Last May I attended the final World Horror Convention that the Horror Writers Association would be a part of. Next year will be the historic beginning of something new —StokerCon.
The Bram Stoker awards are like the Grammys for the horror genre. Attending this upcoming event next year will be something to remember—like seeing the ball drop in Times Square for the first time.
Mr. Smith and I will be attending StokerCon in Las Vegas and May can’t come quick enough. There are still tickets left for this event. Whether you read, write or watch the genre, this event is worth saving up for. Hitchhike if you have to. StokerCon in Las Vegas baby!
From the HWA Facebook: On May 9, 2015, in her opening speech for the Bram Stoker Awards® Ceremony at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis Hotel, HWA President announced that the Horror Writers Assn. was amicably separating from joint World Horror Conventions with the World Horror Society every other year.
The HWA would instead hold its own annual event; the first one would be hosted in Las Vegas, Nevada, at The Flamingo Hotel—StokerCon2016®. The first Guest of Honor for the event would be . The following year, the event will be held in Long Beach, California with its first Guest of Honor, —StokerCon2017®.
Our current Guests of Honor are
R.L. Stine (Goosebumps series, Fear Street series, Eye Candy)
(multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning poet)
(HBO’s , NBC’s The Black List)
(The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, The Annotated Sandman)
(The Girl Next Door, The Lost, Red, The Woman)
(Best Horror of the Year, The Doll Collection, The Cutting Room)
(As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling, )
(Editor Emeritus of )
(Director of Development, )
Our Toastmaster (Year’s Best New Horror, Zombie Apocalypse!: Washington Deceased)
The organization will continue the tradition of the Bram Stoker Awards banquet and ceremony and continue to further its constant efforts to promote horror, but the main focus of the brand name StokerCon® is education, encompassing many fields in the genre.
Horror University is the brainchild of Co-Chair . StokerCon’s Horror University will be a collection of more than a dozen intensive, hands-on writing Workshops taught by best-selling and award-winning writers along with Presentations, Contests, Scholarships, and so much more yet to be announced.
Our current list of Workshop Special Guests are
– Pitch and Sell
– The Plot Thickens
– Poetic Forms: The Scary World of Structured Poetry
– Build a Better Monster
– Adapting Fiction to Screenplays and Utilizing Screenwriting Structure in Fiction
– Goal Setting for Your Writing Career (or Hobby)
– Poetic Justice: Vice and Virtue in Horror Poetry
– Saying More with Less
Jack Ketchum – Writing from Experience, Writing from the Wound
– Intertwining External Conflict with Internal Conflict
– Of Course You’d Say Something Like That: Characterization Through Dialogue
– The Master Plotting Crash Course
– How to Write Scary
– Read to Scare!: How to Perform Your Work Before a Live Audience
Stephen Jones, , and – Publishing Master Class
Our current list of Special Presentations Include:
Leslie S Klinger (LEGAL ISSUES FOR AUTHORS )
Lisa Morton (BUMP IN THE NIGHT: A HISTORY OF GHOSTS)
(KNOW YOUR WRITES! A GUIDE TO POLICE PROCEDURE FOR WRITERS)
(CLIVE BARKER’S CABAL: THE ROAD TO MIDIAN)
Anne Serling (ROD SERLING: THE BOY, THE MAN, THE WRITER, THE FATHER)
(WRITING HORROR NONFICTION: A GUIDE FOR PRINT AND MULTIMEDIA)
(BOOK TO FILM – HOW TO WRITE MOVIE-READY FICTION)
(RESEARCH SECRETS FOR DARK FICTION)
(IN SEARCH OF THE AFTERLIFE – A PARANORMAL JOURNEY)
(DEMYSTIFYING THE HISTORY BEHIND DRACULA)
Stay tuned, we’re just getting started. For more information and to register for StokerCon2016, visit our Web site: http://stokercon2016.horror.org/.
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