At the end of October, HWA Oregon was preparing for a busy Halloween, with our annual Halloween party, reading, open mic, and costume contest hosted at BOLD Coffee & Books in Portland, Oregon, followed by the second annual Horror Authors Book Party at the Beaverton City Library in Beaverton, Oregon. We were also about to hold our latest virtual scary book discussion. We anticipated having lots of fun while experiencing many chills by Halloween night.
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 read Maeve Fly by CJ Leede in October, and discussed this thrilling, wild, and horror-drenched novel at the end of the month in our virtual book club.
Member News
Colleen East, Andrew Fuller, Erik Grove, Richard Leis, Zachariah O’Keefe, Niyyah Ruscher-Haqq, and H. A. Spector all read at HWA Oregon Halloween Party and Real Haunted Happenings Open Mic at BOLD Coffee and Books in Portland, Oregon on Friday, October 24. It was a packed house with great costumes, prizes, and all the readings. Thank you to FC Boda (Moonstruck Books), Alan Lastufka (Shortwave Publishing), and Elizabeth Mitchell (Little Key Press) for donating prizes!
The next day, Saturday, October 25, Dan Finnegan, Andrew Fuller, Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito, J.B. Kish, Richard Leis, Elizabeth Mitchell, Niyyah Ruscher-Haqq, Katherine Quevedo, and H. A. Spector read and performed, some of them with amazing props and assistants, even more spooky stories at the Horror Authors Book Party at Beaverton City Library in Beaverton, Oregon. We also had a table of books for sale by several of these authors,editors, and publishers, plus Lee Mitchell’s The Divine Darkness trilogy. It was another well-attended event.
The Muddy Goose Guide to the Weird Northwest: A Playable Adventure, from Demagogue Press is available for pre-order, and includes stories by Remy Nakamura, Katherine Quevedo, and Sarah Walker. It is edited by Erik Grove and Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito.
Kozy Krampus from Underland Press and edited by Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito and Mark Teppo is now available, and includes a story by Erik Grove.
Weird Fiction Quarterly’s latest edition about A.I. will include flash fiction from Niyyah Ruscher-Haqq, Richard Leis, and Tom Witherspoon.
Lee Mitchell’s short story “Puttin’ on the Blitz” is published in A Darker Continent: Strange Tales of Europe at War from Belanger Books and edited by John Linwood Grant.
Colleen East showed her art at the OryCon gallery in Portland, Oregon this year!
Zachariah O’Keeffe’s annual October horror mini series about his fictional Port Astor wraps up with part 3 on his blog.
Kate Boyes’s poem “Down in the Valley” is the first place winner in the dwarf category in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association’s (SFPA) annual contest. Congratulations, Kate!
Kate’s poem “The Halloween We All Abhorred” is included in the SFPA’s annual Halloween Reading event.
Katherine Quevedo is the first place winner of the Chapbook Category in the SFPA’s 2025 Elgin Awards, with her book The Inca Weaver’s Tales. Congratulations, Katherine!
Katherine’s poem “Peter Pumpkin Eater’s Most Delectable Carving” is also included in the SFPA’s Halloween Reading 2025 event.
Her poem “I Write a Rite of Pyrite” is published in the HWA’s Poetry Showcase XII.
Juleigh Howard-Hobson was the SFPA Elgin Award Chair this year.
Juleigh’s poem “It’s Not a Game to the Dead” is also published in the HWA’s Poetry Showcase XII.
Another of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart. Congratulations, Juleigh!
Larina Warnock received a new horror story acceptance. We can’t wait to hear where it will be published!
Kelsea Yu had book launches and events in October for her horror novella, Demon Song. It has been an exciting year of publications and news for Kelsea.
Richard Leis’s ghostly poem “Los Fantasmas en Su Boca” will appear in the forthcoming anthology Poisoned Soup for the Macabre, Depraved, and Insane: Nostalgic Terrors from Brigids Gate Press.