Linda B. Addison, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community
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.”

Tish Jackson recommends:

Sami Ellis is a queer horror writer from the Carolinas with a message.
Her debut novel, Dead Girls Walking, can be considered a slasher novel
but encompasses themes of coming of age, bullying, and problematic
family dynamics. The main character is on a mission to find out if her
serial killer father also killed her mother. In order to find out, she
sneaks into a horror camp set on the farm where her family used to
live. She vows to either find her mother’s body or prove that her dad
didn’t kill her—but she finds out that her family history is more
complicated and murderous than she ever knew.
She also has a short story in the young adult horror anthology All
These Sunken Souls edited by Circe Moskowitz (Amberjack Publishing –
October 2023). “The Teeth Come Out At Night” takes a common horror
theme and gives it a twist that has you rooting for the wrong person.
Sami is also the co-founder of the Write Team Mentorship Program,
which provides a four-month mentorship to writers needing support and
community. On her Web site, she provides an Agent Cheat Sheet, giving
writers a template on how to work with an agent.
Recommended Reading: Dead Girls Walking (Harry N. Abrams, March
2024).

Excerpt:
Temple can’t even scream. She can’t warn Brenda or yell “stop.”
Anyssa slices down, and the blades burrow into Brenda’s neck
before Alyssa wrenches it right back out with a grin.
Brenda only gets a gasp out before a slit of red slides across her
throat, like it’s unzipping. She lets out a deep gurgle, her feet
staggering beneath her.
Everyone stops.
Brenda’s hand reaches forward, clawing, clawing…at nothing. Her
fingers don’t even make it to her neck. She falls to the floor. Thump.
Her body collapses in a heap.
All the girls scream.
“Oh my god!” Mickaeyla yells.
The push and pull grows fervent as Brenda’s corpse lays still
before them.
Anyssa swings her weapon wildly, screaming at no one as they
scurry away. There’s the thump of a girl falling to the ground.
Anyssa’s eyes are dull and glazed, her voice a scratching echo. Not her
voice. It’s like someone else’s voice.
Some other poor girl gets caught in the crossfire. Temple can’t
tell who.
The girls trip over themselves to get away. It’s an immediate
split, some spilling out of JG like the fires of hell are on their
tail. Others disappear, dashing into other rooms and hiding places.
They cry.
They pray.
Temple is frozen.

Find Sami online: Web site: authorsamiellis.com; Twitter:
@themoosef; E-mail: sellis@authorsamiellis.com.

Linda D. Addison recommends:

Morgan Sylvia is a metalhead, an Aquarius, a coffee addict, and a work
in progress. A former obituarist, she is now a full-time freelance
writer. Her poems and short stories have been published in dozens of
places, including Pseudopod, Wicked Witches, Northern Frights, Haunted
House Short Stories, Endless Apocalypse, Under Her Skin, In The Cold,
Cold Ground, and The Final Summons. Her debut novel, Abode, was
recommended by The Library Journal. Her work also includes three poetry
collections, Whispers From The Apocalypse; As The Seas Turn Red, which
was nominated for an Elgin Award twice; and Hemlock And Hellfire: Poems

About Witches And Woodlands. She was one of the writers for the award-
winning audio drama Undertow: Blood Forest and its follow-up Undertow:

The Pulse. Sylvia belongs to several writers’ groups: the HWA, the
SFWA, the New England Horror Writers, Horror Writers of Maine, and
Tuesday Mayhem Society. She also occasionally dabbles in metal
journalism. She lives in Maine with her boyfriend, two cats, two evil
goldfish, the cutest rescue dog ever, an overgrown rose garden, and a
pet banshee. Forthcoming works include The Bloodgold Queen: Book 2 of
The Aris Trilogy; a short story collection; and a graphic novel
collaboration.

Recommended Reading: The Serpents Of Twilight, released October
2024.
A poem from the collection:

The Scaled Ones

They wait here, the angry ones
Haunting this misty wood
Ferocious, the shadows
Fanged and clawed

Scales glitter in the moonlight
Their whisper is sacred
Their whisper is truth

They kiss you with their poisoned truths
They bind you with their poisoned dreams

Split tongues caress you
Turn your face to the moon
—They are coming
Turn your face to the sky
—They are here

Dream again that obliteration
As darkness pushes in closer

Pallid scaled things crawl out of the earth
As if they too, had been called
The cobras knew this was coming
They dance and weave beneath a fading sky
As the cities fall into chaos
You slip into the abyss
Starlight and madness
Rage wrapped in ebony scales
Shadows dance before your madness

(She bound them once, but they escaped)

We gather leaves and moss and we watch the lights on the horizon

We whisper poison shadow against the red moon
Tiamat twists through the night sky
And the scaled ones twist in ecstasy

They are death
They are deliverance

They are the change that will burn this world
The cobras knew this when we were stardust
They knew that we came from the skies
We were all once parts of dying suns
We have always been dust
Molded into flesh and bone
Perhaps we are remembering now
Perhaps we are all
Only waiting
To go home

Follow Sylvia at: https://morgansylvia.net/; Twitter:
@MorganSylvia11; FaceBook: https:/morgansylvia13

Linda D. Addison recommends:

Michele Tracy Berger is the Eric and Jane Nord Family Professor in the
Department of Religious Studies and director of the Baker-Nord Center
for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. She has a
secondary appointment in the Department of English. Her short fiction,
poetry, and creative nonfiction has appeared in 100 Word Story, Apex
Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, The Wild Word, Blood and Bourbon,
FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Midnight and Indigo,
Oracle: Fine Arts Review, Carolina Woman, Ms., and various anthologies.
She is the 2019 winner of the Carl Brandon Kindred Award from the Carl
Brandon Society for her story “Doll Seed” published in FIYAH: Magazine

of Black Speculative Fiction. Much of her work explores psychological
horror, especially through issues of race and gender.
Doll Seed: Stories from Aunt Lute Books is a delicately wrought
collection of speculative stories that spans horror, fantasy, science
fiction, and magical realism, but are always grounded in very real
characters and beautifully rendered distinctive communities from the
past fuel realities of the future.
Recommended Reading: Doll Seed: Stories, released October 2024.
An excerpt from the story “And They Will Rise From the Oceans:”
Isabella could not bear to see Pascal in pain. Her fiancé writhed
at the table as the water spirit occupied his body and disrupted what

had been a peaceful and uneventful séance. He had never summoned a non-
human spirit before, and Isabella didn’t know why he had now. Sweat ran

down her back, the cold rivulets dampening her elegant flapper dress
dotted with intricate blue beading. Moisture pooled at her hairline.
Miles’ and Elliot’s tight brown faces looked as bewildered as she felt.
For once Miles was speechless while they sat at the table. Her lips
trembled watching her beloved’s face contort. Pascal’s eyebrows knotted
together, the veins in his prominent forehead bulged. His mouth
tightened and his skin took on an oily sheen. Why would he open himself
to this spirit? Why would he possibly invite something like this? Ever
since his trip to the wild places of Egypt, Tunis, Arabia, he had come
back unsettled. He spoke of the mysteries of rivers, great water

spirits, and the power of oceans. As water in the crystal glasses on
the table gently bubbled—another manifestation of the spirit’s presence
—she felt a chilling fear toward Pascal’s obsession with water. It will
lead to no good.
…
Pascal’s shuddering jerk brought her attention back. She noticed
his eyes watered.
“What have you come to tell us?” she said, finding her voice at
last.
“What’s your name?” Miles interrupted.
It’s here for a reason, with or without a name. She clamped down
on the irritation that this man brought out in her.
“He who has roamed many lands,” the spirit began, its voice sharp
and clear like a pin prick on her skin, “and now seeks the waters,
knows my name. He wants the secrets of my brothers and sisters.”
Follow Berger at: https://www.micheletracyberger.com/; Facebook:
michele.berger.56.