Indigenous Heritage in Horror Month: Interview with Erika Wurth

  Erika T. Wurth’s novel White Horse is a New York Times editors pick, a Good Morning America buzz pick, and an Indie Next, Target book of the Month, and BOTM Pick. She is both a Kenyon and Sewanee fellow, has been published in The Kenyon Review, Buzzfeed, and The Writer’s Chronicle, and is a narrative artist for the Meow Wolf Denver installation. She is an urban Native of Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee descent. She lives in Denver with her partner, step-kids and two incredibly fluffy dogs. What inspired you to start writing? You know, I’m not really sure! I know that one…

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: Thomas A. Bradley

Thomas A. Bradley Biography Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I live in Drexel Hill, PA with my wife, Linda, and our rescue German shepherd, Bullet. I served with the Army Medical Corps during Vietnam. I hold a Bachelor's Degree in Microbiology, my Master's work done in Virology. I have worked for a number of biotech companies. My short stories have appeared in several magazines, both print and online. When it comes to writing horror, I prefer to stick to the old-school style rather than the slash and hack. "Allow the imagination to fill in the gaps...the mind can conjure darker better…

Veterans In Horror Spotlight 2023: Mark Allen

Mark Allen Biography Born in Jacksonville, Texas, 1961. I can remember when LBJ was President. U.S. Navy, retired 1980-2001. I was a U.S. Navy Independent Duty Hospital Corpsman (HM-8425) and a Fleet Marine Force (FMF) Warfare Specialist. Deployments included the Middle East, North Africa, Central America. We went to a few places; we did a few things. Retired May, 2001.   Book Recommendation: Just Before Dawn  My new novel, Just Before Dawn, dropped on Friday, October 6, 2023. In this sequel to my critically acclaimed debut novel, Nocturnal, the Vampire once again aids the police, this time looking for a…

Un-Settling Horrortellers: Introduction to Indigenous Heritage Month 2023 By Shane Hawk

By Shane Hawk The captivity narrative. The Indian burial ground. The noble savage. The magical Native. Do any of these sound familiar? They’re just a small sampling of negative tropes against Natives that have been tirelessly employed over the last few centuries. Native Americans, Indigenous Americans, Turtle Islanders—whatever you want to call us—comprise one percent of the publishing industry, but dammit, we are smashing down the walls of our literary prisons and removing our metaphorical muzzles because we’ve got some shit to say, and we’ve grown tired of non-Natives writing us a certain way. Indigenous Heritage Month begins every November…

NUTS & BOLTS: INTERVIEW WITH NOVELIST AND HAUNTED TOUR OWNER JAN-ANDREW HENDERSON

By Tom Joyce While working as a ghost tour guide in Edinburgh, Jan-Andrew Henderson found a spot with all the makings of a real-life horror story – an eerie graveyard, a long-buried (literally) human tragedy on a grand scale, and a vicious supernatural entity called “the Mackenzie Poltergeist.” That served as the inspiration for City of the Dead Tours, which he now owns and has turned into one of the UK’s most popular haunted tours, renowned among tourists and travel writers for its mix of entertainment and historical fact. Jan-Andrew, a multiple-award-winning author and HWA member, did the research and…

Submissions will open next month for the newest HWA members-only anthology!

Submissions will open next month for the newest HWA members-only anthology! SCARING AND DARING ADVENTURES will be an anthology of original fiction stories that draw from the rich tradition of classic works of children's literature and puts a “scaring” spin on the “daring adventures.” These stories will be intended for middle-grade readers and will reference characters, situations, or settings from famous works of literature that are in the public domain (generally pre-1923). The anthology will be edited by Eric J. Guignard and published by HarperCollins in 2025. Examples of stories this anthology could contain include ideas such as: The March…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Ashley Dioses

Ashley Dioses is a writer of dark poetry and fiction from southern California.  She is the author of Diary of a Sorceress, a collection of dark fantasy and horror poetry, and The Withering, a collection of psychological horror and supernatural horror poetry.  Her third and latest collection, Darkest Days and Haunted Ways was just released from Jackanapes Press.  Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Cemetery Dance Publications, Weirdbook, Black Wings VI: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, and others.  Her poem “Cobwebs,” was mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s recommended Best Horror of the Year Volume Twelve list. She has also appeared in the…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Leticia Urieta

Leticia Urieta (she/her/hers) is a Tejana writer from Austin, TX. She is a teaching artist in the greater Austin community and the Program Director of Austin Bat Cave, a literary community serving students in the Austin area, as well as the co-director of Barrio Writers Austin and Pflugerville, a free creative writing program for youth. Leticia is also a freelance writer. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Chicon Street Poets, Lumina, The Offing, Kweli Journal, Medium, Electric Lit and others.…

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 Michael Paul Gonzalez

Michael Paul Gonzalez is the author of the novels BENEATH THE SALTON SEA, ANGEL FALLS, and MISS MASSACRE'S GUIDE TO MURDER AND VENGEANCE and creator of the serial horror audio drama podcast LARKSPUR UNDERGROUND.  An Active Member of the Horror Writers Association, his short stories have appeared in print and online, including the Chiral Mad 5, Qualia Nous vol. 2, Flame Tree Press Anthologies Endless Apocalypse and Gothic Fantasy: Chilling Horror Stories. He has also appeared in Tales from the Crust: A Pizza Horror Anthology, Where Nightmares Come From, Lost Signals, HeavyMetal.com, and Fantastic Tales of Terror. He resides in…

HWA Election Results 2023

HWA Election Results 2023 Los Angeles CA September 29, 2023 The Horror Writers Association (HWA) held its annual election in September. We had a number of amazing candidates for the four open positions of Trustee. Offices of Vice President and Treasurer ran unopposed. Our members have voted, and we are pleased to share the results. Please welcome our new Vice President, Lisa Wood, and our new Treasurer, Michael Knost. Congratulations to Lisa Kröger, Brian Matthews, and Angela Yuriko Smith on being re-elected as Trustees; and welcome to new Trustee, Brian Keene. The elected officers shall hold their respective offices for…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Fernanda Castro

Fernanda Castro is a Brazilian writer from Recife, also a freelance translator and copyeditor. Her work has appeared before in Strange Horizons and The Dark Magazine. You can find her on social media as @fernandaversa. What inspired you to start writing? I read a lot as a child, especially fantasy, under the influence of my older sister. Being always immersed in stories, writing was a natural development for me. I made fanfics where my school friends and I lived adventures in fictional worlds (Legolas, sorry to break your heart, sweetie, but I've grown up). However, the idea of writing professionally…

VETERANS IN HORROR SPOTLIGHT: THIS NOVEMBER

The time has come again. The HWA is going to be running the month-long Veterans in Horror Spotlight this November, coordinated by David Rose and Chance Fortune. We’re talking books this year. If you are an HWA member and a military veteran (defined as a former service member of any uniformed, national military), we invite you to join us. Please send us an email message to veterans@horror.org by October 20, 2023. In this message, please include: Your name Headshot (we didn’t keep the ones from last year) Bio (under 100 words) A write-up (under 250 words) on a horror book…

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 Lisa M. Bradley

  Originally from South Texas, Lisa M. Bradley now lives in Iowa, the traditional homeland of the Iowa, Meskwaki, and Sauk Nations, among others. Her work has been featured on the LeVar Burton Reads podcast and in venues such as Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny, and The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry. She has poetry forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her short fiction and poetry collection is The Haunted Girl (Aqueduct Press). Her debut novel is Exile (Rosarium Publishing). Learn more at her website or follow her on Bluesky @cafenowhere.bsky.social. What inspired…

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with John C. Mannone

John C. Mannone has poems in Windhover, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, and others. He won the SFPA Dwarf Stars Award (2020), was awarded an HWA Scholarship (2017) and a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature, and served as celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). His full-length collections are Disabled Monsters (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2015), Flux Lines (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2022), Sacred Flute (Iris Press, 2023), and Song of the Mountains (Middle Creek Publishing, 2023). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other journals. He’s a college professor of physics &…

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 Javier Loustaunau

  Javier Loustaunau (1979, Los Mochis, Mexico) is an author and game designer whose work has been featured in several anthologies and programs, most notably The Nosleep Podcast which is the #1 ranked horror podcast.  What inspired you to start writing? I grew up in a house surrounded by books so there was never a moment where I did not think I was going to write, it felt like everyone must write for there to be this many books. Really, I was just impatient to grow up a little and become a better writer, somebody who did not have to…

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 Samaire Wynne

  Samaire Wynne is a Puerto Rican author of over 20 novels in various genres, including horror and urban fantasy. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Black Raven Books. A longtime Californian, you can find her skulking about in southern Virginia. If you were to visit her at twilight, she might serve you flower tea or butter whiskey on her back deck. If she excused herself and strolled into the forest, you might be tempted to wander after her. Past a stream, you’d see a stone well at the edge of her property, and you might hear voices coming from deep…