The Seers’ Table January 2026

You can see any of The Seers’ Table posts since inception (March 2016) by going to the HWA main page and selecting the menu item “HWA Publications / Blogs / Seers’ Table”.

Geneve Flynn recommends:

Elizabeth S. Devecchi spent her formative years in Rhode Island before setting out to gather degrees and experiences. She writes in a variety of genres and styles, but her true passion is horror.

Elizabeth has stories in a variety of wonderful anthologies, among the most recent: “Web of Truths,” published in Broken Brain Books’ Screams From The Dark Ages: A Medieval Horror Anthology; “Open House,” in Running Wild Press’s Short Story Anthology, Volume 8; “The Special,” in There’s Blood In This Brew: A Books and Brews Anthology; and “Dust,” which appears in Dark And Dreary: A Basement Anthology by Screaming Scorpion Press.

Wicked House Publishing released Elizabeth’s debut horror novel, A Whisper in the Dark, in October 2024 and it has since won gold awards in both the Book Awards and the CIPA EVVY awards. A Twist of the Lens, also published by Wicked House, released on September 18th, 2025.

Elizabeth currently resides in Colorado with her family, which includes an ever-changing menagerie of pets and “guest creatures.”

Recommended Reading: A Twist of the Lens, Wicked House Publishing

Excerpt from A Twist of the Lens: 

They say it takes a village. What they don’t mention is that not all villagers are created equal. I didn’t have helicopter parents, or lawnmower parents, or whatever the current term is for parents who spend their lives solving problems for their kids 24/7. Mine were busy getting shit done, climbing career ladders that stretched up somewhere in the clouds. They didn’t come to every soccer or softball game, but they made it to the ones that mattered. They were lovely, well-rounded, upstanding citizens. I never blamed my personal choices on them nor faulted them for how I turned out. Besides, I’m ok with who I am. Sure, I have regrets, but don’t we all? In any case, my perfectly well-adjusted, law-abiding older brother is enough—in my opinion—to get my parents off the hook.

In fact, Tom is the quintessential family man. He and his wife have the perfect little family: one girl, one boy. They live somewhere between suburbia and out in the country in one of those houses that looks like it should be inhabited by creepy little porcelain dolls with smooth, polished, rosy-cheeked faces, and tiny gingham clothes. A split-rail fence surrounds their entire property, which is accessible via a rickety-looking bridge. A multi-colored step-stone path snakes through their xeriscaped yard, under a wooden garden arbor laced with morning glories, and up to the front door. Not that I’ve ever been there. But, the pictures he sends are gorgeous.

I glance down at my phone, at his cryptic text.

Give me a call. We need to ask a favor.

Follow Elizabeth at: www.elizabethdevecchi.com or on Instagram @themoonthesunandlittleman

Author photo credit: Alessia Devecchi
Kate Maruyama recommends :

Mathilda Zeller is a horror and fantasy writer of Inuit descent. She has inhabited 2 continents, 3 countries, 11 of the United States, and 18 towns. Don’t ask her where she’s from; it’s complicated. She endeavors to make you lose sleep with her stories and currently makes her home in the Midwest with her husband, six children, and two cats.

She is the author of The Bee King and The Revenge of Bridget Cleary

In her interview with the HWA for Indigenous Heritage in Horror Month, she said, “The unfortunate trope is, of course, that indigenous people are a mystical, magical, ancient, and perhaps evil monolith. “Ancient Indian Curse,” “Cursed Indian Burial Grounds,” the shaman, the medicine man–these things tend to relegate indigenous people to the role of monster, otherworldly creature, force of nature or cosmic mystery rather than actual people.

What I love about Never Whistle at Night and other stories coming out is the centering of indigenous perspectives and humanity. We’re not magical, or “extinct” or primitive. We’re here, and human, and our stories and history and heritage are so full of horror that we don’t have to invent monsters. Our real lives and histories have been shaped by them.”

Recommended reading: “Kushtuka” from An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology: Never Whistle At Night

Excerpt from “Kushutka” :

I pulled my coat tighter around me. “There are kushtuka. They appear to us, taking on the appearances of those we love. They try to get us to go with them.”

“To go with them where?”

I pulled my coat even tighter, suddenly feeling cold. “I don’t know.”

Hand was quiet for a blessed minute. Then he let out a guttural snort that blossomed into full blown laughter.” You call that a ghost story, missy? Your ghost stories are as bad as your watermelons up here.”

“We don’t have watermelons up here.”

“Damn straight you don’t. I can tell you some ghost stories from Kansas that’d put hair on your chest. In fact—”

My head slammed into the dashboard as Hank floored the brake, sending us into a fishtail.

When the car finally stopped, he sat, his chest heaving as he stared out at the road ahead of us.

A figure stood before u in the headlights, cloaked in heavy furs. Black hair tumbled down in wild rivulets to her elbows. She pushed back the ruff of her parka. She was me. Or would have been, were it not for the pupils that covered the whole of her eyes, and the hideous, obscenely wide grin that distorted the lower half of her face.
Find Mathilda on Instagram: @mathildazellerauthor

Nicole D. Sconiers recommends:

Craig Laurance Gidney writes both contemporary and genre fiction. He is the author of Sea, Swallow Me & Other Stories (2008), Bereft (2013), Skin Deep Magic: Short Fiction (2014), A Spectral Hue (2019) and The Nectar of Nightmares (2022).

Craig is a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist; winner of a Bronze Moonbeam and a Silver IPPY Award; and a Carl Brandon Parallax Award finalist. He lives in his native Washington, D.C.

The Nectar of Nightmares is a stunning collection of stories woven together by themes of conjuring, otherness and tragic transformations. The new pianist at a Harlem nightclub conjures the supernatural with her music. An aspiring runway model is drawn to a designer of bizarre, living fashions. A lonely florist meets a stranger on a dating app who seems to be his eerie reflection.

Craig Laurance Gidney’s characters often feel unloved and unseen as they navigate hostile societies that shun or fear them, but he transforms their plight into something haunting and empowering. The Nectar of Nightmares is an important work about the Black and gay experience, infused with hope and humor.

Recommended reading: The Nectar of Nightmares (Underland Press)

Excerpt from The Nectar of Nightmares: 

This was what I wanted. What I needed. I wanted to be beautiful, if only for one moment. To be bathed in the spotlight, adored by the crowd. I was unloved. Kicked out of my home at sixteen, not pretty enough or tall enough or pale enough to fit into gay culture. Queens can be vicious. I was called a midget, or Gary Coleman. But if I were outfitted in one of Spyder’s threads, I could transcend my defects. Be elevated and celebrated. That was worth whatever terrible thing that happened to other models, wasn’t it?

We went down and down, the flashlight’s beam bouncing against cinderblock. The flights of stairs seemed to be endless, and it was dizzying. How far underground were we? It defied logic.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness to the point that the bony-sparkly man’s flashlight was unneeded. He did not remove his sunglasses, for some reason.

The smell of the SUV—bergamot and licorice—drifted up. And, at last, I could see the end of this descent.

The sub-sub-sub-basement was a chamber to the right of the column of stairs. I looked up, got Escher vibes at the interlaced metal mesh that I’d just come down. Was this some forgotten bunker or nuclear fallout shelter? The stairs were a tower that tunneled upwards, leaving the surface world forever out of reach. I was tired, just thinking about going back up. The driver gestured me to enter the chamber. I hesitated. The smell was so strong that I could almost see the haze of fumes. It was like a perfume factory on steroids.

I stepped into the chamber. Alone.

Follow Craig on Facebook and Instagram or visit his website craiglaurancegidney.com

Kari J. Wolfe recommends: 

Annie Neugebauer is a novelist, blogger, nationally award-winning poet, and two-time Bram Stoker Award®-nominated short story author.

Her debut short story collection, You Have to Let Them Bleed, is set for publication on February 17, 2026 from Bad Hand Books. Her three shared-universe novellas in The Outsiders Sequence, The Extra, The Other (2026), and The Spare (2027), are all through Shortwave Publishing.

Annie has work appearing in more than a hundred publications, such as Cemetery Dance, Apex, Black Static, and Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volumes 3, 4, and 5. Her works have been honorable mentions for Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year series, the Ladies of Horror Fiction Award, and the Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. She’s also had stories recommended for the Locus Awards and the Shirley Jackson Awards.

Annie is a University of Texas at Austin alumna, active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a former columnist and instructor for the Writer’s Digest award-winning websites LitReactor and Writer Unboxed. She also served as a founding member and president of the Denton Writers’ Critique Group, webmaster for the Poetry Society of Texas, and a speaker at numerous writing events. Her literary agent is Alec Shane at Writers House. Her film agent is Sean Berard at Untitled Entertainment.

Recommended Reading: You Have to Let Them Bleed

Excerpt from The Extra: A Novella

RULE #1: PLAN AHEAD AND PREPARE

The excitement and chatter of nine warm bodies behind and around me makes it difficult to focus on driving, but I have to—and I have to make it look easy. Somehow as a group they all sense that we’re almost to the trailhead, but they don’t realize how dicey this section of road is. It’s actually two lanes, but this time of year the leaves cover the shoulders and outsides so thoroughly that it might as well be a single lane. I straddle the center line, veering around deep potholes. We crawl uphill at fifteen miles an hour through the darkness, slow enough for my headlights to show me the hazards before I get to them. No matter how many years I’ve run this trip, this part always makes me nervous. The trailer full of gear we pull behind us adds an extra challenge. Oh, and it’s pouring rain—so loud it sounds like a single ongoing roar instead of individual drops. Other years the temperature’s been anywhere from highs in the 80’s to lows below freezing. November in Arkansas.

The turn-off appears ahead, so it looks like this won’t be the year I wreck the van. Our tires crunch over the gravel of the small parking lot. No other vehicles are here, which isn’t surprising given the shitty weather. In the passenger seat, Bianca, one of the two student trip leaders assisting me, quietly says, “Smooth work, Matt.”

I give her a quick nod of thanks before turning to face Joey, my other trip leader, and the seven participants. “All right, everybody. You’re going to want all of your rain gear on before you get out.” Everyone digging through their stuff and struggling into it while smashed next to their neighbors is a pain in the ass, but cold and wet is not the way to start a trip. It’s always amazing the things I have to tell people. They seem obvious to me, but some of these people never even camped in their backyard as kids, much less went on a multi-day backpacking trip. It’s never the big stuff that does you in, anyway. It’s the little things. A hot spot someone lets become a blister because they’re too shy to ask for moleskin. An unbalanced pack. Sunburns.

Follow Annie at: https://annieneugebauer.com/ or on Instagram @annieneugebauer