Panel: Black Women Who Write Dark Fiction and Poetry [Video]
This episode of Skeleton Hour is a video panel presented by the Horror Writers Association featuring several contributing authors from the anthology the Sycorax's Daughters, a collection of dark fiction and poetry by Black women writers. Panelists include horror authors Linda D. Addison, L.H. Moore, Tish Jackson, Nicole Givens Kurtz, Rhonda J. Garcia, and L. Marie Wood.
About Sycorax’s Daughters
A powerful, revealing anthology of dark fiction and poetry by Black women writers. The tales of what scares, threatens and shocks them will enlighten and entertain you.
Sycorax’s Daughters’ stories and poems delve into demons and shape shifters from Carole McDonnell’s “How to Speak to the Bogeyman” and Sheree Renée Thomas’ “Tree of the Forest Seven Bells Turns the World Round Midnight” to far future offerings from Kiini Ibura Salaam’s “The Malady of Need”, Valjeanne Jeffers’ steampunk female detective in “Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective II” and others.
These thought-provoking twenty-eight stories and fourteen poems cover creatures imagined— vampires, ghosts, and mermaids, as well as the unexpected price paid by women struggling for freedom and validation in the past—slavery to science-fiction futures with transhumans and alternate realities.
Leave the lights on and join these amazing authors as they share their unique vision of fear.
About Skeleton Hour
Skeleton Hour is a one-hour horror literature webinar series produced by the HWA in collaboration with The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles. This event was also sponsored by UC Riverside Palm Desert's MFA program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts.
About the Panelists (in alphabetical order)
Linda D. Addison
Linda D. Addison is a poet and writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. She’s also the first African-American winner of the Bram Stoker Award, presented by the Horror Writers Association. In fact, she has won the Bram Stoker Award multiple times, including a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Monster Complex Podcast Interview: Poetic Voices of Horror: Award Winning Poet Linda D. Addison
Website: http://www.cith.org/linda
Rhonda J. Garcia
R. J. Joseph is a Texas based writer and professor who must exorcise the demons of her imagination so they don't haunt her being. A life long horror fan and writer of many things, she has recently discovered the joys of writing in the academic arena about two important aspects of of her life: horror and black femininity. R.J. has contributed works to Stoker Award finaling works, Sycorax's Daughters and Uncovering Stranger Things: Essays on 80s Nostaligia, Cynicism and Innocence in the Series.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16486775.R_J_Joseph
Tish Jackson
Tish Jackson wrote “The Love of a Zombie Is Everlasting” for the horror anthology, ”Whispers in the Night (A Dark Dreams Anthology #3),” and the short story “Cheaters” for the horror anthology Sycorax’s Daughters. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from an HBCU in New Orleans. She is working on a short story collection about tales of love gone awry.
Website: https://jacksonpress.net
Nicole Givens Kurtz
Nicole Givens Kurtz’s short stories have appeared in over 40 anthologies of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her novels have been finalists for the EPPIEs, Dream Realm, and Fresh Voices in science fiction awards. Her work has appeared in Bram Stoker Finalist, Sycorax’s Daughters, and other fine publications. She's a member of SFWA.
Website: http://www.nicolegivenskurtz.com
L.H. Moore
American speculative fiction writer and poet LH Moore has been published in multiple anthologies and publications. She is also a historian and accomplished artist. She also writes under the name Lawana Holland-Moore.
Website: http://lhmoorecreative.com
L. Marie Wood
L. Marie Wood is an award-winning author and screenwriter. She is the recipient of the Golden Stake Award for her novel The Promise Keeper, as well as the Harold L. Brown Award for her screenplay Home Party. Her short story, "The Ever After" is part of the Bram Stoker Award Finalist anthology Sycorax's Daughters. Wood was recognized in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Vol. 15 and as one of the 100+ Black Women in Horror Fiction. Wood holds an MFA in Speculative Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University and serves as the Director of Curricula for the Diverse Writers and Artists of Speculative Fiction (DWASF.org). She is also the Director of the horror track for MultiverseCon.
Website: http://www.lmariewood.com
Horror and comedy both make us jump—which is why these elements work together so well together. Looking at books from authors like Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong, John Scalzi, Diana Rowland, and Kevin J. Anderson, plus many authors you should meet.