Welcome to part one of my annual Women in Horror Month Roundtable! As always, I’m super excited to celebrate Women in Horror Month every February, and this year, I’ve got an incredible group of female authors to spotlight.

So let’s get this fabulous roundtable started, shall we?

Welcome to my 2021 Women in Horror Roundtable! I’m so excited to be talking with all of you! Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your work in the horror genre.

JESSICA GUESS: My name is Jessica Guess. I’m the author of Cirque Berserk, the fourth book in the Rewind or Die novella series. I have a blog called Black Girl’s Guide to Horror where I talk about horror movies and books. I’ve been writing horror since around middle school.

GEMMA AMOR: It’s a pleasure to be here! My name is Gemma Amor and I am a horror fiction author, podcaster, voice actor and illustrator from Bristol, in the UK. I’ve been writing full time for around two years, now, and haven’t regretted the decision to go all-in for one second. My written works to date include two short story collections (CRUEL WORKS OF NATURE and THESE WOUNDS WE MAKE), one novel (WHITE PINES), and two novellas (GRIEF IS A FALSE GOD, and the Bram Stoker Award Nominated DEAR LAURA). I am also the co-creator of the comedy-horror audio drama podcast ‘Calling Darkness’, starring Kate Siegel, and regularly feature on the hugely popular NoSleep podcast, a horror fiction anthology show. You can also find me on various other podcasts, a few audiobooks (I recently narrated THE POSSESSION OF NATALIE GLASGOW by Hailey Piper), and my art on a few book covers floating around (including a couple of my own), with more to come.

L. MARIE WOOD: Thank you so much for having me!  My name is L. Marie Wood and I am a psychological horror author.  I’m still getting used to calling myself an award-winning author and screenwriter but I was fortunate enough to win the Golden Stake Award for my second novel, The Promise Keeper, and I’ve had the honor of taking the Best Horror and Best Afrofuturism/Horror/Sci-Fi screenplay awards at a few film festivals, so I guess it applies. My short fiction has been published in several publications including Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire and the Bram Stoker Award Finalist anthology Sycorax’s Daughters.  I am the horror track Director for MultiverseCon, the Director of Curricula and Outreach for the Diverse Writers and Artists of Speculative Fiction (DWASF.org), and every now and then you might find my nonfiction work popping up in places like Vampfest and the upcoming effort Conjuring Worlds: An Afrofuturist Textbook.

ANGELA SLATTER: My work kind of slips between fairy tales, urban fantasy and horror. There’s always a fairy tale motif in what I do, probably because I regard the original fairy/folk tales as our original horror stories. Stepmothers set to dance in red hot iron shoes, parents deserting children in forests, fathers either eating their children or trying to marry them: horror. I’m the author of four novels, two novellas and ten short story collections.

K.P. KULSKI: It is lovely to participate in this year’s roundtable! Thank you for having me. About me, well, like everyone, I’m a soul wrapped in blood and tissue, the torture of this state began for me in Honolulu, Hawaii. My dad was an American sailor and my mom an immigrant from South Korea, so I’m what some mixed Asian folks identity as, a hapa, which comes with some challenges.

With a parent in the military, I moved around a lot as a kid. As an adult I went on to join the military as well. I served for nine years in both the U.S. Navy and Air Force, which gave me a chance to go to school for my two passions: history and writing.

I am also a mom to two amazing kiddos who are the stars of my life. My husband and I spend most of our time trying to keep up with them. End result, we are very tired.

All my work so far has been in the horror genre, although it often straddles the line between horror and dark fantasy, as well as historical fiction. I’m excited that my debut novel, Fairest Flesh, released at the end of last year. There are also various shorts that can be found in publications such as the Not All Monsters anthology and Unnerving Magazine. I was honored to be among the spotlight poets for the HWA Poetry Showcase. My writer passion is using feminism in my horror, it really is the perfect lens to reveal the painful and all too often common experiences of women.

DONYAE COLES: My name is Donyae Coles and I write primarily weird horror. I def decided I was going to be a writer later in life so I often feel like a little baby writer even though I’m old (I’m in my late 30s). My work tends to be gory, graphic, and very strange. I’m also an artist so in general I spend a lot of time creating. My work tends to be focused on race, gender, and income inequality. The real horror is capitalism, white supremacy, and the patriarchy kiddos. But also sometimes the randomness of a universe that doesn’t care about you, I like to mix it up.

LAUREL HIGHTOWER: I’m so pleased to be here, thank you! I’m a litigation paralegal and mom to a three year old, and I love bourbon and ghosts. I’ve published a horror novel, WHISPERS IN THE DARK, and a novella, CROSSROADS, and several short stories in anthologies. Last year I worked with Gemma Amor and Cina Pelayo to edit and curate a charity anthology, WE ARE WOLVES, and I’m very proud of it. I’m also one third of the Ink Heist podcast team – we’re a podcast for readers, and interview horror and crime writers, and we usually have a new episode every week.

HAILEY PIPER: Hi, thank you for having me! I’m Hailey Piper, and I write horror and dark fantasy of all kinds, often with a queer agenda. My books include The Worm and His Kings, The Possession of Natalie Glasgow, and Benny Rose, the Cannibal King. I also have a few dozen short stories in places such as Daily Science Fiction, The Arcanist, Flash Fiction Online, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, anthologies from Grindhouse Press, Cemetery Gates Media, and more. I live with my wife in Maryland, where we spend weekends raising the dead, and you can find me on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays or at www.haileypiper.com.

This is the twelfth year of Women in Horror Month! Do you remember how you first heard about Women in Horror Month, and do you have any special plans for how you’re going to celebrate?

JESSICA GUESS: My novella came out during WIHM last year so I got tagged in some promotional stuff. Before then, I didn’t know there was a Women In Horror month at all. For this year, I’m going to catch up on some books that I missed or didn’t get a chance to finish. I’m reading True Crime by Samantha Kolesnik and I want to finish The Worm and His Kings by Hailey Piper. I’ll probably also watch a bunch of horror movies but I’m always doing that.

GEMMA AMOR: I think I stumbled across it on Instagram a few years back, being very new to the author scene and very green in general about trends and hashtags and key dates in the publishing and writerly calendar. I love the fact that for a good month, so many of my peers and friends get the boost and lift they need to help raise awareness of them and their work, but I do also wish the onus was as heavy in terms of inclusivity and prevalence of women within the horror genre for the rest of the year, too– it’s not like we cease to exist come March 1st. That being said, I now look forward to the dedicated articles and showcases I know will be circulating throughout February– it tends to be an exciting month for me, now.

Having said that, I have no special plans, per se– just to keep on doing the thing, putting the words down on the page, working hard and lifting as many women as I can, as often as I can– in that sense, it’s pretty much business as usual.

L. MARIE WOOD: I sort of found myself in the middle of Women in Horror Month in the early 2000s.  I can’t remember which  broadcast I was on, but I was brought in as part of this celebration – a celebration I had been unaware of minutes before!  I played along, ‘Woohoo!  Go us!’ and reminded myself to remember that February was important moving forward!

February is my birth month as well as Black History month, so I have always considered it pretty special.  This year the re-release of my vampire novel, The Promise Keeper, will be coming out in February and I will be toasting it as part of my month-long celebration of all things me.

ANGELA SLATTER: I honestly cannot recall! It was a few years ago when someone invited me to participate. I will probably celebrate by writing a horror novella with J.S. Breukelaar.

K.P. KULSKI: For myself, I can think of no better way to celebrate than by writing more horror and continuing being a woman. Luckily, I like both very much. Women in Horror Month really didn’t get on my radar until I was working on my MFA. Progress like this really makes my heart palpitate. Progress and coffee, the fuel I run on.

DONYAE COLES: I do! I was writing a newsletter for this website that doesn’t really exist anymore called Cult Movie Mania like a decade ago. I was looking for my next topic and that’s how I discovered it.

I don’t have any special plans. I do try to consume work by women and boost their books and stories but that’s every month to be honest.

LAUREL HIGHTOWER: I first heard about it through the Ladies of Horror Fiction – I hadn’t realized it was a thing, and it was so much fun to find all the wonderful books I’d never known I was missing. I imagine I’ll celebrate by reading and lifting up as many women horror writers as I can! I’m so happy to be part of a community that has these kind of recognitions, as a reminder for us to break out of our normal and seek out female voices in horror.

HAILEY PIPER: I first heard about Women in Horror Month in 2018, and I have a distinct memory of that being my first encounter with horror poetry. I grabbed up The Devil’s Dreamland by Sara Tantlinger and I Am Not Your Final Girl by Claire Holland, both of which began a fiendish appetite for more dark poems. I can’t say I have special plans to celebrate, as I read women’s horror the most all year, but I’ll definitely be hopping into the Ladies of Horror Fiction reading prompts and trying to hit them all.

And that’s it for Part One of our Women in Horror Month Roundtable. Join us next week as we discuss what draws these authors to the horror genre and their favorite horror books from the last year!

Happy reading!