HWA Oregon

The Oregon Chapter of the Horror Writers Association

Meetings, News

HWA Oregon Meeting – August 17, 2025

Here are the minutes for the hybrid HWA Oregon meeting held on August 17, 2025.

Business

  1. Welcome and introductions
    1. Welcome to members who attended a chapter meeting for the first time, and thank you to returning members for showing up.
  2. Chapter and HWA Updates
    1. H. A. Spector has been invited to participate in planning for a possible new convention; more details sure to come.
    2. HWA’s website is still down and the newsletter is on hiatus indefinitely.
    3. The StokerCon 2026 hotel room block for Wednesday and Thursday, June 3 and 4, 2026 sold out quickly.
      1. There may still be rooms for Friday through Sunday.
      2. There may be cancellations, so check regularly.
      3. There are other nearby hotels, albeit without a block discount.
    4. Don’t forget to buy your tickets for StokerCon 2026 at the Early Bird price
  3. Upcoming Chapter Events
    1. August book: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca
    2. Next book club meeting: Sunday, August 31 at 6:00 p.m. on Google Meet
    3. Next chapter meeting: Sunday, September 21 at 6:00 p.m.
      1. HWA Oregon is pleased to welcome Holley Cornetto as our guest speaker for September’s virtual meeting. Holley, who is an MFA professor at Southern New Hampshire University and a fellow horror author will be speaking to us about a topic to be announced shortly! So stay tuned for that and I hope you will make plans to join us!
    4. September book: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
    5. Saturday, September 20th, 2025 is Salem Pride in the Park. HWA Oregon will have a table setup to sell member books. We still might have some space, so if you have a book to sell, please let us know. We are also looking for 1-2 more volunteers to come hang out with us and help setup/tear down, sell books and chat up the event attendees that stop by the booth. If interested, please email us at oregonhwa@gmail.com. 
    6. Wednesday October 1st starting at 6:30pm come celebrate the book launch for fellow HWA Oregon member Kelsea Yu’s book “Demon Song” at Always Here Bookstore in Portland! 
    7. Friday October 24th from 6:30 to 8:30pm HWA Oregon will be co-hosting a Halloween Party with Bold Books & Coffee at Bold’s storefront. Come dressed up, as we will be holding a costume contest with prizes, enjoying readings from our members and we will have an open-mic for attendees to share their real-life spooky encounters with the crowd! This event will be open to the public! Speaking of readings, I am looking for 1 more reader to fill a 5 min time slots for reading. If interested, please send an email to oregonhwa@gmail.com. 
    8. Beaverton City Library Halloween Event on October 25 from 1-3 p.m.

Announcements

  1. FZ Boda: For Salem Pride in the Park, can provide a ride to Salem and can help haul books. FZ is also happy to donate Moonstruck published books for book club.
  2. J.B. Kish: Presenting “Project Managing Your Novel: How to Write a Book in Ten Months” at the Southwest Washington Writers Conference in Centralia, WA on September 12, 2025. He will debut a new workbook he has written. J.B. also suggested we organize some events and meetups for StokerCon 2026 since so many HWA Oregon members are planning to attend. 
  3. Zachariah O’Keefe: The next annual mini-series of stories set in the fictional West Coast city of Port Astor will launch on his blog on October 11, 2025. Read past entries here.

Sign Off

Thank you all for attending. If you couldn’t attend movie night, you are more than welcome to watch Heretic and comment on Discord. What did you make of the ending!?