Photo Story: Hexagon XVIII
Hexagon XVIII was held during August 2026 in Crozet VA.
Photographer: Scott H. Andrews …Read More
Features
Dread and Momentum: Christopher Golden
New York Times bestselling storyteller CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN has made his mark in many mediums, as a writer of novels, screenplays, animation, audio dramas, and comics, and as an editor of landmark horror anthologies.
What, for you, are the characteristics of horror, especially in your own work?
My heart has always been with horror stories. I’ve always said the horror people are my people, and I’m so excited to see …Read More
HWA by Lisa Wood
It’s easy to feel like horror has always been here, and to some degree, that’s true. Horror reflects the state of the world as well as the state of interactions, cultural exchanges, and personal mindsets. Likewise, it reflects the ills that linger just under the surface. So, in that regard, horror has been around since the dawn of time, since language and expression began. The Horror Writers Association itself has …Read More
The Common Thread: Lisa Wood
LISA WOOD, writing as L. Marie Wood, is a Bram Stoker, International Impact, and Golden Stake Award-winning psychological horror author. Wood has won over 50 national and international screenplay and film awards. She has been published in groundbreaking works including Sycorax’s Daughters, in industry staples such as the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and in multiple languages. Her papers are archived as part of University of Pittsburgh’s Horror …Read More
Photo Story: KGB Reading August 2026
Suzanne Palmer and Kailee Pedersen read at the KGB Bar in New York NY on August 12, 2026 as part of the Fantastic Fiction at KGB Reading series, hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel.
Photographer: Ellen Datlow …Read More
Black Horror: Why Canonical Voices From Then to Now by Maurice Broaddus & Dr. Chesya Burke
Black Horror: Canonical Voices from Then to Now, edited by Maurice Broaddus & Dr. Chesya Burke is a landmark anthology of Black horror, coming out from Flame Tree Press in November 2026.
A librarian, editor, and community Afrofuturist, MAURICE BROADDUS‘s award-winning work has appeared in places like Lightspeed Magazine, Black Panther: Tales from Wakanda, Jordan Peele’s Out There Screaming, The End of the World As We Know It: New …Read More
Breathing Room: Keith Rosson
What’s the best horror book you would give a new reader of horror?
Kea Wilson’s We Eat Our Own still messes with me, years after I’ve read it, and I recently finished Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires, and some of the scenes in that were so awesomely unsettling they’re still bugging me as well. I think those are two solid examples of what the genre’s capable of.
What’s the …Read More
Paul Tremblay: Rupture Point
PAUL GAETAN TREMBLAY was born June 30, 1971 in Aurora CO and grew up in Beverley MA. He attended Providence College in Rhode Island, graduating in 1993, and in 1995 obtained a masters in mathematics from the University of Vermont (1995). He became a math teacher and junior varsity basketball coach for a private high school after graduation. He lives outside Boston MA with his family.
Tremblay began publishing …Read More
K. Ancrum: Adam, Mine.
K. ANCRUM is an author of speculative contemporary young-adult fiction. She is best known for the Lambda Award-winning Icarus and the National Book Award-nominated The Corruption of Hollis Brown. K. is a Chicago native who is passionate about reflective representation in young adult fiction and exploring the edges of what is possible within her chosen genre. She currently writes most of her work in the lush gardens of the …Read More
Spotlight on: Justine Norton-Kertson
JUSTINE NORTON-KERTSON is an author from Oregon. Their pilot teleplay horror series, Red Flag, was a 2025 Outstanding Screenwriters Competition semi-finalist, and they’re a winner of the 2026 Cai Emmons Short Fiction Contest. Their work has appeared in Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Rulerless, Jupiter Review, Sley House, and the anthologies Solarpunk Creatures and Of Dread, Decay, and Doom. They’ve also edited anthologies including Bioluminescent: A Lunarpunk Anthology, and 2022 …Read More
Tananarive Due: Doorway to the Supernatural
TANANARIVE DUE was born in Tallahassee FL, daughter of civil rights lawyer John D. Due, Jr. and leading civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due. She grew up in Miami and attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism before getting her MA in English from Leeds University, where she studied Nigerian literature. She worked as a journalist for the Miami Herald after college, wrote full-time for 15 years, and then …Read More
Photo Story: Brooklyn Books & Booze
Louis Evans, Teel James Glenn, Alex Shvartsman, and Catherine Stine read at Barrow’s Intense Tasting Room in Industry City, Brooklyn NY on August 18, 2026 as part of the Brooklyn Books & Booze Reading series, hosted by Randee Dawn.
All Hallows Eve: Ellen Datlow
ELLEN DATLOW has been editing SF/F/H short fiction for more than four decades. She currently acquires short stories and novellas for Reactor, Tordotcom, and Nightfire. She’s edited about 100 anthologies, including The Best Horror of the Year annual series, and most recently the Shirley Jackson Award-winning Night and Day. Forthcoming are All Hallows Eve and Lovecraft’s Brood. She’s won multiple awards and was named recipient of the 2007 Karl …Read More
The Perfect Horror: Micaiah Johnson
MICAIAH JOHNSON is a Sunday Times bestselling author. Her novels have been named best of the year by New York Times, best of the decade by NPR, and best of the 21st century by Book Riot.
What’s the perfect horror book you would give your younger self?
It’s such an obvious option, but I would have killed to read The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones when I …Read More
Spotlight on: Charles R. Cooke
CHARLES R. COOKE is an author based in North Shore, Texas, where heat, industry, and proximity to questionable decisions tend to sharpen perspective. He writes character-driven crime fiction that lives between violence and restraint, loyalty and self-preservation, and the small moments people insist do not matter until everything depends on them.
Cooke has spent decades thinking about these characters. Not casually. Deliberately. The kind that follows you through notebooks, …Read More
Stephen King: Idea of Echoes
STEPHEN EDWIN KING was born September 21, 1947 in Portland ME and raised by his mother in Maine, Indiana, and Connecticut. He attended Lisbon Falls High School and then the University of Maine at Orono, where he wrote for the school newspaper and graduated with a bachelor’s in English. He taught high school English at Hampden Academy in Maine while writing in his spare time, and later taught creative …Read More
Monsters are Hot by Cassandra Khaw
CASSANDRA KHAW is the USA Today bestselling and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Library at Hellebore, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, The Salt Grows Heavy, Breakable Things, and coauthor of The Dead Take the A Train with Richard Kadrey. They are an award-winning game writer.
I blame this essay on the trailer for the Wicker, which if you don’t know, is about a middle-aged woman who gets a basketmaker …Read More
Spotlight on Tithi Luadthong AKA Grandfailure
TITHI LUADTHONG, also known as Grandfailure, is a freelance illustrator and concept artist based in Thailand. His work focuses primarily on science fiction and fantasy, including book covers, publishing, board games, and other commercial illustration. His art often emphasizes vast environments, atmosphere, and visual storytelling through landscapes and imagined worlds. He is particularly drawn to scenes where small human figures are placed against enormous environments, creating a strong …Read More
Spotlight on Dmitri Lincoln Mehlhorn & Archipelago of Light
DMITRI LINCOLN MEHLHORN is an attorney, entrepreneur, investor, and Democratic activist. He is known for his work on public policy, political strategy, philanthropy, and efforts to strengthen democratic institutions and has contributed commentary to publications including The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and The New Republic.
Drawing on philosophers such as Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, and Carl Sagan, Dmitri also writes science fiction to stress-test the century ahead: the …Read More
Reading Wish List: Yoon Ha Lee
Yoon Ha Lee: I’ve been meaning to read C.J. Cherryh’s Heavy Time and Hellburners for the very first time. I have copies but kept putting it off because reading Cherryh not only requires all my brain cells, but I want to be able to sink into Alliance-Union and life circumstances precluded it. My introduction to Cherryh was Exile’s Gate in 10th grade off an English teacher’s bookshelf – …Read More
James Islington: All the Way to the End
JAMES ISLINGTON was born in 1981. He is the author of the Licanius Trilogy, beginning with the originally self-published fantasy novel The Shadow of What Was Lost (2014) and continuing with An Echo of Things to Come (2017) and The Light of All That Falls (2019), all collected in a 2026 omnibus. The Will of the Many (2023), first in the Hierarchy series, won an Aurealis Award and saw …Read More
Reviewers’ Seasonal Picks
Black Dingo (Flame Tree 10/26) by Eugen Bacon. Afro irrealism is a wonderfully odd and imaginative genre that eludes expectations and boundaries. I’m looking forward to Eugen Bacon’s curated vision in this collection. I expect it to be weird and unexpected in all the right ways!
–Maya C. James
I’m looking forward to Matt Hill’s new novel, Wrecks (Dead Ink 8/26). Hill’s last novel, …Read More
Spotlight on Chinelo Onwualu
Chinelo Onwualu is a Nigerian writer, editor, and journalist living in Toronto. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She’s the co-host of Griots and Galaxies, a podcast about African Speculative fiction and the people who write it. She’s also co-founder of Omenana, a magazine of African Speculative Fiction. She was chief spokesperson for the African Speculative Fiction Society. And she was a …Read More
Asimov’s Editor Sheila Williams Still in Care
Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams’ journey back from her serious health issues continues slowly apace. As Medicare will no longer cover her rehab, her daughters have launched a GoFundMe to help support their parents’ move into a longer-term care facility. As editor of Asimov’s, Sheila has long understood that editing a science fiction magazine is not simply a matter of finding good stories, but of finding writers, and sometimes, helping them …Read More
Garth Nix: A Wild Idea
GARTH NIX was born July 19, 1963 in Melbourne, Australia and grew up in Canberra. He joined the Army Reserve at 17 and served as a part-time soldier for five years. At 19, he began writing, and sold first story Sam, Cars and the Cuckoo (1983) within the year. He attended the Canberra College of Advanced Education (now the University of Canberra) and received a BA in professional writing …Read More
Fall Books at Del Rey: Publisher Tricia Narwani
Tricia Narwani is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Del Rey Books. She has worked with authors including Pierce Brown, Wesley Chu, Saara El-Arifi, Heather Fawcett, Kevin Hearne, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Josh Malerman, China Miéville, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Ava Reid, Chuck Wendig, Kiersten White, and Heather Walter. She lives in Brooklyn with a very large collection of vinyl records and one very small cat.
What makes a book a Fall Book …Read More
Dark Carnival’s 50th Anniversary
With overflowing warrens of books festooned with decorations and copious spreads of cake and charcuterie, Dark Carnival held its 50th anniversary celebration on August 1, 2026. The event drew genre aficionados both new and old to congratulate its longtime proprietor, Jack Rems, on a half-century of independent business. Since 1976, Dark Carnival, the second-oldest genre bookstore in the US, has accumulated an incomparable selection of science fiction, fantasy, horror, …Read More
Commentary: Cory Doctorow: Technopolitics
It’s one thing to be anti-AI in the sense of believing that AI-generated slop, disinformation and deepfakes are bad; that AI companies that hope to con your boss into firing you and replacing you with AI that can’t do your job are bad; that betting the economy on AI is bad; that betting the human-habitable planet Earth on AI is bad; that running roughshod over local environmental rules and seizing …Read More
Time to Read: Claire North
Claire North: If I’ve got two weeks without a care in the world, then as I luxuriate upon a lounger in a floppy straw hat, listening to the wind through the trees, you bet I’ve got a pile of books to get through. Near the top, I’d love to tick off Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley, ‘cos it’s been on my TBR forever and he’s a stand-out British …Read More
GenCon 2026
Gen Con Writers Symposium was held July 30 – August 2, 2026 at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown as part of the massive Gen Con gaming convention. Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due were special guests, with Justina Ireland and Kwame Mbalia as featured guests. Organized by Maurice Broaddus, along with project manager Olivia Sailor, head of operations Matt Jarchow, head of communications Gini Koch, and others, the event saw approximately …Read More
2026 Summer Workshops
CLARION
The Clarion workshopran from June 28-August 8, 2026 in La Jolla CA. Their 2026 faculty included Sarah Pinsker, Grady Hendrix, Erin Roberts, Abbey Mei Otis, Andy Duncan, Elizabeth Hand, and Jac Jemc (faculty director).
ALPHA WORKSHOP FOR YOUNG WRITERS
The 2026Alpha Workshop for Young Writersran from July 15-26, 2026 at the University of Pittsburgh in Greenburg PA. Their lecturers were Mark Oshiro, Max Gladstone, Ayana Gray, and Scott H. …Read More
RichmondCon
Richmond-Upon-Thames is a charming borough of South West London, famous for its riverside and the mixture of artists and rock stars it routinely attracts. These days, it is familiar to many Americans from the Apple TV show Ted Lasso, who will be delighted to know it is just as charming and quirky as it appears on screen.
It therefore seemed like a good idea to hold a miniconvention there. …Read More
