HWA Oregon has been busy this summer with a transition in leadership—we welcomed H. A. Spector as our new HWA Oregon Chair, Sarah Walker as Co-Chair and Advisor, Richard Leis as Secretary, and Amber Finnegan as Social Media Coordinator and Events Co-Coordinator)—monthly meetings, our new book club, member meetups, planning upcoming readings and tabling events, and all things horror and dark literature.
If you would like to join or learn more about HWA Oregon, please contact us at oregonhwa@gmail.com and visit our website. We are “hwaoregon” on Instagram and Bluesky.
Virtual Book Club
We spent the summer reading and discussing HWA’s 2025 Summer Scares Adult Selections (we loved all three.) Up next, we’re reading The Reformatory by Tananarive Due.
HWA Oregon Members at Willamette Writers Conference
The well-attended hybrid 2025 Willamette Writers Conference was held July 30 through August 3, 2025, and it featured several HWA Oregon members leading workshops, hosting events, tabling, and attending.
J.B. Kish with Angela Yuriko Smith presented “So You Want to Write Horror” online.
J.B. Kish and Erik Grove, along with poet and performer Emmett Wheatfall, offered a rousing in-person workshop on “Performing Your Work.” If you ever get a chance to watch Emmett, Erik, and J.B. perform their work, you’re in for a treat.
Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito and Niyyah R. Haqq proudly presented the Young Willamette Writers at the conference. The young writers read their poetry and prose, including dark literature, to a packed room.
Richard Leis led one of several critique tables during the “First Page Critiques” event.
Colleen East will host guest presenters Amber Finnegan and J.B. Kish at Willamette Writers Hillsboro Chapter meetings this fall.
Member News
[Some of this news is repeated from previous Member News editions as a recap.]
Our members have had such exciting publishing and other news this year. Here’s a recap and the latest for many of our members. Congratulations everyone!
Elle Mitchell’s Little Key Press is accepting submissions for the upcoming anthology Clocks.
This follows the successful summer launch of Claw Machine, edited by Elle. Elle, Erik Grove, J.B. Kish, Katherine Quevedo, Sarah Walker, along with 12 other authors have stories in the speculative and dark fiction anthology that asks “When you hear of claw machines, what do you picture?”
Elle with J.B. Kish, Katherine Quevedo, and Sarah Walker participated in readings related to the June 13, 2025 release of the anthology Claw Machine (Little Key Press), including one hosted on YouTube by Vintage Books.
Elle Mitchell (Editor-in-chief and writer), Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito (Editor, mastermind, and writer), J.B. Kish (Editor and writer), and Sarah Walker (Editor and writer) with Demagogue Press published and held a launch party on May 24, 2025 for Art Born Words, featuring 32 etchings by artist Steve Graziani and original stories and poems by 19 authors.
Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito’s Underland Press held an open call for Kozy Krampus in June. Look for the anthology later this year.
Alan Lastufka’s Shortwave Publishing released Annie Neugebauer’s The Extra on September 9, 2025. “Ten people head out on a backpacking trip, but the first night eleven set up camp. Everyone remembers everyone else. Who is the extra?”
Shortwave Publishing also announced the Spring 2027 collection Memories Are Only Valuable If They Can Be Lost by Ai Jiang, with 40 stories and novelettes.
Kelsea Yu’s next horror novella, Demon Song, is now available to request on Netgalley. The launch event for Demon Song has also been announced: it will be held at Always Here Bookstore in Northeast Portland on Wednesday, October 1 at 6:30pm. Kelsea will be in conversation with Caitlin Starling. Event Page, Instagram. Kelsea’s second event for Demon Song will be held at The Book Bin in Salem on Friday, October 10 at 5pm. Kelsea will be in conversation with Wendy N. Wagner. Event Page, Instagram.
Kelsea’s horror novellas Bound Feet (Cemetery Gates Media, 2022) and Demon Song (Titan Books, September 30, 2025) are being produced as audiobooks by Spotify.
And Kelsea’s debut adult horror novel, Stormraven, was announced! From the Publisher’s Marketplace Announcement:
“Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Kelsea Yu’s STORMRAVEN, pitched as a Rebecca-inspired gothic horror rooted in Chinese American history, in which an ambitious artist uncovers the chilling secrets of a haunted mansion on a private Pacific Northwest island with a whitewashed past—secrets that threaten to turn her dream life into a nightmare, to Ed Schlesinger at Gallery, at auction, for publication in 2026, by Jennifer Azantian at Azantian Literary Agency (NA). Rights also to Daniel Carpenter at Titan Books (UK).”
The US cover has also been revealed. Instagram, Bluesky.
Her flash horror piece “Deliquescence” was published in issue 39 of The Deadlands and online.
Her personal essay, “Haunting, Haunted,” was published by khōréō magazine as part of a series celebrating the magazine’s 5th anniversary. It’s about connecting haunted houses and ghost stories with diaspora and displacement, and is available to read free online.
Her microfiction story, “Unspoken,” was published by Crepuscular Magazine and is available to read free online.
Her short story “In Our Skin” was published in the February 2025 issue of Nightmare Magazine.
Lee Mitchell completed The Divine Darkness trilogy with the publication of The Eternal End earlier this year.
Zachariah O’Keeffe’s dark short story collection Tales From Port Astor was published late last year.
Zachariah has finished the outline for his second book and announced his October 2025 mini series of posts about Port Astor.
Katherine Quevedo’s debut fantasy novella Thrice Petrified was published by Of Metal and Magic Publishing in July.
Katherine’s The Inca Weaver’s Tales poetry chapbook is a 2025 Elgin Award finalist.
Remy Nakamura, Katherine Quevedo, and Sarah Walker will have stories in the upcoming anthology The Muddy Goose Guide to the Weird Northwest: A Playable Adventure, from Demagogue Press.
David Barker (“The Flickering,”) Sarah Walker (“Mummy Yellow,”) and Richard Leis (“The Meter Reader”) have new 500-word flash fiction inspired by Robert W. Chambers’s The King in Yellow in the latest edition of Weird Fiction Quarterly.
Sarah (“Twins,”) David (“That Lonesome Cry,”) and Richard (“End the Beguine”) were also published in Weird Fiction Quarterly – Spring 2025: Ghosts.
David Barker has a collection of horror stories coming in the fall from Jackanapes Press. He has a new story in Art Born Words (Demagogue Press.) He is writing several sonnets inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s sonnets.
Kate Boyes’s poem “A Wake of Vultures” was published in issue 57 (“Birds”) of Eye to the Telescope.
Kate’s poem “One Bright Moment (International Research Station, Nili Fossae, Mars)” in the 2024 SFPA Valentines Day Reading is a 2025 Rhysling Award finalist.
Juleigh Howard-Hobson had several new poems published recently, including “What A Shame Spell” in Form in Formless Times and “A Song To Feed The Land” in the Solstice Issue of Eternal Haunted Summer in June.
Five more poems by Juleigh, including “The Reading”, “Talking to the Depressed Ghost Who Haunts my Cellar About Self-Acceptance”, “Rest in Peace”, “A Sugar Spell to Keep Life Sweet”, and “If You Pay In Advance You Can Choose Where you Sit” were published in Alien Buddha Zine #75 in May.
Her poem “When the Ten of Swords Shows Up, No Matter How Big or Toxic an Issue Is, Realize Something” was published in the Teacakes and Tarot anthology from Spell Jar Press in May.
Her 101-word flash piece, “When the Werewolves Stop Being Bikers It’s Time to Look For Them Elsewhere,” was published on May 14, 2025.
J.B. Kish’s short story “Alligator Uniform” was published in issue 4 of The Skull & Laurel.
J.B. also reviewed the French horror film MadS in the March 2025 issue of Nightmare Magazine.
H.A. Spector’s first published short story “My Little Desert Oasis” is out now in Dark Harbor Magazine! He also launched a new website and the Ink to Paper: Stories & Interviews podcast this year, finished drafts of a dark fantasy novel for his MFA program, and graduated.
Larina Warnock’s flash horror piece “While the Cat’s Away” was published by Short Editions in their story dispensers and online.
Larina’s poem “Failed Start” was published in SpecPo Verse Issue 1 on April 30, 2025.
Her poetry collection American Rural: Monologues is available from Amazon.
Her newsletter Larina’s Lit Lounge publishes original poetry while providing analysis and writing tips, prompts, resources, and pictures of her adorable dogs.
She also organizes member writing challenges and provides prompts on the HWA Oregon Discord server.
Tom Witherspoon spoke about writing prompts on his new website in a great discussion on a recent episode of Reclaim Hosting’s “On Writing” series on YouTube. He previously discussed these writing prompts with Blogging Community of Practice in an online event in July.
Richard Leis’s dark poem “The Bird is Not Heralding Itself” was published in Larina’s Lit Lounge, Issue 17.
Richard’s poem “We Carry Our Ghosts to the Stars,” originally published in Star*Line 47.3, is a 2025 Rhysling Award finalist.
He discussed the publication of his horror poem “Phantom Taste of Apricot on My Tongue” in Nightmare Magazine for the first “Publishing Diary” feature in Janelle Drumwright’s Lit Mag Lounge newsletter.