Nuts & Bolts: Interview With John Harrison, Netflix Series Creator, Author of Residue: Paramentals Rising

Early in his career, writer and director John Harrison picked up techniques about telling a horror story from collaborating with George Romero. He’s spent decades refining those techniques as a screenwriter, director, and novelist – most recently in a new novel that released on the 11th of this month, Residue: Paramentals Rising, based on the Netflix series he created. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, John shares his thoughts about telling a horror story and storytelling in general. He also gives advice about releasing a book, and getting into TV writing.

In Memoriam: Bruce Boston

Bruce Boston: an Appreciation by Mary A. Turzillo Bruce David Boston, emperor of the weird, the esoteric, the absurd.  Once a year at least, my husband Geoffrey Landis and I would sit around the table in his and Marge Simon's house in Ocala, drinking wine and eating cheesecake or dried fruit.  The conversations were esoteric, comical, scandalous, divine.  There were other meetings, although as years went by, Bruce became more retiring and skipped Conference on the Fantastic, where he'd been a Creative, and other conferences where he would have been lionized, and even StokerCon.             There was no one like Bruce.  His work was galactic and…

NUTS & BOLTS: Interview With Writer, Filmmaker, Playwright John Patrick Higgins

As a novelist, short-story writer, filmmaker, playwright, and theater director, John Patrick Higgins has explored the art of story-telling from many different perspectives. In this month’s edition of Nuts & Bolts, he discusses the counterintuitive similarities between horror and humor, and gives advice for authors who’d like to try writing for the stage.

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: Xavier Poe Kane

  Xavier Poe Kane Biography Xavier served 6 years in the Air Force after which he spent 14 in the Air National Guard, retiring in 2020. He currently lives in St. Louis with his wife, Morticia, in a state of mutual weirdness with their dogs Chuck Norris and the three-legged Jabba the Hutt. Thanks to the GI Bill, he has a MFA in Popular Fiction Writing and Publishing from Emerson College. Xavier has published three books: The Hidden Lives of Dick & Mary, Broken Hearts & Other Horrors, and A Mother’s Torment. He also writes short horror for the Fear From The Heartland…

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: Douglass Hoover

  Douglass Hoover Biography Douglass Hoover is the author of The North Woods, The Accursed Huntsman, and The Homestead. He is a Marine Corps infantry combat veteran and holds an MFA from Emerson College. His days are spent writing, hunting, and blacksmithing on his small farm in rural Maine with his wife, Patience, and their three mutts, Bug, Furiosa, and Skootcha Nunchuck Monsterface.   Book Recommendation:  The North Woods Follow their adventures on Instagram @StripedDogForge, @DouglassHooverAuthor, or at www.stripeddogforge.com Over three million acres of dense woodlands make up the North Maine Woods. There are no major towns. No public roads. Nothing…

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,…

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: Jeremy Eads

  Jeremy Eads Biography My name is Jeremy Eads. I was a counterintelligence agent for the United States Army from 2002 through 2007. I mainly specialized in push ups, cutting grass, and turning the rocks over so they didn't get sunburned. I’m an invited contributor to The New Guard IX and made it to the final rounds of The New Guard's 2020 Fiction competition. I was long listed in Madville Publishing’s 2021 Blue Moon Novel Competition. The Lodge is my debut novel and I'm extremely proud of it. Thus far it has over 80 ratings/reviews on Amazon with a 4.6…

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: Zachariah Jones

Zachariah Jones Biography I have been serving in the US Army (National Guard) since 2006. I enlisted at age 17 to be a 12B (Combat Engineer). After several years and earning my college degree from St. John’s University, I commissioned as an Engineer Officer. In 2018, I transitioned to full-time in the Army National Guard where I currently serve as a Battalion Executive Officer. I currently reside in Stillwater, a small river town in eastern Minnesota, with my husband (Josh) and dog (Delta). In my free time I lift weights, run, cook, yardwork/garden, and of course write. Instagram: @the_zachariah_jones /…

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…

Veterans in Horror Spotlight 2023: Chance Fortune

Chance Fortune Biography I'm an active service member and noncommissioned officer in the Army National Guard with twelve years of service and one tour overseas to the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I have a degree in writing and media communication from the University of Wisconsin, followed by five years as a broadcast journalist. I also serve as a co-chair for the Veterans in Horror chapter of The Horror Writers Association and contribute bi-monthly to their newsletter. Currently, I work as a digital marketing and communications coordinator for one of Oregon's largest nonprofits. I've self-published one debut novel and am…

A Point of Pride: Interview with Arley Sorg

Arley Sorg is an associate agent at kt literary and co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine. He is an SFWA Solstice Award Recipient, a Space Cowboy Award Recipient, a two-time World Fantasy Award Finalist, a two-time Locus Award Finalist, and a finalist for two Ignyte Awards. Arley is also a senior editor at Locus, associate editor at both Lightspeed & Nightmare, a columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and an interviewer for Clarkesworld. He is a guest critiquer for the current Odyssey Workshop and the week five instructor for this year's Clarion West Workshop. Arley is a 2014 Odyssey…

Celebrating Our Elders: Interview with Lisa Tuttle

Lisa Tuttle, a Texan by birth, Scottish by inclination and residence, is the author of 13 novels and seven short story collections. Windhaven, written in collaboration with George R.R. Martin, was her first novel and his second and has been almost continuously in print since 1981. She’s also written non-fiction and books for children and worked as a journalist and library assistant. The Curious Affair of the Missing Mummies, the third in a series of 1890s-set, supernaturally tinged mysteries, is forthcoming from Jo Fletcher Books, as well as a new collection, Riding the Nightmare, is out from Valancourt this summer.…

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…