Haunting Halloween Tales of Terror
Join us in the Library's Community Room for a creepy afternoon with the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Horror Writers Association. Authors will share selected readings, hold a group Q & A session and book signings. The tales that they will share will reveal the wide scope and breadth of the horror genre.
No registration required. Best for teen and adult audiences.
THE HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION (HWA) is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature. HWA was formed in the mid 1980’s with the help of many of the field’s greats, including Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and Joe Lansdale. Today, with over 750 members around the globe, it is the oldest and most respected professional organization for the much-loved writers who have brought you the most enjoyable sleepless nights of your life.
One of the HWA’s missions is to encourage public interest in and foster an appreciation of reading in general, and horror and dark fantasy literature for adults, teens, and children in particular. To that end, our members take part in public readings and lectures whenever possible, we publish a newsletter for booksellers and librarians, and we are now providing libraries with links to recommended and new works by our members (see below). Many of these books are by award-winning authors. We are particularly involved in promoting authors who are receiving break-through status with readers, as well as local authors for local communities.
Francesca Maria writes dark fiction surrounded by cats near the Pacific Ocean. She is the award-winning, bestselling author of They Hide: Short Stories to Tell in the Dark from Brigids Gate Press which debuted as an Amazon #1 Best Seller. She is the creator of the Black Cat Chronicles, a true horror comic book series narrated by a mystical black cat. Her short stories and essays can be found in various publications including Crystal Lake Publishing's Shallow Waters, Death’s Garden Revisited and the upcoming To Hell and Back and Under the Stairs anthologies. Francesca is also the co-chair of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Horror Writers Association Chapter. You can find her at francescamaria.com and on social media @writerofweird.
Sumiko Saulson is a Bram Stoker Nominated poet for their 2022 collection The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry (Dooky Zines), and an award-winning author of Afrosurrealist and multicultural sci-fi and horror whose latest novel Happiness and Other Diseases is available on Mocha Memoirs Press. Winner of the HWA Scholarship from Hell (2016) BCC Voice "Reframing the Other" contest (2017), Mixy Award (2017), Afrosurrealist Writer Award (2018), HWA Diversity Grant (2020), HWA Richard Laymon Presidents Award (2021), Ladies of Horror Fiction Readers Choice Award (2021) Sumiko has an AA in English from Berkeley City College, writes a column called "Writing While Black" for a national Black Newspaper, the San Francisco BayView is the host of the SOMA Leather and LGBT Cultural District's "Erotic Storytelling Hour," and teaches courses at the Speculative Fiction Academy.
A.H. Plotts (she/her) writes horror and other dark fiction. She’s a regular columnist for the online writers’ blog www.diymfa.com and an active member of the San Francisco chapter of the Horror Writers Association. You can find A.H. on X @ahplotts, Bluesky @ahplotts.bsky.social or at her own website: www.ahplottsthecoast.com.