen North. She keeps company mostly with ghosts, literary characters, unwary wild animals, and her tolerant husband.   What inspired you to start writing? I don’t know that I ever started writing. My earliest memories are of me narrating the world in my head, my mom telling me…

Women in Horror Month Interview Series: Introduction by Lindy Ryan

Women in Horror Month HWA Interview Series: Introduction by Lindy Ryan From literature to film and everywhere between, Women in Horror Month (WiHM) celebrates and amplifies the contributions of women in the genre. This annual event embraces all those in horror who identify as women—championing a special sisterhood amongst women who shine brightest in the dark. Though historically underrepresented and oft-ignored, from Mary Shelley’s creation of Frankenstein—one of the most lasting and reanimated icons of the genre—women have always been at the heart of horror. We have been victims and tropes, Final Girls and Pretty Dead Girls, and caricatures by…

Black Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Jamal Hodge

Jamal Hodge is a multi-award-winning filmmaker and writer who is a sitting Board Member of Harlem Film House and Axs Lab. Hodge is an active member of The Horror Writer's Association and The SFPA, being nominated for a 2021 Rhysling Award for his Poem 'Fermi's Spaceship' and a 2022 Rhysling Award for his poem 'Loving Venus'. While his poem 'The Silence of God' placed in the 2021 Horror Writer Association Showcase. His Poetry is Featured in the Anthology Chiral Mad 5 alongside such legends as Stephen King, Langston Hughes, Linda Addison & Josh Malerman. Jamal's screenplay 'Mourning Meal' won 5…

Black Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Nikki Woolfolk

A latchkey kid of film noir, cozy mysteries, and gritty detective novels, Nikki Woolfolk writes humorous mysteries with a bite. What inspired you to start writing? I wanted to travel the world, but my family didn’t travel during my childhood besides occasional visits to grandparents. So, I created stories as a means to research places I wanted to visit and all it cost me was paper, pencils, and a library card. I needed to write about my grief of a loss that happened when I was kid. I wrote horror, a revenge piece that allowed me to speak loudly about…

Black Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Rhonda Jackson Garcia

Rhonda Jackson Garcia, AKA RJ Joseph, is a Stoker Award™ nominated, Texas based academic and creative writer/professor whose writing regularly focuses on the intersections of gender and race in the horror and romance genres and popular culture. She has had works published in various applauded venues, including the 2020 Halloween issue of Southwest Review and The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Series. Rhonda is also an instructor at the Speculative Fiction academy. She occasionally peeks out on Twitter @rjacksonjoseph. What inspired you to start writing? I grew up in a reading household where everyone read, all the time. My mother…