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Tag archive: Latinx Heritage Month [ 45 ]

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Ashley Dioses

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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 Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcases 2016 and 2020 for her poems “Ghoul Mistress” and “Her Heart that Flames Would Not Devour” respectively.  She was also a nominee for the 2019 Pushcart Prize.  She is an Active member in the HWA and a member of the SFPA.

What inspired you to start writing? 

My dad used to write poetry and stories and he read it to me and my brother when we were little.  He encouraged our imaginations and creativity and it stuck with me.  I was an avid reader of fantasy when I was young, also encouraged by my dad, and that helped spark my creativity.

What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Pedro Iniguez

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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 ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Michael Paul Gonzalez

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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 Los Angeles, a place full of wonders and monsters far stranger than any that live in the imagination.


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I needed an outlet for the ideas rattling in my brain. I’ve always loved different genres and styles of storytelling. As a kid, I would watch a movie and wonder what happened next. I’d imagine the next journey for Jack Burton after Big Trouble in Little China, tell epic stories of GI Joe averting World War III or Jem and the Holograms putting on the concert of a lifetime to seal a demonic portal to hell (whoever is in charge of Jem tie-ins, call me!). 

I started college as a music major, switched to acting, then moved to playwriting. From there, I realized that I enjoyed creating work that caused a reaction in people (theater is a fantastic way to get instant feedback on your work, for better or worse). Collaborative arts like theater and audio drama are also a way to help you hone your writing process. I think it’s imperative to explore as many facets of art as possible to expand your thinking. If you like hip-hop, listen to some country. Like horror? Watch a few Hallmark romcoms. There’s always something to inspire you or moments worth stealing—er, adapting.

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Fear. The creation of fear, the control of fear, the healing power of moving through an inferno and coming out changed but unscathed. Horror lets you experience things that you’ll (hopefully) never see in real life. It also allows you to process trauma and pain in a safe way. On a lighter side, it can be fun as hell! Some of the best laughs and biggest thrills come from horror.

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Fernanda Castro

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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.

Photographer’s credit: Thais Lima

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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 and sharing these stories with the world only came much later, as an adult, when I started to have contact with professionals in the field. Here in Brazil, the publishing market is a very restricted niche, it is not a career option that you can choose at college, for example.

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It wasn’t a conscious choice. I always saw the fantastic element as a perfect metaphor to explain things I was feeling. And, in a way, my work increasingly leaned towards a visceral dark twist, because it was this “ugly” side of me that I wanted to portray and analyze. I really like the idea of literature as a safe space to examine this kind of thing under a microscope, to make the reader say “Yes, that’s what I was feeling and didn’t know how to name it!”

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Lisa M. Bradley

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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.

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In childhood, when my first dog died, I discovered that there were emotions so profound that normal speech couldn’t properly convey them. I turned to writing to capture those emotions. Later on, I realized that a lot of our thoughts and emotions are opaque to one another—or even to ourselves—but writing can bring our and others’ perspectives into sharper focus. It’s so amazing that we’ve worked out this way to see inside each others’ heads.

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I really think it was the life-and-death stakes of it. With a lot of literature, you read “The End”, but you know it’s not really the end; it’s just the end of the story the author decided to tell you. The characters will continue their fictional lives, like my grandma’s soap operas went on forever. But with horror, you’re dealing with matters that might truly spell the end for the characters. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, it’s the murderous narrator’s freedom, maybe life, at stake. In The Exorcist, it’s a little girl’s soul. Cujo is about the survival of the family. In The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, humanity itself may come to an end. Once you’ve (fictionally) experienced those kinds of stakes, everything else seems tepid, pedestrian.

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with John C. Mannone

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=&0=& 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 & chemistry, who just accepted a more challenging assignment to teach mathematics to high schoolers in a Knox County magnet academy in Tennessee.

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I suppose it was always in me. My mother had an artist’s heart. She rendered magnificent color pencil drawings of animals (I remember the frog—it looked so real that it appeared to be 3-dimensional and seemed to be resting on the page!), she wrote poems in her recipe books—she was a fabulous cook (I consider food another form of poetry)—and, though not a musician, she appreciated opera and classical music. I believe I inherited from her a propensity to be an artist, which in my case is a literary artist.

My first recollection of consciously doing creative writing was for an assignment Sister Anita gave me in seventh grade. I wrote a very descriptive essay on clouds. But there must’ve been something else—perhaps superhero comic books, science in general via the Hardy Boys, and science fiction on TV and in books, like Dell’s annual sci-fi digest in the late fifties and sixties—because when I went to high school, I was given a Kuder career interests assessment. It’s not an aptitude test, but one that predicts the profession one would likely aspire to. I remember the five predictions. The top of the list was a medical doctor (I desired to become a pediatric surgeon from 8th grade, all through high school, to the first year and a half of college, when I discovered chemistry… and physics. Holy cow! I found my true love was in those sciences!) The other careers that the Kuder predicted were, in no specific order: nuclear scientist, a teacher, writer, and an electrical engineer. It is remarkable how accurate it was, and I was fortunate to have the necessary aptitude. My advanced degrees are in chemistry and physics, and I have studied electrical engineering and achieved a PhD, short of a dissertation defense. I love to teach, whether it’s science, math, or poetry. I’ve been writing seriously since May 2004. And it started in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror arena.

I didn’t completely answer the question, but I know it was more than genealogy. Part of the reason clearly goes back to November, 1997. That’s when my faith was first challenged, and then affirmed. Having turned toward Christianity, I felt compelled to write much more personal notes on holiday cards, birthday wishes, condolences, etc.; in fact, this might have been the genesis of my poetic writing… it wasn’t Hallmark, but it was from the heart.

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Luisa Colón

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Photo credit: Stephanie Augello

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. ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Javier Loustaunau

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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. 

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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 lean so hard imitating other writers. One thing that helped me as a writer was when I reached out to the Marvel editorial asking for help on becoming a comic book writer and I got a response from Stan Lee (or more likely his assistant) telling me it does not matter what I write but I need to write every single day if I want to improve. So I wrote letters, I wrote reviews, I wrote poems, I translated, I journaled… but I made sure I always wrote every single day. 

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I am a scaredy cat with a morbid sense of curiosity and nothing has better covers than horror books, movies, and comics. I grew up with a lot of pulp mystery and horror magazines and maybe as a child, I thought Alfred Hitchcock wrote all of them until I became aware of authors. Since then, I will usually pick an author, exhaust most of their catalog, and really get a feel for their voice and their quirks. 

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Richard Z. Santos

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Richard Z. Santos’ debut novel, Trust Me, was a finalist for the Writer’s League of Texas Book Awards and was named one of the best debuts of the year by CrimeReads. He’s the editor of the collection A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories. He is the Executive Director of Austin Bat Cave, an organization that provides creative writing workshops to students in under-resourced areas. He is a former Board Member of The National Book Critics Circle and has judged contests for The Kirkus Prize, The NEA, and many more. Recent work can be found in Austin Noir (Akashic Books), Lone Stars Rising (Harper Collins), Texas Monthly, CrimeReads, and more. In a previous career, he taught high school English and Social Studies. 

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A. It feels like something I’ve more or less always done. I remember tapping out sentences on old typewriters as a kid in elementary school, and that went all the way through college, where I’d carry a notebook and add a line or two of some half-formed poem. But, it wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I really committed myself to the hard work of writing and revising. I definitely still remember being totally transported by books, movies, TV shows as a kid. It still happens as an adult, but it’s different—still more weighted by the real world. So, to find a book as an adult where you’re just gone into its pages! That’s the feeling I’m chasing in my writing. Can you kind of forget where you’re at or what’s bothering you, even if only for a few minutes? That’s the good stuff.

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A. Some of my earliest loves were horror artifacts. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark turned into The Twilight Zone and Stephen King novels and then all the horror movie classics of the 80s and 90s. But, I also remember that endorphin rush of being a little, little kid convinced that something was outside my window or on the other side of my door. At one of the houses we lived in, my curtains or blinds didn’t quite cover all the window, and there was a light on the other side of the glass. So, I could see outside, and it was always lit up a little. I remember just KNOWING that something was watching me, and that if I looked then I’d see its weird face pressed against the glass. Of course, I had to look.

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Jonathan Reddoch

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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_ ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Samaire Wynne

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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 inside. ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Luis Paredes

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Luis Paredes photo credit Becky Yee

Luis Paredes is the author of the horror / urban fantasy novella, Out On a Limb. Other work includes the mob-inspired short story, Forgive Us Our Debts in Tangled Web’s latest issue and The Ammuntadore on Tall Tale TV. 

Luis lives in Westchester, New York where you can find him training for marathons or chatting up strangers about a platypus’s life cycle. 

Find Luis on Instagram @luisparedeswrites or on Twitter @Luis_Writes

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A. I’ve joked that my writing career started when I was seven. That’s when I plagiarized Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. I typed out the story on my mom’s electric typewriter and passed it off as my own creation. She loved it (even though she saw me copying it) and encouraged me to write some more. I’ve been typing ever since, earning my first paycheck as a writer when I was a teenager as a freelance journalist for the Virginian-Pilot in Virginia Beach way back in the mid-90s. 

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A. I remember having disturbing visions and vivid nightmares as a young child. Growing up, I learned that when I was a baby in El Salvador, I was exposed to the civil war that racked that country in the 80s. How much of that is family lore, I don’t know, but I wonder if that was the cause of those strange dreams and visions and my affinity for dark themes. 

But what made me love the horror genre were the slasher and sci-fi films of the 80s. I’m lucky that my parents let me watch films movies like Alien, A Nightmare On Elm Street, and Critters. 

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Vincent Tirado

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Photo credit: Kevin Peragine Photography

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. ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Henry Bedwell

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Henry Bedwell is a well-known director, writer, and producer in Mexico, who has dedicated most of his work to Horror and Fantasy movies and novels. 

He started his career as a TV producer back in the early 2000s. Henry was in charge of writing and directing a new version of the Mexican horror classic film Darker than Night. Wrote and directed Forward, a multi-awarded Horror extravaganza made entirely in one shot. Wrote and directed Karem The Possession released in 2021. As a writer, has published and contributed to several novels and anthologies such as Regreso a Aztlan, Ars Mortis, Juegos Dementes, and Juego de Niños. He’s now considered the most important Horror director in Mexico.

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A basic need to tell stories. Since I was a child I’ve always wanted to tell everybody what was going around my head and those particular events that usually happened in my mother’s house. I found that putting my experiences on paper would become the easiest way for me to express what life was like when raised in a very haunted place. In the beginning, it also became the cheapest therapy for a very scary young child who wanted to understand what was happening in my surroundings. After the years writing became more than an obsession and a way to make a living. Writing gives you the chance to get in touch with so many worlds, so many characters and so many adventures that real life would never give you. That’s mainly why I love writing.  

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I’m Mexican, and part of that comes with a genuine understanding of the supernatural and paranormal. We all have a family story that comes from generations. We are very used to living like that and to live with that. Horror, for me, is a way to connect with people. We all have fears and we all have, at least one time in our life, got really scared and petrified by a story or a movie or a tale told by our grandparents. So the horror genre goes far beyond just a story, it grows inside you and becomes that companion who will travel along with you until the day you die. As Latins, we know that, and we manage to live with that. We are good at scaring people, and I guess that’s because we do have horror tattooed in our DNA. For me Horror is culture. 

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Carmen Baca

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Carmen Baca taught high school and college English for thirty-six years before retiring in 2014. As a Chicana, a Norteña native to New Mexico, Carmen Baca keeps her culture’s traditions alive through regionalism to prevent them from dying completely. She is the author of six books and over 70 short publications in a variety of genres from prose to poetry.

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A. When our rural community’s religious brotherhood disbanded in the mid-’80s, the brothers entrusted the relics from the prayer house, including a locked wooden box, into my care. The box revealed answers to suspicions I’d had for most of my life and confirmed that information already published didn’t provide the whole story. I knew I had to write my father’s story from his initiation into the brotherhood to his becoming the leader like his paternal ancestors before him.

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A. After publishing my debut novel (my father’s story), I discovered I love writing quiet horror, folk horror, and magical realism most. I don’t write explicit horror, gore, or slasher-type stories. Rather, I enjoy leaving what happens most often to readers’ imaginations, since our minds supply the worst images. I love the challenge of setting the tone of terror through sensual responses from characters to stimulation, whether internal or external. I can spend hours choosing the right words to build anticipation in the reader of what’s lurking around the corner or leave them wondering whether that noise the character heard before he disappeared was really a monster on the prowl. The best satisfaction for me comes from hearing from readers who tell me my regional cuentos strike a nostalgic chord in them from reading about the monsters of our childhoods.

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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Sandra Becerril

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Considered one of the most important writers of the horror genre in Latin America. Member of the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences, Mexican writer and screenwriter, nominated for the Ariel 2015 and 2020 for Best Adapted Screenplay, Doctor Honoris Causa by the Ibero-American Congress of Education in Peru, member of the HBO scriptwriting team and the Horror Writers Association. ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Introduction to Latinx Horror Month 2023 by Pedro Iniguez

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By Pedro Iniguez

2023 has been a monumental year in Latinx horror. As you may have noticed, recent Stoker Award® wins by Cynthia Pelayo and Gabino Iglesias, the first Latinx authors to do so, have shaken up the horror writing community in a positive and encouraging way. As the highest profile award in the genre, it was a validating win for the entire Latinx writing community. Along with nominations for other exceptional Latinx authors lately, we’ve also seen an upsurge in sales, reviews, and recognition. We’ve also been included in more anthologies, chapbooks, and magazines these last few years. Some of us have even been on major bestsellers lists.  

Though our profiles have been elevated as of late, things weren’t always like this. We’ve been battling in the trenches for years to get our stories past the slush piles and into the hands of agents and publishers, some of which didn’t know what to make of our voices and unique narratives, our dark-skinned characters, our traditional mythologies, or our use of Spanglish in our prose and poetry. They’ve probably even been apprehensive about marketing names which some people might find alien or off-putting.

When I began my writing journey in 2009, I hadn’t been seeing many people of color in the table of contents of the anthologies and magazines I’d been getting published in. Many times, I’d be the only one. It was dismaying and perplexing to me. Were people that looked like me not writing? Were we not good enough? No. Many of us just weren’t being taken seriously or were being brushed off by closed-minded gatekeepers with very particular ideas about what kind of authors and stories they wanted to see in print. 

Sometime around 2010 I even asked my mentor, the late great Dennis Etchison, if I should use a pen name. I’d told him I didn’t think my name was a marketable commodity. Names like mine, I feared, wouldn’t sell books or poems or short stories. Without missing a beat, he told me to use my real name. I should never change my name, he said, to appeal to other people. I’m glad he said that, because my name is part of my identity.    

As Latinx authors, identity is important to us. Who are we? We are diverse. We are indigenous, we are criollos, we are mixed-race, encompassing every color of the spectrum. And Latinx horror writers have a shared history. Borne of tragedy and triumphs, we are walking miracles. We’ve built great monuments, mapped the stars, and made wonderful advances in agriculture and the arts. We’ve also had our hearts ripped out of us, we’ve seen our temples swallowed by the earth, and many of us have even lost our native tongues to conquest and the passage of time. Now, we use our pain and funnel it through our writing, utilizing the horror genre as a vehicle for social commentary and critique as we claim back what was ours. What belongs to us still. 

Things are changing. Our community is strong and united. We uplift one another and share our work. We buy books and leave reviews. We cheer each other on when we don’t feel like going any further. We’ve made great strides in the world of film, poetry, and prose. But this is only the beginning. We don’t take a backseat to anything. 

These featured writers in HWA’s Latinx Heritage in Horror Month are all unique, powerful voices. They all have something to say, nightmares to share. Their words await you, ready to weave their spell. We hope you’ll come along for the ride. 

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 ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Karlo Yeager Rodriguez

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Karlo Yeager Rodriguez is from the enchanted isle of Puerto Rico, but moved to Balitmore, Maryland some years ago. He lives there with his partner and one very odd dog.

His work has appeared in Clowns: the Unlikely Coulrophobia Remix, Galaxy’s Edge #32 and Nature Magazine.

Connect with Karlo via his blog, alineofink.com or through Facebook at facebook.com/unalineanegra

What inspired you to start writing?

Reading. Really – I was an early reader, and was drawn from an early age to old fairy tales (Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen), which in their original forms always managed to contain elements of horror. I remember reading an illustrated version of The Tinderbox and being both frightened but unable to look away from the drawings of the three magical dogs in the story. However, I didn’t start writing fiction for publication until a decade ago. In a way, I feel lucky because with age I have more to say with my fiction.

What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it? ...More...

Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Ángel Isián

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Ángel Isián is the Puerto Rican author of El cuco te va a comer (The Cuco’s going to eat you, 2020), a collection of horror short stories that received an honorable mention in the International Latino Book Awards, 2021. Together with Melvin Rodríguez, he helped edit the first anthology of contemporary horror stories from Puerto Rico, No cierres los ojos (Don’t close your eyes, 2016). He has published horror stories and poetry in various anthologies and magazines. He works as an English teacher and is coeditor of Libros Eikon, a small independent publisher of Puerto Rican horror, fantasy, and sci-fi. ...More...

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