Welcome back! So you might have already heard—either on this very blog or on social media—but it bears repeating: I’m absolutely over the moon that my second fiction collection, The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own, is due out on April 14th, 2026 from Raw Dog Screaming Press! It will be released exactly nine years to the day after my first collection, which seems like such lovely symmetry.

Last month, we unveiled the cover art for the collection, so just in case you haven’t seen it yet, here it is once again in all its haunted house glory!

The cover art is by Scott Cole of 13 Visions, and I’m absolutely in awe of it. This is truly such a cool cover, and it captures the spooky spirit of the collection so well.

*screams with horror joy*

The pre-orders for the collection are already up for both the paperback and the ebook. And FYI: if you order the paperback edition directly from my publisher, Raw Dog Screaming Press, it will be autographed by yours truly.

Pre-order THE HAUNTED HOUSES SHE CALLS HER OWN from the publisher

Pre-order THE HAUNTED HOUSES SHE CALLS HER OWN from Amazon

There should also be a pre-order page coming soon from Riverstone Books in Pittsburgh, which is where we’re planning to host the launch party for the book, so I will be sure to share that link far and wide once it’s available.

I included the description of the book in my previous post announcing the collection, so if you’re inclined, please feel free to read that over here. But what I didn’t do in my last post about The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own was discuss the specific tales that will be included. The collection features sixteen stories, three of which are brand-new. In terms of the reprints, that includes my Bram Stoker Award winning tale that re-frames the story of Dracula through the perspective of the ill-fated Lucy, which was the forerunner of course to my novel, Reluctant Immortals.

So without further ado, here are those sixteen aforementioned stories that will appear in the collection!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

“A New Mother’s Guide to Raising an Abomination”
“The Girls from the Horror Movie”
“The Sea Witch of the World’s Fair”
“The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)”
“Melting Point”
“Her Skin a Grim Canvas”
“The Last Video Store on the Left”
“Ides”
“In the Belly of the Wolf”
“Sister Glitter Blood”
“The Mad Monk of the Motor City”
“Best Friends Forever”
“The Eleven Films of Oona Cashford”
“All the Hippies Are Dying”
“Lost in Darkness and Distance”
“The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own”

We’re only five months away from the official release, and while that might sound like a while, it’s always so surprising to me how fast time goes. That means the book will be here before you know it. In the meantime, I’ll be talking more about the collection and the inspirations behind all of the stories. So expect a lot more joyous horror screaming from my direction as we count down the days until my haunted houses are unleashed upon the world!

Happy reading, and happy haunting!

Welcome back for part two of our Howl roundtable! Last week, we met our eleven featured authors and learned about their stories in the anthology. Today, we’ll talk all about the relationship between werewolves and femininity as well as what these amazing writers are working on next.

And with that, let’s take it away!

This is specifically a Women in Horror anthology. For you, what’s the connection between werewolves and the feminine? Do you feel they’re a natural fit?

A.C. WISE: I do think there’s a natural fit between women and werewolves. There’s a lot of mythology connecting both women and werewolves with the moon, there are menstrual cycles and lunar cycles, but I think it goes beyond that as well. Puberty for people of any gender feels like a natural fit for a werewolf story, where your body suddenly changes in ways beyond your control and you almost become a stranger to yourself in some ways. There are links to be made between sexuality and werewolves as well, the idea of animal urges and hunger, or between family and werewolves with the idea of pack behavior. Werewolves are very versatile creatures when it comes to storytelling, as are many so-called monsters when you really think about it. One of my initial ideas for a story for Howl was around a werewolf who no longer transforms after going through menopause, but that story didn’t quite pan out. I might still go back to the idea someday.

AI JIANG: It’s funny because the first thing that came to mind when I thought of werewolves and the feminine is our monthly cycles—the way our emotions and bodies change and how (sometimes, depending on the person) become someone very different, somewhat different, only a little different than we are other days of the month. But I also think of the way the feminine is suppressed, is allowed to flourish, and the overall constraints on the feminine and how it fosters conditions of transformation, of pent up frustration and rage.

LINDY RYAN: For me, werewolves and the feminine are a perfect pairing. So much of being a woman is about cycles, transformation (body horror), and the constant pressure to be tame, polite, palatable. But under the surface, there’s rage, hunger, and wildness. When co-editor Stephanie M. Wytovich and I built this anthology, we did so around the idea of shedding our sheep’s clothing, embracing our monstrosity, and howling at the moon together—and as a pack, alongside some of our favorite women in horror to howl alongside us, to explore what it means to claim the beast inside rather than be shamed—or hunted—for it. For women, the werewolf isn’t just a monster—it’s a metaphor for survival, sisterhood, and liberation. It’s freedom. And that’s something we all need to be reminded of right now.

KAILEY TEDESCO: Sabrina Orah Mark wrote a fantastic essay in her Paris Review column called “The Postmenopausal Fairy Tale” about the presence of the big bad wolf archetype in fairy tales. The essay is so memorable, for me, because it highlights the ways that society scrutinizes, problematizes, and objectifies changing femme bodies. Werewolves seem to exist as an exploration of the somatic self. There also seems to be a recurring element of spectacle in most werewolf narratives where the transformation itself is examined through a specific and often dissective gaze. The very real horrors femme bodies are subjected to and have been subjected to since the beginning of time feels like a perfect analog for this human to animal transformation.

STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH: When I look at the world and everything that’s happening right now, I can’t think of a better monster than the werewolf for women to turn to. Werewolves are creatures that live by cycles, embrace/fight transformation, and who seek power from within, often through exploring and accepting monstrosity and the fractured self; they’re also a metaphor for sexual violence, for hormonal disruption/pregnancy, and absolute, unfiltered rage.

CHRISTA CARMEN: So, again, with the lack of passion for werewolves that I suffered for a while, I only really personally explored their connection to the feminine with this story, “The Clearing.” However, like I mentioned above, as soon as Lindy and Stephanie mentioned this would be a werewolf-themed project, I made the immediate connection to the idea that I’d been working away at in my head for a year and a half, an idea that was very much connected to a very feminine experience.

Of course, I’ve always been aware that the connection between werewolves and the feminine was a strong one, explored by myriad artists, filmmakers, and writers. There’s the obvious connection between women’s menstrual cycles and the phases of the moon, as well as the idea that werewolf narratives serve as allegories for the fears and anxieties surrounding female sexuality. From a more empowering standpoint, werewolves are about reclamation, women embracing their wildness, strength, and independence.

My favorite connection, though, and the one on which I based my story, is the idea of werewolves as a stand-in for female rage. What the hell could be better, as a woman or person who identifies with the feminine, than having the ability to shed one’s skin and tear your enemies apart, to lose oneself in the dark of the forest, to howl at the goddamn moon while you know, in your bones, bones capable of shifting and reforming, that you and only you are in charge of your fate.

As long as you stay away from the silver bullets, that is.

WENDY WAGNER: Werewolf stories are always playing around with the hidden aspects of ourselves, the parts of us we hide away from polite society. I feel like Western society has a lot of opinions about what women are supposed to be like, and many of our earthier needs and urges are considered unfeminine. We often can only be our full selves in the dark.

SHANNON KEARNS: I absolutely believe the werewolf is connected to the feminine.  We transform with the moon cycles, not just the full moon. As I was healing my body after giving birth to my son, my intention was to align my bodily cycles with the moon phases. There is an intimate connection between the moon’s pull and our bodies’ response. The new moon is a time of release and shedding, calling in our shadow and revealing our inner darkness to be held with care and tenderness. The full moon, typically the time of the werewolf’s transformation, is a connection to power and illumination. There is nothing not feminine about this! I am so in love with the fact that this anthology will cast full moonlight on a rewriting of the werewolf archetype.

KATRINA MONROE: Moon cycles and monthly blood aside, the werewolf, to me, represents a barely-controlled rage, a simmering under the surface hidden behind a pretty façade. If that doesn’t speak to the feminine, I don’t know what does.

It feels right to claim the werewolf for the feminine, too, because, (unlike the vampire) the werewolf is harder to sexualize. She is protected by her fur and rage and animalistic instinct. She isn’t polite. She doesn’t assume the best intentions of the men around her. She is no longer prey, but the predator.

DONNA LYNCH: Certainly the bloody and painful transitions women go through make for an incredibly strong connection.

Women have also been conditioned to bottle up extreme feelings like rage lest we be harshly judged and stereotyped far more than men for our “outbursts”. When a woman expresses extreme emotions she is “crazy”. When a man does it it’s often because “he just couldn’t take it anymore”.

One part of my story that I struggled with was the inclusion of a violence-against-women trope, which I know is not only triggering but also overused. However, it was loosely based on something I know well and was my way of concluding a scenario wherein justice is done. And I think it’s an acceptable way, in this case, to cause the character to release her rage. It was going to take something horrific to make that happen, and as a woman, there are few things more horrific than the threat of violation.

JESSICA MCHUGH: I do. I think from the first time I read “Lila the Werewolf” when I was a kid, I’ve identified werewolves as feminine creatures. I saw The Howling pretty young too, so that probably had an influence. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s why I had a distaste for so many of the werewolf movies I grew up with. Not enough female werewolves! When Ginger Snaps came out, I was like, “This is more like it.”

What’s next for you? What projects do you have coming up? And where can we find you online?

A.C. WISE: The next thing coming up from me is my new novel Ballad of the Bone Road, which comes out in January 2026 from Titan Books. Looking backward a bit, I do actually have another werewolfish kind of story titled Wolf Moon, Antler Moon that was published at Reactor earlier this year (https://reactormag.com/wolf-moon-antler-moon-a-c-wise/). As for what I’m working on, I’m drafting a new novel, a maybe-novella, and a handful of short stories that are in various states of completion. You can find me online at www.acwise.net. I’m on BlueSky as @acwise.bsky.social and on Instagram as @a.c.wise.

AI JIANG: The second book in the Natural Engines duology, A River From the Sky, is forthcoming April 2026, and my debut science fantasy novel, An Empire Above Opera, is forthcoming September 2026. I have a few projects on deck that I’m working on at the moment or out on submission, so I excited to see the direction they take and where they land!

LINDY RYAN: My new novel, DOLLFACE, a suburban slasher pitched as Barbie meets Scream releases February 24^th, 2026 from Minotaur Books! Till then, find me on IG @lindyryanwrites, as well as my monthly newsletter, and on Substack.

KAILEY TEDESCO: At the moment, I’m still in promotion mode for MOTHERDEVIL which can be found at White Stag Publishing or Asterism Books. I’m on a fall tour where I will be teaching workshops at several libraries across PA and NJ. I’ll also be reading and selling books at several performances of The Devil and Daisy Dirt across multiple cities in NJ. My newest project (currently untitled) is very slowly in the works, but a three-poem suite from this in-progress collection will be published in F(r)iction‘s fairytale themed issue later this year.

STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH: I just finished a short story collection that I’m about to go on submission with (fingers crossed!), and I have my hands in some other projects that are just starting to get off the ground, but that I’m really excited about. Lots to look forward to!

Readers can follow me at https://www.stephaniemwytovich.com/ and on Twitter, Threads, and Instagram @SWytovich and @thehauntedbookshelf. You can also sign up for my newsletter at https://stephaniemwytovich.substack.com/.

CHRISTA CARMEN: My next novel, How to Fake a Haunting (sort of a ‘Lake Mungo meets Malevolent’ mashup…I know those are both horror film comp titles rather than novels, but they work!), is out Oct. 7^th from Thomas & Mercer. I also have a story, “Comeback Kid,” in The Rack II: More Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks, edited by Tom Deady, and another anthology (or three) that can’t be announced yet.

Online, I’m at Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christaqua/), Instagram (@christaqua), and Bluesky (‪@christaqua.bsky.social), as well as on my website, www.christacarmen.com.

WENDY WAGNER: I am always working on the newest issue of Nightmare Magazine, where we publish a wide variety of short horror fiction and poetry. I’ve got some books out on submission, and I’m scribbling away at another one. My online home is winniewoohoo.com.http://winniewoohoo.com

SHANNON KEARNS: After releasing my poetry collection just this past August, I would like to say I’m giving myself a short break from writing, but I’m not! I’m knee deep in a novel, a sapphic retelling of The Tempest, as well as beginning to compile and dream up new ideas for my next poetry collection. I am also an abstract painter and have two gallery openings this month! You can connect with me at shannonmkearns.com and on Instagram @shannon_mk_writer for more of my journey through writing and art!

KATRINA MONROE: As for writing, I am dabbling! Being between book contracts is scary, but it also is a bit exhilarating, being allowed to poke at several things to see which one bites back. Otherwise, I am working with a fabulous individual on an exciting women-in-horror project we hope to announce soon.

I’ve limited my social media of late, so can be found almost exclusively on Instagram (@katrinamonroeauthor).

JESSICA MCHUGH: I’m currently writing an erotic horror blackout poetry collection / 3 Act Play called “FEAST,” created from the pages of “Wuthering Heights,” so I hope to have that out next year. Also, “Witches in the Warren,” the 3^rd and final novel in my cross-generational horror trilogy, “The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy” will be out from Ghoulish Books in 2026. It’s been wild saying goodbye to characters I’ve been writing since 2007, but I also feel incredibly grateful for the opportunity to bring this saga to a close. You can find me basically everywhere under @thejessmchugh, as well as mchughniverse.com. I look forward to wolfin’ out with you all!

DONNA LYNCH: As mentioned, writing is a laborious and sometimes unpleasant process for me (yet I’m compelled!) so I am SLOWLY working on another poetry collection. I thought I knew what it was about, but I don’t, so I have some things to figure out.

Also, we’re getting into the studio to work on a new album, which is also difficult, but necessary for me to do.

I have a lot of travel coming up with my various bands, so that eats up the year with a quickness. The road is my place of peace.

And that’s our roundtable! Please pick up a copy of Howl, which is out today, and enjoy all the werewolf transformations and bloody rage!

Happy reading, and happy howling! 

 

Welcome back! This week, I’m thrilled to spotlight some of the authors from the forthcoming Howl: An Anthology of Werewolves from Women-in-Horror, edited by Lindy Ryan and Stephanie M. Wytovich. Full disclosure: my story, “Our Howls like Dirges, Our Eyes like the Moon,” is also included in the table of contents. But needless to say, I adore werewolves (after all, my next novel is a sapphic werewolf story), so it’s been such tremendous fun talking with these authors about their thoughts on lycanthropy, femininity, horror, and so much more.

The Howl anthology officially releases next week, so in the meantime, let’s meet our authors and howl at the moon together, shall we?

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your story in Howl.

A.C. WISE: Hello! I’m A.C. Wise. I’m an author and a reviewer. I write both long and short fiction, and I really enjoy genre-hopping and mashing up genres. When it comes to my story in Howl, I wanted to play with the idea of a werewolf story that may or may not be about werewolves at all. Depending on how you read the story, it could be literal, but it could also just be about the monstrousness of the expectations society places on people, especially young women, to behave and present themselves a certain way in order to be acceptable. On the literal interpretation side of things, I wanted to play with social media challenges and trends, and I thought it would be fun if the hot new thing everyone wanted to do was to become undead. From there, what happens if you don’t play by the rules and choose to become a different kind of monstrous creature other than the “socially acceptable” one?

AI JIANG: I am a Chinese Canadian writer born in Changle, Fuzhou, China, currently based in Markham, Ontario. My story in Howl is inspired by the way male expectations as well as societal conformations concerning how a woman “should be” restrict feminine nature and personality. But what I find most fascinating is that upon reflecting on the story after writing it, I realized that many woman in my family as also suppressed by the woman who came before them as they try to implement the same expectations they had to grow up with on their daughters rather than attempting to break free.

LINDY RYAN: Hi! I’m Lindy Ryan, author of Bless Your Heart, Another Fine Mess, and more, and editor of anthologies including  Into the Forest, Mother Knows Best, and Howl! My story “Bone Marrow” is a visceral coming-of-age tale where a girl, brutalized by her mother’s lessons on womanhood, ultimately sheds shame and embraces her feral, wolfish self beneath the moon. It’s a body-horror meditation on menstruation, motherhood, and reclaiming wild female power.

KAILEY TEDESCO: I’m a poet and professor currently living in Allentown, PA. My primary interests are folklore, the occult, horror cinema, pulpy lit, and fashion. My most recent collection, MOTHERDEVIL (White Stag Publishing), explores my experiences with PPD through the lens of Mother Leeds, the NJ Devil’s folkloric mother. This collection is currently (and gratefully) nominated for an Elgin.

I teach a course on witches in literature at Moravian University. Every semester my students and I engage with a thorough history of the Salem Witch Trials. I’ve taught this course over 13 times now, and every single time both the students and I find ourselves struck by the two dogs who were tried and put to death for witchcraft in 1692. The entirety of this history is horrific, but I think the fact that animals, too, were targeted causes us all to really confront the innocence and vulnerability of every one of the victims. It’s a harrowing moment. There are not a lot of known facts about the dogs or why, specifically, they were targeted. My story, “The Devil Has No Dogs” really begins in this space of curiosity and anger. I wanted to explore the story of the two dogs while also examining the hypocrisy and power dynamics during the trials as a whole. In the story, the dogs are imagined women who willingly engage with satanic witchcraft as a means of survival. Through this fiction, the dogs and the women are one, giving them each a power they otherwise would not have.

STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH: Sure thing! My story is titled “13 Ways to Swallow a Full Moon” and it documents a woman’s life journey in an experimental narrative that discusses hunger, queerness, and acceptance. This was one of those times when the title came before the story idea, so it was exciting to help bring this feral little thing to life.

CHRISTA CARMEN: I live in Rhode Island and am the Bram Stoker Award-winning and two-time Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of The Daughters of Block Island, Beneath the Poet’s House, and the forthcoming How to Fake a Haunting, as well as the Indie Horror Book Award-winning Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated “Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell” (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror), and coeditor of the Aurealis Award-nominated We Are Providence and the Australiasian Shadows Award- and Ditmar Award-nominated Monsters in the Mills.

My story in HOWL was actually something I’d had in my head for a while before Lindy and Stephanie invited me to be a part of the anthology. Not long after my first novel came out, I was killing time in a coffee shop before a bookstore event and got the idea for a place women could go to in their minds to escape from sexual abuse, coercion, rape, assault, etc. I jotted down an opening scene in the back of a notebook, but it was too abstract, too unmoored, and, frankly, too, well, toothless. It needed something else to make it work.

When the amazing editors of HOWL reached out to ask about my interest in the anthology, I immediately said yes, and not long after I started brainstorming for my story, I made the connection between this place women could go in their minds and transforming into a werewolf. I won’t say too much more because I don’t want to give the ending away, but suffice it to say that writing for this project was even more rewarding than I anticipated, because it allowed me to marry my passion for werewolves and my love of Lindy and Stephanie’s previous work with this interesting idea I’d been playing around with for more than a year.

WENDY WAGNER: I’m a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest, a place where people are intensely divided about wolves. Farming and ranching is really concentrated on the east side of the Cascade Mountain range, and people working in those industries have fought tooth and nail against the reintroduction and protection of wolves. Here in Oregon, there’s a lot of intense feelings and even violence centered around the issue—wolves have been illegally poisoned, shot, and trapped, and activists have faced really scary harassment.

One other weird thing about living in this area is that deep cultural divide is mirrored by the laws managing wolf management. There’s an actual line running through Oregon state where on one side wolves are an at-risk species whose management is regulated by federal laws that (currently) help protect them. On the other side, wolves are not at-risk, and they’re much less safe.

When I was invited to be a part of Howl, I instantly knew I wanted to write a story about the political reality of wolves in this part of America and what that would mean to a werewolf. But I also started writing this story at the same time federal abortion protections were removed, leaving in place a patchwork of state laws where women faced radically different laws in different places. The situations seemed so painfully similar I had to put them together.

SHANNON KEARNS: It’s such an honor to be a part of Howl! I’m in awe of the other amazing women in horror who are in this anthology. I write horror poetry and recently published my first poetry collection, The Uterus is an Impossible Forest, with Raw Dog Screaming Press, edited by Stephanie M. Wytovich. I’m excited to have two poems in Howl, “Waxing Moon,” and “Mad Woman.” My writing centers around my experience with birth trauma and postpartum depression. Both of these poems were written in response to my experience sitting awake with my son at all hours of the night, warding off anxiety and intrusive thoughts related to my PPD. I felt monstrous in those moments, and I reimagine the mother as a werewolf in these poems.

KATRINA MONROE: Super Moon takes place is the not so distant future, with a fascist regime at the helm of American government. Georgia, our very young main character, bares witness to the violence that comes to her front door when the moon draws closer to the Earth, causing women, in their rage, to change.

As for me, I’m a wife and mother of two almost-adult children, eyes fixed firmly on the door as I sharpen my nails and teeth.

DONNA LYNCH: I’m a writer and musician from Maryland, and while I primarily write horror & dark poetry, I enjoy getting to use my short story muscles now and then. Despite doing it my entire life, writing doesn’t come easily to me, so the process naturally puts me in a dark place—something I didn’t realize until recently. So, it’s a good thing I enjoy horror. Or maybe it’s why I write horror.

“Silver Boots” came to me a bit easier than usual, because I set it in the same universe as my story “Flood Zone” in the Baba Yaga anthology “Into the Forest”. That wasn’t my initial plan, but I quickly found my protagonist living in that world.

JESSICA MCHUGH: Greetings, friendos! Jessica McHugh here! I’m a 3x Bram Stoker Award nominated poet, as well as a novelist, playwright, and visual artist working under the speculative umbrella. But horror is my home. I’m so jazzed I had this opportunity to write a feminine werewolf story for Howl. I had previously written one I absolutely loved for the infamous pizza anthology, “Tales from the Crust,” so I was eager for the challenge to explore the topic again. For Howl, my story, “A Town with Too Many Girls,” centers on Pascal, a lonely teen girl trying to hold it together in a town that despises her. Longing to feel like part of a pack, she suffers bullies and insults and ostracization, until a taxidermied wolf head gives her a glimpse into a different, wilder life.

Have you always been a fan of werewolves? Do you remember the first werewolf story or film you ever came across? Also, do you have a favorite werewolf?

A.C. WISE: I’ve always been a fan of all things monstrous and horror related, werewolves included. I know I encountered werewolf stories before this, but the first one that really sticks out in my mind is Wolf, the 1994 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer. I haven’t tried to re-watch it recently. There’s a good chance it doesn’t stand up and that it’s truly horrible, but high school me adored it and re-watched it several times. As for a favorite werewolf, does Bigby Wolf from the Fables series by Bill Willingham count? He might be more werewolf adjacent, but he’s a fun character, so I’m going to go with that as my answer.

AI JIANG: Werewolves were always interesting creatures to me, but I never really saw them on their own, usually depicted next to vampires like in Twilight, and because the vampires were often the protagonists, the werewolves were always depicted more so as antagonists. As for a favourite werewolf, I’d say Chul-soo from A Werewolf Boy.

LINDY RYAN: What girl doesn’t love werewolves, really? Myself, I’ve always loved the mix of fear and freedom. The first werewolf film I remember seeing was Silver Bullet, based on Stephen King’s novella, Cycle of the Werewolf—still a fave, but not one that serves a female reader. That belongs to Ginger Snaps, which came along and made girlhood feel feral in a way I connected to (and still do).

KAILEY TEDESCO: I am such a huge lover of dogs, so you would think werewolf narratives would have always been a fast favorite for me. In many of the earlier werewolf films I’d seen, though, the animal was usually villainized and then harmed or killed. I’ve always had an especially hard time with that.

When I was an undergrad, my Brit Lit professor introduced me to Angela Carter. It was through her fiction that I really saw the magic in werewolf narratives. The Company of Wolves became an easy favorite of mine. I also love Ginger Snaps and I think the werewolf transformation scene in season one of Hemlock Grove is peak body horror.

I most love werewolf narratives where the wolf is treated with humanity and their anger is validated. 

STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH: While I tend to be Team Vampire, the wolf has been one of my favorite animals since I’ve been young. I’ve always had a pack of dogs around me, I’ve been obsessed with the moon for as long as I can remember, and I have a wolf pendant I keep close on my body (I even wore it when I gave birth to my daughter).

Watching An American Werewolf in London was instrumental in my love for monsters, and I remember first learning about it when I went to Universal Studio’s Horror Make Up Show. They talked about Rick Baker, who won the Academy Award for Best Makeup for David Kessler’s (played by David Naughton) infamous transformation scene. After seeing that, I was hooked, and when I later found out that Baker also worked on The Wolfman (2010) and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” well, the man is just a legend.

Ginger Snaps came out in 2001, and I vividly remember watching it in my parent’s living room. There’s a line where Ginger says to Brigitte: “I get this ache… And I, I thought it was for sex, but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.” I remember smiling and smiling, and just nodding my head like there, someone gets its! From that point on, when I think of female rage, I always think of her. My queen.

CHRISTA CARMEN: I am embarrassed to say that I actually had a weird aversion to werewolves for a while. I think I consumed a few lame films and/or novels (and the Twilight films were all the rage from when I was about 23 until I was about 28, so I think that went a long way toward turning me against them), and I’ve been working to make up for that bias for the last few years.

Matthew Brockmeyer and I cohost a true crime podcast called Murder Coaster, and we also cover a lot of just general mysteries, strange occurrences, and horror-related fare. Two Octobers ago, we did an entire month’s worth of werewolf-related episodes (and Gwendolyn, you were actually a part of our bonus “Horror Writers on Werewolves” episode!), including a fun grab-bag episode in which we went through the history of werewolves in film, and that helped a lot in introducing me to everything I’ve been missing out on in terms of werewolf lore.

With that being said, I think my most recent favorite werewolf I’ve come across is Rory Morris from Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth. I’m a big fan of Rachel’s work (and, of course, she wrote the introduction to HOWL, and it’s unsurprisingly amazing), and I found Rory to be relatable and likeable with how she approached both transformation and her regular ol’ human life.

WENDY WAGNER: I was obsessed with werewolves when I was a kid. I really wanted to be one! I’ve always loved animals, so the idea of being able to shift back and forth between humanity and the world of the wild animal always sounded really amazing.

It’s hard to know what the first werewolf book I ever read was. My hunch is that it might have been Charles L. Grant’s The Dark Cry of the Moon—I read his whole Universe of Horror trilogy, and I was obsessed with them. The covers were fantastic.

There are so many wonderful werewolves to love, but my favorite is probably Karen from Emil Ferris’s amazing My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. That graphic novel operates at the border between magic realism and speculative fiction, so it’s hard to know if Karen is truly a werewolf, but she sees herself as one, so I will accept her truth. Plus, she’s the cutest werewolf I’ve ever seen.

SHANNON KEARNS: I have long been drawn to the symbology of the moon, and the way the female body responds to its cycles. When I was growing up, the werewolves I encountered in stories were often depicted as males. I loved the story of Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter series. Later, reading Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth was a point of inspiration to reimagine the archetypal werewolf as female.

KATRINA MONROE: This might be an unusual answer, but the first character I thought of was the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. Much of my horror consumption is fairy tale or gothic in nature, and while it’s not explicit in the story, Red’s wolf feels very were-like as it crawls beneath the covers in the grandmother’s clothes.

Recently I’ve fallen in love with the character of Enid in Wednesday on Netflix. A late-blooming teen werewolf who just wants to be part of a pack. She’s loyal and fierce, but also unapologetically herself.

DONNA LYNCH: I remember constantly checking out a folklore book from the elementary school library that had woodcut-style illustrations of werewolves dismembering and stealing away with Medieval village children. It was terrible and fascinating.

And in my ‘favorite films of all times’ list is ‘The Company of Wolves’. The whole film is a fever dream masterpiece thanks to Angela Carter’s story and Neil Jordan’s direction, but there are segments that became my entire personality for many years. Specifically, Danielle Dax’s young wolf girl who quickly learns she’s not meant for the world of man, and the witch who takes revenge of a wedding party.

The Red Riding Hood tale has a huge place in my heart because of being raised at times by only my grandmother and my mother—three generations of women who had to learn to fend for themselves in the woods, with many successes some painful failures.

JESSICA MCHUGH: I’ve never been a big werewolf fan, actually, so I don’t think I have a favorite, but I am very glad that werewolf stories exist because there’s so much within the lore to explore and expand upon. I always loved Silver Bullet—that was probably the first one I remember really enjoying, in film and prose—along with the Peter S. Beagle story “Lila the Werewolf,” silly as it is. Plus, the werewolf transformation in the bonkers show Hemlock Grove is insanely cool, and “Teen Wolf” is pretty rad.

Join us next week for the official release of Howl as well as part two of our werewolf roundtable! 

Happy reading, and happy howling! 

So I’ve already announced this news over on social media, but just in case you missed it, I’m so thrilled to say it again: my Great Gatsby-inspired novella, In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts, has sold to Creature Publishing!

*does a ghostly Charleston dance all daylong*

Needless to say, I’m absolutely over the moon about this book! We pitched this one as Carol meets The Haunting of Hill House with, of course, plenty of Gatsby vibes. I came up with this concept over five years ago when I first heard The Great Gatsby would soon be entering the public domain, so it’s been so wonderful to finally see the story come to fruition.

In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts is at once a queer re-imagining as well as a sequel to the original novel, with the story told this time through the perspective of Pamela “Mel” Buchanan, Daisy and Tom’s oft-forgotten daughter. I always love retellings that reclaim a lost character from the original, and Daisy’s overlooked daughter seemed like such a perfect way to explore the legacy of family trauma and how secrets pass down through the generations. All with lots of ghosts haunting Gatsby’s abandoned mansion, of course.

As a side note, it was a little bittersweet this week, because I’ve been working on some edits for the book, and I had to do it while mourning the fabulous Robert Redford who most certainly played my favorite version of Jay Gatsby. If it wasn’t for the pink suit he wore in the 1974 adaptation, I’m not sure I’d be the person I am today. At fourteen years old, that pink suit changed my life, and it also immediately kickstarted my love for all things Gatsby.

So in honor of all the Gatsbys that came before, here’s a bit of a teaser for my own re-imagining of the classic story!

It’s 1955 in New York City, and Mel Buchanan is desperate to forget all about her dysfunctional family. By day, she works at a dry cleaners with her best friend Vera, and the two of them are making plans for the future–a future Mel hopes might include more than just friendship between her and Vera. But when her mother Daisy Buchanan is found dead in an abandoned West Egg mansion, Mel must confront the literal ghosts of the past as she unravels the mystery of what happened to her mother and why there’s an ethereal party hosted night after night that only she seems to be able to see. With the help of her mother’s best friend, Jordan Baker, Mel soon finds herself in over her head, drawn into the web of a phantom figure named Gatsby. As the past and the present collide, Mel must reckon with her family’s sordid history, including lies, illicit affairs, and even murder, before she becomes the latest partygoer to disappear into the night. Because this particular West Egg mansion has always been hungry, and it’s more than eager to devour Mel Buchanan whole.

In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts will be out in Fall 2026 in paperback and ebook! That’s right: we’re just one year away from my Gatsby ghosts making their way into the world! So that means you’ll be hearing a lot more from me about this spectral novella in the coming months!

*Charleston dances off into the sunset*

Happy reading, and happy 100 years of The Great Gatsby!

So I’ve already been screaming from the rooftops about this, but just in case you missed it: earlier this year, I was seriously over the moon to announce my brand-new horror novella, When We Were Brutal, coming in summer 2027 from Shortwave Publishing!

*shrieks merrily for joy*

My last widely released novella was Pretty Marys All in a Row way back in 2017. (I did have a limited-edition novella, In the Rose-Colored House Where They Died, from the truly fabulous Thunderstorm Books, but that was limited to 45 copies and has long been sold out.) So it will be a total of TEN YEARS between Pretty Marys All in a Row and When We Were Brutal, which kind of blows my mind.

So let’s talk about When We Were Brutal, because seriously, this is beyond a doubt one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. It’s an ode to the kind of rage-filled female-centric horror that I love so much. It literally started with the question of “what if Jennifer Check and Carrie White didn’t die at the end of their stories?” From there, it turned into an exploration of toxic friendship, sapphic longing, middle age, and learning how to live with the past in order to move forward.

And since my work sometimes doesn’t end up categorized as such, I’m going to say this loud and clear right now: there’s most definitely queerness in When We Were Brutal. This is absolutely a queer book. A bisexual book. Which honestly, how could it not be bi, considering it was inspired in part by Jennifer’s Body?

At any rate, for those of you who would like to know a little more about the book, here’s a bit of a teaser for everyone!

An homage to Carrie, Jennifer’s Body, Ginger Snaps, and all the monster girls who never got to leave high school, WHEN WE WERE BRUTAL is all about the toxic bonds of best friends, growing up and growing older, and what it means to be the boogeyman lurking in your own town.

Delilah Fisher was always the weird girl, the one who got pushed down in the school hallway, taunted mercilessly by her peers. Meanwhile, her best friend Bonnie Smolak couldn’t be more different: sweet and popular and perfectly normal. But growing up, the two of them were inseparable—that is, until the night four high school boys ended up burned to death at the local roller rink after attacking Delilah. No one could explain how it happened, but the town of Newland Falls still blamed the strange Delilah, which caused a frightened Bonnie to flee town as soon as she could.

Now it’s thirty years later, and Newland Falls is preparing a memorial celebration to commemorate the tragedy. With her job as a television reporter on the line, Bonnie returns home for the first time since graduation to cover the event for her news station. She’s desperate to avoid Delilah, but with long-buried secrets rising from the grave, the two slowly rekindle their bond, all while the simmering rage of the town is ready to boil over, threatening to destroy Delilah and her supernatural powers once and for all.

So at this point, we’re still two years from the release, which might seem like a long while, but the truth is that time will go by way too fast. That’s one of the shocking things about a writing career: releases feel like they won’t be here for forever, and then suddenly the book is out and the promotion cycle is over, and it’s wild how life goes by in a blink. So needless to say, you’ll be hearing more from me about this book over the coming months. I’m looking very forward to spreading the word about this one!

Happy reading!

So in case you missed it, I have some news. Some very big news. My second collection, The Haunted Houses She Calls Her Own, is due out in spring 2026 from Raw Dog Screaming Press.

Yes, a second collection. Yes, it’s finally happening. And yes, I get to work with one of my favorite presses for the very first time.

*screams merrily for joy*

Seriously, I couldn’t be more excited about this. It’s been eight years (!) since my first collection.  EIGHT. YEARS. I can’t believe it’s been that long, but needless to say, having a new collection finally on the way is an absolute dream come true.

And if that wasn’t enough, it’s so thrilling to be working with Raw Dog Screaming Press on Haunted Houses. I’ve admired RDSP’s amazing books for years and years. Both Jennifer Barnes and John Edward Lawson are such rock stars in the horror community, so to be working with Jennifer on this book is such an honor and so very, very cool.

Raw Dog Screaming Press also announced the deal over at their blog, saying “This landmark collection is a legacy book that exemplifies Kiste’s impact on modern literature and in particular the horror genre.” Wow. I mean, those are some incredible words for someone to say about your work. There’s nothing better as an author than having a publisher that genuinely appreciates and supports your writing.

For anyone who wants a sneak peek into the book, I’ll give you a bit of a teaser. The final back cover copy will likely change before we go to print, but here’s the original write-up from when we were sending the collection out on submission.

Two outcast sisters discover a glittery board game that holds the key to their salvation—or their destruction. Hollywood’s most famous ghost is forced to relive her death, night after night. Dracula’s forgotten first victim finally tells her side of the story. A lonely video store owner learns that nostalgia comes at a frightening cost. A cult filmmaker goes missing, and after a screening of her latest film, so do her most devoted fans.

In her second collection, Gwendolyn Kiste explores the vast and strange American landscape and beyond, uncovering the ghost of Rasputin hiding in Detroit, a group of little girls who become monsters before their mothers’ eyes, and a beheaded Marie Antoinette who stumbles right into the middle of Lord Byron’s ghost story contest. Featuring reworkings of some of literature’s most famous stories, including an apocalyptic retelling of Julius Caesar as well as the Bram Stoker Award-winning story, “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary),” these sixteen tales reconfigure every horror possibility, exploring the grief and heartache that lurks in the shadows, waiting to devour us whole.

Over the coming months, I will of course keep everyone updated with news about the cover reveal, pre-orders, and ARCs! So please keep your eyes peeled if you’re so inclined. And as always, thank you for coming with me on this crazy ride of a horror-writing career! Your support is appreciated more than you’ll ever know.

Happy reading!

So last month brought an absolutely wonderful surprise: The Haunting of Velkwood is on the Preliminary Bram Stoker Awards Ballot!

*cue spectral screams of joy*

Seriously, though, I was literally dancing to Fleetwood Mac when the email with the preliminary ballot arrived, and you better believe I was dancing afterward too!

Now it’s important to note that this is NOT a nomination, as this is only the preliminary ballot; voting for the final ballot is just about to start, with the nominees being announced in the coming weeks. But to make it this far is so incredibly humbling and exciting!

The Haunting of Velkwood has been out for almost a year now, and truth be told, it’s been one wild ride of a year. It’s been named a best horror book of the year from Esquire, Library Journal, and Paste Magazine, and it was nominated for the inaugural Haunted Minds Book Club Awards. It’s been featured at Book Riot, CrimeReads, Gizmodo, Ginger Nuts of Horror, Goodreads, and more. It’s also gotten some lovely blurbs and reviews that have seriously warmed my cold horror heart!

“Sure to be one of the most original and riveting horror novels of 2024.” – Booklist (Starred Review)

“Kiste kept her page-turner relatable. She made it fun. And memorable. It hints at lies and secrets… Kiste is a damn good story teller!” – Horror Tree

“One of the most original ghost stories you will ever read. Phenomenal.” – Rachel Harrison, national bestselling author of Cackle and Black Sheep

“Mercurial and wrenching… Kiste’s latest continues to define her as the modern mistress of horror.” – Lindy Ryan, author of Bless Your Heart

“A compelling read that reinvents the haunted house genre.” — A. C. Wise, author of Wendy Darling

Truly, it means so much to me that anyone has read this book and felt a connection to it. It’s the most personal thing I’ve ever written, and I’m still so thrilled that it’s reached readers out there in the world.

And finally, a quick reminder! The iMailer newsletter from HWA just went out last week, which included a special link to download The Haunting of Velkwood, but if you missed that email, then it bears repeating: if you’re an Active or Lifetime member and would like to read The Haunting of Velkwood, please email me at gwendolyn@gwendolynkiste.com, and I would be absolutely thrilled to send you a copy!

Huge congrats to everyone on the preliminary ballot! It’s an absolutely incredible group of authors, and wow, is it so fantastic to be included in such amazing company! I say it every year, but what the heck, it’s always true: what a great year for horror!

Happy reading!