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, Volume Thirteen.

Book Recommendation: The Haunted Zone and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

There are two books I’d like to suggest to people to read. The first one is a horror anthology. There will be a short story, and a poem of mine included in the book, with a release in March 2024 from veteran-owned and operated Tundra Swan Press. Only women military veterans penned the stories and poetry in The Haunted Zone. I’m sure I have never seen any anthology, whether horror, fantasy, or science fiction, all written by women military veterans. So, I am proud to be in this book, and the proceeds go to the Veteran Foundation for their women military veterans’ programs.

The next book I would suggest reading is not military-oriented, but whose author inspired me at age 14 to write horror—The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Not only was she a woman who wrote horror in the 50s when men mostly wrote horror fiction, but this book was the only one to scare me with a scene in it during the daytime in a classroom full of eighth graders. Every other horror book could do that during the nighttime when I was alone in bed, reading. I so wanted to grow up to be Shirley Jackson!