Horror doesn't end in October
Horror doesn't end in October
Not on our watch, anyway!
Hey there writers, readers, and lovers of the literary arts!
It’s been a little while since we sent out a newsletter. Sorry about that! We’ve been getting our feet back under us after another successful summer workshop and some intensive plans to improve our organization with some upcoming planning sessions and coaching from Ken Scholes!
We’re very excited to share that progress with you and will share such details when they become more solidified. Presently, we have a couple of really cool opportunities and announcements for you :).
One-Day Workshops are Back!
That’s right. After last year’s success with our October horror workshop and our Poetry workshop earlier this Spring, our board has elected to continue with one-day workshops throughout the year. Thus far, we have two workshops planned for the coming months with the intention of doing three total one-days before next summer’s three-day critique workshop from which you all know us. Read all about what’s coming up below:
#1. Horror Hangover
Where:
Seattle Public Library (Central Location)= 1000 Fourth Ave.
Seattle, WA 98104
When:
November 21st, 7:00 PM PST - 8:30 PM PST
What:
Topic of the night = Horror Beyond Stephen King
Join us for a panel discussion on the wonderful and ever-changing nature of the horror genre with Sadie Hartmann a.k.a Mother Horror, Kendare Blake, Keith Rosson, Wendy N. Wagner, and Gordon B. White.
Don’t get us wrong—we LOVE Stephen King and he remains the GOAT of horror, hands down! King himself would agree that he paved the way for many new voices to enter the field and that other authors deserve shine and recognition, too. Horror is a once again flourishing genre that continues to evolve. The horror genre is growing in popularity because it is becoming more diverse, more representative, and, yes, more weird, and varied. Our panelists will discuss why they love horror, why they write and read horror, and what excites them about the genre now.
This event is totally free but registration is required (just so we can get a head count and some attendance numbers). We hope to see you all there! It’s going to be really fun.
Get the full details RIGHT HERE
#2. Writing for Audio
We can’t ‘officially’ announce anything about this one just yet (in terms of dates and such) but we CAN tell you what it will be and when we PLAN to hold it. Just know that we have some awesome pros locked in for it!
Who you might ask?
Diana M. Pho is a queer Vietnamese-American independent scholar, playwright, and Hugo Award-winning fiction editor. She has over a decade of experience in traditional, Big Five publishing, including Tor Books, Tor.com Publishing, and the Science Fiction Book Club. Presently, she is now Executive Editor at Erewhon Books, acquiring and editing genre-bending and game-changing fiction.
Additionally, she has a double Bachelor’s degree in English and Russian Literature from Mount Holyoke College and a Master’s in Performance Studies from New York University. Diana’s academic work includes critical analysis of the role of race in fashion, performance, and the media, in addition to pieces focusing on fan studies and fan communities.
Books she has edited have won the Thriller Award (A.J. Hartley’s Steeplejack, for Best Young Adult), the Ditmar Award (Thoraiya Dyer’s Crossroads of Canopy, for Best Novel), the American Library Association’s Alex Award (P. Djeli Clark’s The Black God’s Drums), the Nebula Award (P. Djeli Clark’s Ring Shout), and a Kirkus Best Book of the Year Selection (Marie Miranda Cruz’s Everlasting Nora, for Middle Grade). Several of her books earned Junior Library Guild Selections, multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, School Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, and Kirkus, and are finalists for the Nebula Award, Lambda Literary Award, Shirley Jackson Award, and Andre Norton Award for Young Adult. Diana herself is a two-time finalist for the Ignyte Award, a finalist for the Locus Award, and a Hugo Award recipient for Best Editor, Long-Form, one of the most prestigious honors in the field of speculative fiction.
Podcasts she has produced at Realm Media include Justin C. Key’s Spider King, E. A. Copen’s Black Friday starring Fred Armisen (#1 for Fiction on Apple Podcasts), Joel Dane’s Marigold Breach starring Jameela Jamil and Manny Jacinto (#2 for Fiction on Apple Podcasts), and Sam Boush’s Overleaper starring Thora Birch.
For several years, she has traveled the country as a professional convention speaker about the intersection of social justice and fandom. In the steampunk community, she is best-known for running Beyond Victoriana, an award-winning, US-based blog on multicultural steampunk. She has been interviewed for many media outlets about fandom, including CBS’s Inside Edition, MSN.com, BBC America, the Travel Channel, HGTV, and the Science Channel.
And you might have heard of…
Travis Baldree is a NY Times bestselling author of Legends and Lattes and Bookshops and Bonedust. Before he penned his first novel (at least that any of us have read) Baldree had already made a name for himself in the entertainment realm.
He started in video game development where he spent decades developing games such as Torchlight, Rebel Galaxy, and Fate. After the video game industry, Travis turned towards what has always been his greatest passion: stories. While many of us get into the writing industry by writing, Travis actually began in audio.
With over 300 audiobook titles under his belt, Travis is a master of narrating fantasy, sci-fi, drama, romance, horror, and everything in between. Most notably, he was the voice behind all twelve books in Will Wight’s Cradle series. He also narrated his own book Legends and Lattes, which won an Audie award and recently had a guest appearance in Book 6 of Matt Dinniman’s whirlwind success of a Lit RPG series, Dungeon Crawler Carl.
Between these two pros of the writing, editing, podcasting, narrating, and general creation worlds, this workshop is sure to bring myriad value to your writing. The audio sphere is another wonderful market for the modern author to explore and it opens yours work up to TONS of new readers who, otherwise, might have never picked up your book. A good narrator is key to the success of any audiobook, but just as important is that your work is written with audio production in mind, assuming that is part of your publishing goal.
Join us in the early-spring of 2025 to learn all the tricks of the trade regarding Writing for Audio Production.
Our Signature 3-Day Critique Workshop
Don’t forget that you can sign up for next summer’s three-day workshop at any point! The earlier you do so, the better, as the price only goes up throughout the year. We already have several amazing pros committed to returning in July 2025 and we have several more in the works.
We hope to see you all back in Bremerton this summer!
Don’t know about the workshop? You can learn all about it RIGHT HERE!
That’s all for now literary comrades! Thanks for being a part of our community and we look forward to seeing you at one of our amazing workshops. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to email us at this address.
Yours,
The Cascade Writers