HWA POETRY SHOWCASE VOLUME 6 OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS

Hello and Good Morning, Folks: 

As most of you know, April is #NationalPoetry Month, and the Horror Writers Association (HWA) is opening  submissions for the sixth installment of the HWA Poetry Showcase. The showcase will open on April 1st and run until April 30th, and is open for HWA members only. 

Submit here.

Note: I will be editing this year’s anthology alongside judges Cynthia Pelayo and Christa Carmen. All types of poetry are welcome and encouraged, as well as all types of horror, although poems that elicit themes of child abuse/pedophilia, racism, homophobia, or transphobia will be immediately dismissed.

So let's meet the judges!

Christa Carmen’s work has been featured in Fireside Fiction, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, and Tales to Terrify, among other publications. Her collection, Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, is available now from Unnerving, and won the 2018 Indie Horror Book Award for Best Debut Collection. You can find her online at www.christacarmen.com.

For me, Christa's work provides a fresh, new voice to the genre, and we got to work together a year or so ago on some of the stories in her debut collection, Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked. which I highly recommend reading, especially around Halloween. She's also an essayist who writes with a strong feminist voice, and she is currently one of my favorite final girls working in the genre today. I'm thrilled to be working together again, and I'm looking forward to the insight she'll bring to poetry, storytelling, and aesthetic. 

If you'd like to read more about Christa, you can check out the interview I did with her last year about her debut collection here.

Cynthia (Cina) Pelayo is the author of LOTERIA, SANTA MUERTE, THE MISSING, and POEMS OF MY NIGHT. She is an International Latino Book Award winning author, and an Elgin Award nominee. She is represented by Amy Brewer at Metamorphosis Literary.

Cina and I have known each other for a couple years now, and despite only getting to meet face-to-face once (but over excellent pizza and lots of laughs!), we've remained close, avid supporters of each other and our work. I was lucky enough to pick up her poetry collection Poems of My Night, and work with her in an editorial context  for Raw Dog Screaming Press, and to date, it's one of my favorite poetry collections in the genre. Cina is a fierce writer, a strong woman, and an academic through and through, and her work is both evocative, personal, and surreal, not to mention at times a little witchy, which Christ knows I'm all about. I'm looking forward to the conversations to come, and cheers to another adventure together. We'll both be at StokerCon this May, so expect lots of laughs, poetry, and more kick-ass girl power to come.

If you'd like to read more about Cina, you can check out the interview I did with her about her poetry collection, Poems of My Night here.

Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous anthologies such as Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Fantastic Tales of Terror, Year's Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, as well as many others.

Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Point Park University, and a mentor with Crystal Lake Publishing. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. 

Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, and Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press.

Follow Wytovich at www.stephaniemwytovich.com and on twitter @SWytovich.