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…

The 2021 Bram Stoker Awards® Final Ballot Announced

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce the Final Ballot for the 2021 Bram Stoker Awards®. The HWA (see https://horror.org/) is the premiere writers' organization in the horror and dark fiction genre, with more than 1,800 members. We have presented the Bram Stoker Awards in various categories since 1987 (see http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/) Works appearing on this Ballot are Bram Stoker Award® Nominees for Superior Achievement in their Category, e.g., Novel, and everyone may refer to them as such immediately after the announcement. The HWA Board and the Bram Stoker Awards® Committee congratulate all those appearing on the Final Ballot. Notes…

Black Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Linda D. Addison

Linda D. Addison is an award-winning author of five collections, including The Place of Broken Things written with Alessandro Manzetti, & How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend, and the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award®. She is a recipient of the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award, HWA Mentor of the Year and SFPA Grand Master of Fantastic Poetry. Addison has published over 380 poems, stories and articles and is a member of CITH, HWA, SFWA and SFPA. She is a co-editor of Sycorax’s Daughters, an anthology of horror fiction/poetry by African-American women. Catch her work…
Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Nicole Givens Kurtz

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Nicole Givens Kurtz

Nicole Givens Kurtz, Publisher. Educator. Author. Mom. Nicole loves reading, writing, and anime. She enjoys reading works that promote women of color and futuristic settings. She also loves a good mystery. She started Mocha Memoirs Press to provide more diversity in speculative fiction. She’s also a scribbler of tales. She's the recipient of the Ladies of Horror Grant (2021), the Horror Writers Association's Diversity Grant (2020) and the Atomacon Palmetto Scribe Award-Best Short Story 2021. She's been named as one of Book Riot's 6 Best Black Indie SFF Writers and editor of Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire. What inspired…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Jim Potts

Jim Potts, JD is a lawyer and author with a B.A. and Juris Doctorate Degree. He is a former Reserve Captain, a P.O.S.T. Certified Terrorist Investigator, a member of the Open Source Intelligence Team, and was with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for twenty years, achieving the rank of Captain. Potts is a certified Mediator through the Los Angeles County Bar Association and a former Master Teacher for the University of Phoenix (Southern California Campus), having taught undergraduate and graduate levels. His course curriculums included United States Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Ethics, Business Law, and Employment Law.…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Tenea D. Johnson

Tenea D. Johnson is a multimedia storyteller, musician, editor, arts & empowerment entrepreneur, and award-winning author of 7 speculative fiction works, including 2021’s releases, Frequencies, a Fiction Album and Broken Fevers, of which Publisher’s Weekly wrote “the 14 hard-hitting, memorable short stories and prose vignettes in this powerhouse collection … are astounding in their originality” (starred review). Her debut novel Smoketown won the Parallax Award for excellence in a speculative fiction work by a person of color while R/evolution earned an honorable mention that year as well. What inspired you to start writing? I don’t know that I was ever…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Nzondi

Nzondi (Ace Antonio Hall) is an American science fiction and horror author. His novel Oware Mosaic won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Young Adult fiction. His latest novel, Lipstick Asylum, won Book of the Year and Thriller of the Year awards from SW Book Reviews. It also received a 5-star rating from Readers’ Favorite. Among his many short stories that were published in anthologies and print magazines, Hall’s short story, “Raising Mary: Frankenstein”, was nominated for the 2016 horror story of the year for the 19th Annual Editors and Preditors Readers Poll. Additionally, three of his short…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Michelle Renee Lane

Michelle Renee Lane holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and recently joined the faculty of the Speculative Fiction Academy. She writes dark speculative fiction about identity politics and women of color battling their inner demons while fighting/falling in love with monsters. Her work includes elements of fantasy, horror, romance, and erotica. Her short fiction appears in several anthologies and has been featured on The Wicked Library podcast. Her Bram Stoker Award nominated debut novel, Invisible Chains, is available from Haverhill House Publishing. Her nonfiction can be found at Medium, Speculative Chic, and in Writers Workshop…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Marc L Abbott

Marc L Abbott is the award-winning author of Hell at the Way Station and Hell at Brooklyn Tea. He resides in Brooklyn, NY. What inspired you to start writing? It goes back to grade school. One of the things I always loved was creative writing. A lot of times our teachers would have us take weekly vocabulary or spelling words and as a homework assignment, write a short story using them. It was the one assignment I always excelled in. I remember in 4th grade we had a teacher who would read us a chapter each week from a Hardy…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with L. Marie Wood

L. Marie Wood is an award-winning psychological horror author and screenwriter. She won the Golden Stake Award for her novel The Promise Keeper. Her screenplays have won Best Horror, Best Afrofuturism/Horror/Sci-Fi, and Best Short Screenplay awards at several film festivals. Wood’s short fiction has been published in groundbreaking works, including the Bram Stoker Award Finalist anthology, Sycorax's Daughters. She is also the founder of the Speculative Fiction Academy, a professor, and horror scholar. What inspired you to start writing? I have always wanted to write. My earliest memories are of me thinking about a story and writing it down. As…

Black Heritage in Horror: Interview with Penelope Flynn

Penelope Flynn creates mixed genre adult-targeted speculative fiction and illustrations featuring elements of dark fiction, horror, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, and erotica and erotic romance. Her works are included in the Dark Universe anthologies, Steamfunk, Scierogenous II, and SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire. She authors the Sci-Fi/Horror/Erotica mash-up series, the Chronicles of Renfields, and co-edits and contributes to the Blerdrotica, Black erotica anthology series. She is a member of the Horror Writer’s Association and has joined the faculty of the Speculative Fiction Academy. She has appeared on panels for World Fantasy Con, WorldCon, MultiverseCon, Blacktasticon and the FAMU Literary…

HAPPY HALLOWEEN DARK POETS

HAPPY HALLOWEEN POETS – 2019 IS A VERY GOOD YEAR FOR DARK POETRY By David E. Cowen, Bram Stoker Nominated Author of Bleeding Saffron If you are thinking of what to read this Halloween, consider unwrapping a richly sweet volume of dark verse. Dark and speculative poetry has been flourishing over the past few years and 2019 is nothing different. If you need a guide to appreciating dark verse take a look at these books currently on the Bram Stoker reading list as a starting point. These are presented in no particular order with no endorsement other than to READ…
Ambiguously Ever After: Ending the Children’s Horror Story

Ambiguously Ever After: Ending the Children’s Horror Story

There’s much handwringing in publishing for children about what is “right” or “appropriate.” There are many controversial subjects and editorial choices, but today we’re talking about endings. Do endings in books for children need to be happy? Or should writers of children’s books portray a realistic version of the world where things don’t always end well? Critics and authors have come down on both sides of the issue. When the 2014 Carnegie Award was given to The Bunker Diary, it set off a flurry of controversy in the UK and prompted an opinion piece for The Guardian in which two…
And the Clock Strikes Three AM: Time and Timing in Terror, the Sequel

And the Clock Strikes Three AM: Time and Timing in Terror, the Sequel

Last month’s terror-time about time-and-terror was firmly grounded in reality—creating timetables that work inside the book (natural character reactions to stimuli and logical story flow) and inside the reader’s mind (pacing appropriate for the specific audience’s needs, and avoiding shattering suspension of disbelief through overuse of techniques that, when used sparingly, should enhance tension). Immersion was the name of the game, with an end goal of a truer feeling story and the horror that relating to it as true-ish brings. But before you go off and wed your story to reality at the altar of believability, there’s another variable. Unless…
And Now for Something Completely Different: Adding Humor to Your Horror

And Now for Something Completely Different: Adding Humor to Your Horror

With the popularity of dark comedies, it should be no surprise that horror and humor can be a compelling mix. However, when it comes to young adult books, few succeed at the balance that keeps a funny horror book from losing its edge or appearing to try too hard. Here are a few humorous elements used in YA horror to enhance the story, characters, or setting without sacrificing their horror-ness. WORD PLAYS AND PUNS Puns and other forms of wordplay can range from clever to groan-inducing, and they are a little of both in Croak by Gina Damico. In the…