The Horror Writers Association has recently released the latest entries in their neat series of horror poetry volumes, Horror Poetry Showcase, Volume III, edited by David Cowen.
The book is a trove of the weird and thrilling, written exclusively by authors well-versed on the dark side. All the contributors are HWA members, including myself, Lucy A. Snyder, Rose Blackthorn, Peter Adam Salomon, G.O. Clark, Chad Hensley, E.F. Schrader, Denise Dumars, Alessandro Manzetti, Kathryn Ptacek, Corrine De Winter, Bruce Boston… about 50 all totalled…just too many more to list! See for yourself. It is available in ebook and paperback editions from amazon.com.
I had the good fortune of being one the featured poets from this volume (there’s a sampler of these online at the HWA website), and was interviewed by one of the jurors of the volume, Stephanie Wytovich, about poetry last month (read it here).
Co-contributor Pete Mesling recently performed his favorites from the book in an excellent recitation for his “Bare Knuckle Podcast” and you can listen to it on Soundcloud (an embedded version appears below).
Although the new one is the only one available in paperback, if you enjoy this sort of thing, collect all three volumes in ebook: Vol 1. | Vol 2. | Vol 3.
These are good books. I’m proud to belong to a genre writer’s organization that supports poetry as much as it does fiction, screenwriting and all the many forms that give shape to the darkness. These are the guys who give the Stoker Award each year and host the new StokerCon conventions. If you’re a scary writer of any kind, consider joining the Horror Writers Association. They’re currently running a membership drive at a discount.